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Syrian President Bashar Assad wavered between cracking down and compromising Monday in one of the Middle East's most authoritarian and anti-Western nations as thousands of protesters in a southern city defied security forces who fired tear gas to disperse them.

The unrest in Syria, a strategically important country of 23 million people, could have implications well beyond the country's borders given its role as Iran's top Arab ally and as a front line state against Israel.

President Obama tonight delivers "his first major attempt" to explain why the U.S. has joined other major nations in taking military action in Libya and just how that campaign's objectives fit with the longer U.S. policy goal of seeing Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi leave office.

If ever there was an album that was well worth a long wait, Robbie Robertson's fifth solo album is the one. Coming 13 years after his last album, Contact from the Underworld of Redboy, this new collection is called How to Become Clairvoyant — and it's a clear reminder of Robertson's musical prowess, which has been missing from our ears since 1998.

It could be, as USA Today says, "the largest employment class-action case in history."

If the Supreme Court, that is, allows a case brought by women who work for Wal-Mart and claim they have been discriminated against because of their gender to go forward. The group they represent, according to The Associated Press, could wind up including 500,000 to 1.6 million women.

At Radio Shack in Hamilton, Mont., new customers who sign up for Dish Network satellite service, get a certificate for a free gun from a nearby gun store. Plus, a criminal background check at no extra charge. The store owner says business has tripled.