With NATO air support, rebels battling Muammar Qaddafi's forces have attacked in the Gualish area some 30 miles from Tripoli today. Still, Brother Leader has proved to be quite resilient, so don't make any bets. [AFP]

When you hear the names "Chechnya" and "Grozny" you might be reminded of images of death and destruction from the former Soviet republic's brutal wars with Moscow. Fair enough! But it's totally nice now, and is run by a Moscow-backed murderous warlord, Ramzan Kadyrov, who has an untold amount of innocent blood on his hands and likes to play soccer. In fact, Chechnya is so nice that a 9-year-old girl from Siberia who suffered from narcolepsy was sent there for six months and now she's cured. So, what's the secret? According to a statement on Chechnya's official website:

An investigation has confirmed that 44 Atlanta schools and 178 teachers are guilty of a vast cheating conspiracy that dramatically increased state test scores. Former superintendent Beverly Hall (pictured) "punished whistle-blowers, hid or manipulated information and altered documents."

The riots spread from Hamburg to Wuppertal, but the terror reigns over an entire nation. Or a municipality, at least: Lower Saxony could ban Facebook parties following a string of violent incidents involving open party invitations.

18-year-old Tyell Morton was arrested for leaving a blow-up sex doll in the bathroom at Rush Consolidated High School in Indiana. Now he could go to prison for eight years. Sure, it was a stupid joke, but that seems a mite harsh.

In your tropical Tuesday media column: phone hacking was nobody's fault, the NYT is selling the Declaration of Independence, Graydon Carter's expensive diet, a legendary rock critic dies, and The Weather Channel's office will kill you.

The verdict is in. After a tabloid-monopolizing murder trial, Casey Anthony has been found "not guilty" of killing daughter Caylee in 2008, which is odd, because the trial-by-press was pretty unanimous about her guilt.

This past weekend, the New York Post branded the maid who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of rape "A HOOKER," based on a single anonymous source, who said it was so. Now, she is suing them for libel. Makes sense.

Presidential pizza man candidate Herman Cain has been having a mini-crisis amid his staffers — nowhere near the calamitous hilarity that's befallen Newt Gingrich, but bad enough for a couple of staffers in important states to quit their posts. What gives? Is the seat padding aboard the Cain Train a bit rough on the buttocks? For now, let's just blame the gays.

It's always oddly fascinating to read interviews in which Big Tobacco executives are spoken to like ordinary businessmen rather than like the inhuman monsters that they clearly are. Look, the heartless ogre can talk just like a normal human!

To the lengthy list of "nations in which it is terribly dangerous to be a good journalist" you can add "Pakistan," if you haven't already. The NYT reports that Pakistan's spy agency, the ISI, ordered the assassination of a journalist whose reporting detailed how Pakistan's military was being infiltrated by Islamist extremists.

The current field of 2012 GOP presidential candidates is pretty boring. You've got several grouchy old men, a pizza magnate, and a walking anal sex joke. So why not a white supremacist? Sure, the GOP has noted xenophobes like Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, but they lack the panache of an openly racist candidate. But that could soon change, as 1990s throwback David Duke prepares to embark on a tour of 26 states to feel out his chances of putting the "white" back in the White House.

Last month, deposed Tunisian dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was sentenced in absentia to 35 years in prison for being a piece of shit. And yesterday, he got an additional 15 years for illegal possession of drugs and weapons.

19-year-old Maria del Mar Arjona tried to break her husband out of a Mexican prison during a conjugal visit by stuffing him inside a suitcase and rolling him out of jail.

Mexican feds are on a roll. Just weeks after announcing they'd caught El Chango, Jesús Aguilar, a leader the Zetas cartel, was arrested and paraded in front of press. He's suspected in the killing of a U.S. drug agent. [NYT]

Every day, celebrities across the world are followed and photographed by the omnipresent paparazzi, often to entertaining results. From Taylor Momsen in London to Julia Roberts in Los Angeles to Lady Gaga in Taiwan, here are some of the more amusing shots from the past week.

John Luckett asserts that the lawsuits he files all the time, against everyone, are not "frivolous" at all. "I've just had a bad experience of the whole world trying to screw me. I have had a lot of horrible things happen," he tells the Las Vegas Weekly.

Since Tea Partying hostess-with-the-mostest Rep. Michele Bachmann declared her presidential candidacy, Dr. Marcus Bachmann—her gay-barbarian discipline-advocating therapist-husband—has been drawing heightened attention on his own. Some people, including famous-type ones, think maybe Bachmann's a gay barbarian as well.

This year Nathan's Famous annual Fourth of July hot dog eating contest features a separate contest for ladies, because they realized that some hotties enjoy eating gross things just like dudes do, and it's the 21st century, and they're progressive.

Legislatin' and all-purpose politickin' is hard work, which is why liquor can sometimes become a valuable tool in a stressed-out lawmaker's relaxation repertoire. They understand this in Ohio, where people are boozing more than ever—and where the state Capitol building will soon feature a full-scale bar.