Syria’s chemical weapons are going bye-bye – Cops take over a Rio shantytown in a major operation – A Monster Truck goes out of control, killing 8 people.. on video – And a mischievous boy cons his way onto a flight for America’s Sin City.

International monitors are overseeing the process of destroying Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons cache.  Syrian personnel are using “cutting torches and angle grinders,” according to statement from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.  The deal to destroy Assad’s most-feared weapon averts a US attack on Syria; but the civil war that’s killed more than 100,000 people goes on.

Typhoon Fitow made landfall on the coast of China’s Fujian province early Monday morning.  Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated, but the storm already churned up waves that caused flooding in the region.  Some homes are said to have collapsed in neighboring Zhejiang province and two port workers are missing. 

Libya is asking Washington, DC to explain a US Special Forces raid in Tripoli that captured the al-Qaeda terrorist involved in the 1998 bombings of the US Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.  The US says Anas al-Liby is now “currently lawfully detained outside of Libya” in a secure location.  The statements raise questions about how much the US told Libya about the weekend raid, if anything.

Hundreds of Brazilian security officers backed by armored vehicles and choppers took control of 12 shantytowns, or “Favelas” in Rio de Janeiro.  It’s part of an ongoing campaign to tamp down the drug gangs before next year’s World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics.  Rio state governor Sergio Cabral Filho says the government will now invest US$225 million in public works projects to improve living conditions for the 15,000 residents.

Caught on video:  Cops say alcohol may have been detected on the breath of the driver of a Monster Truck that went out of control, killing eight people at an Air Show in Chihuahua, Mexico.  The truck plowed over two cars but then went out of control, into the crowd.  Chihuahua cops are detaining the driver on suspicion of manslaughter.  Authorities are also investigating if safety standards were properly enforced (spoiler alert:  No).

Three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti suffered two fractured vertebrae, a broken ankle, and a concussion when his car crashed in the final lap of the Grand Prix of Houston.  Flying debris from the crash injured at least 13 spectators an one race official.  Doctors say Franchitti’s spinal fracture will not require surgery.

The successor to the Soviet KGB, the Russian FSB, plans to monitor “all communications” at the Winter Olympics in Sochi.  Yeah, that doesn’t make me feel more secure either.  Journalists uncovered the wide ranging “Sorm” eavesdropping system by putting together pieces gleaned from Russian government procurement documents and public records.  Some fear that the eavesdropping will be ever more wide-ranging than that revealed by fugitive US security leaker Edward Snowden, ironically now marooned in Russia.

A 9-year old managed to defeat all security checkpoints and gate agents and get on a plane without a ticket at Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport.  Authorities say he blended in with a family with a lot of kids, and boarded the flight to Las Vegas.  Unlike the American advertising campaign, what happens in Vegas will NOT stay in Vegas.  The runaway will be tuned over the child protective authorities in Minnesota while they investigate.  The US Transportation Security Agency and Delta Airlines face their own investigations.