Syria: The US military is ready to strike Syria at a moment’s notice, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said yesterday. Air strikes would probably come from ship-based cruise missiles because Syria’s strong air defense could knock down bombers. Softening the political ground, spokesman Jay Carney said, “Allowing the use of chemical weapons on a significant scale to take place without a response would present a significant challenge to, threat to, the United States’ national security.”

• The Syrian Civil War appears to have spread to the American press. Yesterday for the second time in recent weeks the NY Times website was disabled by a hacker group that calls itself The Syrian Electronic Army. They are believed to be digital partisans fighting for President Bashar al-Assad. Also hit recently, Twitter, The Washington Post, Associated Press and Britain’s The Guardian newspaper.

Healthcare, Aisle 27: Mega retailer Wal-Mart announced it will offer healthcare benefits to domestic partners of its workers starting next year. That includes same sex couples that are committed partners and couples legally married under state law. Wal-Mart was pushed to this by the Supreme Court decision forcing the Federal government to recognize same sex marriage in states where it is legal. Because it operates in all 50 states, Wal-Mart decided to have a uniform policy.

National: Lawyers for George Zimmerman say they are going to ask the State of Florida to reimburse their client $200,000 to $300,000 for court costs. Florida law says an acquitted defendant can be reimbursed so long as a judge or court clerk agrees to the payment.

• Today is the 50^th anniversary of the historic civil rights “March on Washington” and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “

Gone Wild, Gone to Jail: The volatile creator of the “Girls Gone Wild” video series has been sentenced to 270 days in jail and three years probation for choking and beating a woman at a Los Angeles mansion. Joe Francis, 40, was also ordered to get anger management therapy and to attend 52 psychological counseling sessions. Francis had picked up three women in a nightclub, but when one of them tried to stop her friend from going with Francis inside a house in a gated community, he went wild.

Omnishambles: The word “twerking”, which describes Miley Cyrus’s sex dance at the MTV awards, has been admitted to the Oxford English Dictionary, along with “selfie”, a self-portrait taken on a smartphone. Also making its debut is “omnishambles”, coined by BBC satirists meaning a situation that is a shambles in every sense. That pretty well describes Miley Cyrus twerking at the MTV awards.

-30-