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The U.S. military has doubled the number of aircraft standing by in Italy if needed to evacuate Americans from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, Libya. As reported by a defense official, a decision to evacuate as violence in the Libyan capital grows is "minute by minute, hour by hour." Fierce fighting swept across the city Sunday after armed men stormed the country's interim Parliament, resulting in at least four deaths. Sporadic bursts of gunfire and blasts could still be heard on the outskirts of the capital Monday evening. The reason for the violence is because Libya's main political forces have been slowly dividing along Islamist and liberal lines. The deteriorating political process and increased violence is now putting American embassy officials at greater risk.
In Other News • Establishment Republicans, backed by business-friendly outside groups, launched a counter-offensive this year against conservative Senate challengers after two election cycles of hard-right candidates winning GOP primaries but losing in November. In other words, Republicans need to flip six seats this year to win back the majority and don't want the same scenario to play out again. So the tea party (the extreme conservative wing of the Republican party) is in a worse position than in 2010 and 2012, when it knocked off several establishment-backed candidates. • Michael Jace, who played a Los Angeles cop in TV's "The Shield," has been charged in the fatal shooting of his wife. April Jace, 40, was found shot to death in her south Los Angeles home by police called there to investigate a shooting. Investigators detained Jace, 51, at the couple's Hyde Park area home Monday night and booked the actor on a homicide charge early Tuesday. • The Thai army declared martial law throughout the country Tuesday in a surprise move that an aide to the embattled Prime Minister said the government didn't know about beforehand. The army says it wants to bring peace to a country corrupted with division that has spilled into the streets and resulting in deaths, injuries and political instability. Other view it as a coup d'etat. The people of Thailand are all too familiar with coup d'etats. There have been at least 18 actual and attempted military takeovers since Thailand became a constitutional monarchy in 1932. • London's The Shard has taken top honors in the annual Skyscraper Awar. The awards, announced annually since 2000, are chosen by an "international jury of architecture experts" who select nominated buildings completed in the last year and are at least 100 meters tall, according to "aesthetic and functional design criteria." No North American buildings made the top 10 this year, while five European buildings were celebrated, the most since 2008.
