Mark Memmott

Surveillance aircraft provided by the U.S. and, according to British media reports, special forces from the U.K., are helping in the hunt for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, who is in Tripoli, reported for Morning Edition earlier today.

"It's an all-out effort" as opposition fighters, with help from their international allies, look for Gadhafi, she added.

Hurricane Irene has "roared across the Bahamas archipelago" and remains on track to hit the coast of North Carolina on Saturday and then soak much of the Eastern seaboard over the weekend and into next week as it chugs north.

The news last night that Apple Inc. co-founder and visionary Steve Jobs is giving up his post at CEO naturally leads to this question:

Just who is Tim Cook, the Apple chief operating officer who has been tapped to take over as CEO?

Figuring that one of the basic things we should know about the Earth is how many species of life we're surrounded by, a team of researchers has come up with a new estimate:

-- 8.7 million, "with a standard error of +/- 1.3 million."

Or, that is, somewhere between 7.4 million and 10 million. And so far, experts say, we've only discovered about 15 percent of them.

This headline from the Chicago Tribune got our attention:

'Most feared' pest found in shipment at O'Hare.

According to the story, "a cast skin and larva" later identified as Khapra beetles were discovered in two 10-pound bags of rice last week.