Gary Jenkins, who brought us Negroes to Hire, joins us again tonight with another compelling and carefully crafted documentary about Kansas, slavery and the Civil War. With Freedom Seekers: Stories from the Western Underground Railroad, Jenkins traces the history of “Bloody Kansas,” and its place in the abolitionist movement. The Kansas Territory was key in the balance of the states before the Civil War, as neighboring Missouri was a slave state, bordered by two free states, Illinois and Iowa.

Observers from the Arab League have reached Homs, Syria, at the same time as Syrian security forces pulled tanks off the streets. Even then, security forces squeezed off their final shots at the protesters and tanks are still reported waiting just outside the cities.

Ali Abdullah Saleh, the either current or former leader of Yemen, depending on who you talk to, vowed to leave the country for the United States to receive treatment for injuries suffered in an assassination attempt this June. The US has not yet responded to the request to allow Saleh to enter the country, and there are risks if it agrees.

As fighting continues in Libya, a disturbing new report reveals that over 20,000 surface-to-air missiles have gone missing in the country. This is a Brian Ross special, so take it with a huge grain of salt, but the White House basically confirmed the report in a morning press gaggle.

We never really got a clean sense of the rebels who NATO helped to bring to power in Libya. That picture is becoming slightly clearer.

While many allies of the President, “Democratic strategists” and the like were exultant over the fall of Gadhafi in Libya, world leaders were more subdued, because they knew he had not been captured, and Tripoli was not entirely in the hands of the rebels. We’ve seen ebbs and flows throughout the civil war in Libya, and the potential existed for another one. And that’s what appears to be happening.

Losts of stuff going on today. The world is flying apart, opBart is happening and dday tells us Libya is far from settled. But the Tar Sands 65 are finally out of jail — wait till you see the Tar Babes! –and we don’t have to eat those terrible not really cheese sandwiches. So let’s get on with it by catching up from dday’s news roundup from late yesterday.

There have been a lot of false starts and dashed hopes in Libya for the rebel forces. Indeed this is the second time they’ve captured Zawiya, seen as the decisive city on the road to Tripoli. But this time appears different, mainly because the rebels have cut off the supply lines to the main oil refinery, and more important, the people of Tripoli have risen up against the Gadhafi regime.

Apparently the blast that injured President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen was pretty bad. The BBC reports that he has shrapnel lodged near his heart, as well as second-degree burns to his chest and face. That would explain why his statement yesterday was on audio tape and not video. In that audio address, Saleh blamed an “outlaw gang” for the attack on the Presidential palace, and vowed to not leave power until the militant threat was stopped. But today, Saleh has apparently left Yemen for treatment in Saudi Arabia.

Any hopes that South African President Jacob Zuma would be able to mediate a resolution to the Libyan civil war have apparently gone by the boards after his one-day visit. Zuma did meet with Moammar Gadhafi, and said that Gadhafi was ready to implement the African Union “roadmap” accompanying a cease-fire. But while that plan includes reforms, it does not call for Gadhafi to step down, and it’s unclear whether he would agree to that. Anyway, the AU roadmap is already a dead document, having been rejected by the opposition.