• Here’s some amateur video, parsed by Euronews, of last night’s conflict at a Omari mosque in the Syrian city of Daraa. Despite bans on protests in the country for almost 50 years, some have cropped up in the southern Syrian city in the past week. A number of protesters were inside attempting to protect themselves from Syrian security forces threatening to attack the mosque. “Brother don’t shoot,” one protester shouted inside of the mosque. “This country is big enough for me and you.” Apparently, Syria disagrees. And this is a problem.  source

• 2 months the length of time Egypt’s stock market went without a single session — something about a revolution
• -9% the stock market’s decline on its first day back, caused in part by foreign investors freaking out source

• scary The FDA just limited the import of food from the area of Japan near the Fukushima nuclear disaster, days after officials discovered radiation in some foods, including milk and spinach. A lot of people have been freaking out over this.
• not scary However, this almost assuredly isn’t a big deal — only four percent of our imported foods come from Japan, and the ones we usually eat from the country are things like fish, which weren’t significantly affected by Fukushima. source

• 130 immigrants arrested in No. VA in the past three days source

• Elizabeth Taylor, Big Hollywood style icon. Liz Taylor is one of those iconic figures who seemed, for a period, larger than life. Her death at 79 (she died of congestive heart failure on Wednesday) ends the life of a woman who defined a certain era of big-screen cinema — both on-screen and off. Especially off. In a lot of ways, she set the template for the kind of Hollywood you see today — one where divorces are a common fact of life and everyone keeps their last name. But as a figure to be admired, you don’t get any better than Taylor. Here are some quick bits about her life.

Three key years in the actress’ life

• 1944 As a child, Taylor starred in “National Velvet,” a story about a child who fell in love with her horse. (She had to … the other option was Mickey Rooney.) It was her first major hit.
• 1960 Taylor, by now a major star, was making $1 million a picture with her starring role in “Cleopatra,” a movie beset by delays and, after inflation, a budget larger than “Avatar.”
• 1964 Taylor married Richard Burton, and the already-inseparable couple started working together much more — including in such classics as “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.”

Other key facts and figures on Taylor’s life

• 8 marriages in her day — she married Richard Burton TWICE

• two number of Academy Awards she won for her acting; she also won a humanitarian award in 1992
• three number of other nominations she earned … though she was shut out for some of her early films

• $325M amount invested in AIDS research by amFAR, started by Taylor and others in 1985
• 69.42 number of carats in the Taylor-Burton Diamond, a frickin’ huge diamond Taylor owned
• first Taylor’s voice was famously used for Maggie Simpson’s first words source

• Friday broke our hearts; yesterday opened our eyes. We saw people of our generation killed with head shots and chest wounds. We don’t want that pain again.
• DC-based Yemeni spokesperson Mohammed al-Basha • Describing the pain he felt over the violence in his country, pushed forth by president Ali Abdullah Saleh. The bloodshed in particular pushed many in the government over the edge. While many other government figures resigned yesterday, al-Basha hasn’t. Rather, he says he seems himself as a “neutral” civil servant. Saleh, meanwhile, threatened civil war at the same time he was offering an olive branch to the people he was threatening civil war against. Follow that? Neither did we. Clarity is not Mr. Saleh’s strong suit. Nor is human rights, apparently. source

• 713k Detroit’s current population, according to the census figures released today
• 951k Detroit’s population back in 2000 — all told, that’s about a 25 percent drop in just a decade
• half of all counties in Michigan have shrunk — it’s the only state to lose population source

• » Dave Bing, not so happy: The mayor of Detroit (who played a mean game of hoops in his day and created an unintentional Robocop campaign) says that the Census totally under-counted his villa. He says the town has 750,000 people at least. While there were areas with big jumps throughout Michigan, they were mostly in suburbs (Lansing = where it’s at). Da Yoopers had some pretty huge declines of their own — one county lost 13 percent of its population.

• unsurprising The GOP’s big win in the midterm elections was, most would agree, secured by economic strife. Despite this, they’ve has spent a lot of effort pushing hard on left/right wedge issues, abortion being one.
• surprising! GOP Senator Scott Brown, who’s garnered a reputation lately as an independent mind, said the party’s plan to cut funding to Planned Parenthood “goes too far.” Scott Brown, walking the walk! source

• I heard in Arabic, ‘shoot them,’ and we all thought it was over.
• New York Times foreign correspondent Anthony Shadid • Reflecting on his arrest, as well as his three NYT compatriots, at the hands of pro-Gaddafi forces in Libya. The story seems to indicate a reluctance Gaddafi’s people had to actually make good on that remark and shoot the journalists; upon realizing they were Americans, they thankfully scuttled that plan. Lynsey Addario got the worst treatment, having “every inch of [her] body” groped by the pro-Gaddafi soldiers, while photographer Tyler Hicks was threatened with decapitation. So, all in all, a pretty sickening story, and one that we hope people remember when somebody is mocking a journalist on the ground for feeling threatened. These are real dangers, folks. source

• China and South Korea wary of radiation in food: Some countries (and even individual restaurants) that import food from Japan are concerned about the possibility of radiation contamination. The Japanese government has assured their citizenry that the radiation levels detected in milk, spinach, and some water is not enough to do rapid or lasting damage, though they’ve imposed a freeze on food from that region. China and South Korea want to look into the matter themselves, though, absent the responsibility of keeping the Japanese citizenry from being stricken with panic, which their government obviously has. That seems reasonable enough. source