The Caliphate: In a move that could be the precursor to airstrikes inside Syria, President Obama has authorized surveillance flights over positions of the ISIS militants in Syria. Actual air strikes would have to be planned to hit ISIS without turning the country’s three-year civil war in favor of the Assad regime. That would be difficult.

Ukraine: Heavy shelling was reported today outside the city of Novoazovsk, even as Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Yesterday the army said it battled and stopped an armored column that crossed the border from Russia, under what might have been Russian artillery support, headed for the southeastern port of Mariupol. Reports said that the column consisted of 10 tanks and two armored personnel carriers and that two of the tanks were destroyed.

The pro-Russian rebels might be trying to open a new front. Government forces had previously taken back Mariupol from the rebels.

Russia denies reports about their military support as “disinformation” and says it intends to send another humanitarian relief convoy into Ukraine.

   The pro-Russians have been rough with captured Ukraine soldiers, marching them down a street to be spit upon and abused by citizens. The NY Times reported on a woman tied to a lamppost, accused of being a spotter for Ukraine artillery.

Libya: Egypt and the United Arab Emirates secretly teamed up to bomb Islamic militiamen fighting to take control of Tripoli. Several days ago there were reports of unidentified aircraft conducting air strikes. Now it appears that the two US allies acted without consulting Washington. Their entry into the conflict risks wider war, but Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have formed a team to fight Islamic extremists.

Islamic State: Keeping up with the jihadists, Boko Haram Islamic extremists in northern Nigeria have declared their own Islamic state. They are the ones who kidnapped and still hold several-hundred schoolgirls.

Funeral: About 4,500 people attended a funeral in St. Louis yesterday for 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was unarmed when he was killed by a police officer Aug. 9. in Ferguson, Mo. Among those attending were the Rev. Jesse Jackson, moviemaker Spike Lee and entertainer Sean “Puffy” Combs. Brown’s uncle Bernard Ewing said the young man once said his name would be known by the wider world. “He did not know he was offering up a divine prophecy at that time.”

Statues: AMC’s “Breaking Bad” was the big winner at the Primetime Emmy Awards last night, taking five awards including outstanding drama series. Bryan Cranston won best actor as Walter White, the high school chemistry teacher turned master of the meth lab. ABC’s “Modern Family” won best comedy series for the fifth year in a row, but the paid service Netflix, with its hits “House of Cards” and “Orange is the New Black,” was shut out.

Cutting News Network: CNN is getting ready to cut costs and staff according to the transcript of a network conference call leaked to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. In a bluntly honest twist on the old managerial cliché of “doing more with less,” CNN boss Jeff Zucker said, “We are going to do less and have to do it with less.” CNN has 13,000 full time employees, about half of them in Atlanta.

KaThunk !!!: A copy of Action Comics #1, the precursor to the Superman series which originally sold for 10 cents in 1938, sold for $3,207,752 Sunday on the auction website eBay. The magazine’s quality was rated a 9 out of 10, which means it could have sold for even more if it had been in perfect condition. Golly gee, Superman.

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