The World - Aug. 20, 2009

THURSDAY

French authorities announce Atlantic salmon have returned to the Seine River through Paris for the first time in nearly a century.

U.S. bankruptcy filings rose 38 percent in April-June from a year ago as consumers and business were hit by rising unemployment and a lack of credit. Overall, 381,073 bankruptcies were filed in the second quarter, up 15 percent from the first three months of the year and up 38 percent from a year ago.

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro marked his 83rd birthday with a gloomy warning about the global economic crisis, which is hitting his country hard and a vow to “carry on.”

A video game research group reported U.S. videogame equipment and software sales fell 29 percent in July to $848.9 million.

FRIDAY

Millions of sockeye salmon have disappeared mysteriously from the Fraser River, which empties into the Pacific ocean near Vancouver, B.C. Up to 10.6 million bright-red sockeye salmon were expected to return to spawn this summer, but the latest estimates say fewer than 1 million have returned.

The crews of two Egyptian fishing vessels escaped from Somali pirates after overpowering their captors and killing two of them. The 34 fishermen had been held by the pirates since April.

The deadline for online applications for the first round of the U.S. government’s $7.2 billion program to provide broadband access to all Americans was extended to August 20 from August 14 because of technical problems caused by the high number of applicants.

Britain ordered the suspension of the government in its Caribbean territory of the Turks and Caicos on Friday after an investigation found evidence of widespread corruption.

WEEKEND

Wildfire investigators in California are looking for marijuana growers tied to a Mexican drug cartel which they suspect ignited the La Brea Fire that has charred more than 87,000 acres of a national forest.

Three Iraqi men were killed and a boy wounded when they were struck by mortars while herding cattle near an artillery firing exercise held by Iraqi and U.S. troops near Taji Saturday.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb in front of the heavily fortified headquarters of U.S. and NATO troops in Kabul on Saturday, saying the target was the U.S. embassy nearby. Three people were killed and 14 wounded, all civilians.

Virginia Senator Jim Webb secured the release of U.S. citizen John Yettaw from a prison in Burma. Yettaw was held for 18 months for visiting the lakeside home of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi

MONDAY

Reader’s Digest magazine, a onetime staple of coffee tables and doctors’ offices, announced it will file for bankruptcy protection, making it the latest in a series of debt-laden media companies felled by the recession and changing consumer tastes. At its peak three decades ago, the publication sold 18 million copies.

The amino acid glycine, a fundamental building block of proteins, was discovered in a sample of particles retrieved from the tail of comet Wild 2 by the NASA spacecraft Stardust some 242 million miles from Earth in January 2004. Samples were collected on a small dish on the spacecraft and returned to Earth four years later in a canister that landed in the Utah desert.

Ten people were killed and 62 were missing after a turbine room flooded at Russia’s largest hydro-power station, panicking residents beneath the dam and forcing steel and aluminum plants in Siberia to turn to emergency power.

Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay will be cast in this season’s “Dancing with the Stars” reality television show. DeLay served as House Majority Leader from 2003 to 2005. He resigned from Congress in 2006 after he was charged in his native Texas with trying to violate campaign finance laws.

TUESDAY

Seattle voters rejected a 20-cent fee for every paper or plastic bag they get from supermarkets, drug stores and convenience stores. City leaders passed an ordinance to charge the bag fee, but the plastics industry bankrolled a referendum to put the question to voters. Plastic bag makers outspent opponents about 15 to 1.

A former Soviet military base in the state of Brandenburg, including two bunkers used to store nuclear warheads during the Cold War, has been put up for sale. The nuclear warheads were removed in 1992.

Quarterback Brett Favre, 39, came out of retirement and signed a two-year contract with the Vikings.

Los Angeles widow Elsie Poncher listed her husband’s burial spot directly above film legend Marilyn Monroe in Westwood Village Memorial Park on eBay. Bidding opened at $500,000 and reached $2.5 million. Poncher is selling the tomb to pay off her mortgage.

WEDNESDAY

Tropical storm Bill became this season’s first major hurricane in the Atlantic, with winds hitting 125 mph. Hurricane forecasters said Bill would not hit the U.S. coast, but may threaten Bermuda.

Conservative commentator Robert Novak died of brain cancer at the age of 78. Dubbed “the prince of darkness,” Novak made his name with a combative debate style on point-counterpoint columns and television shows.

An Oklahoma judge overturned a state law that required women seeking an abortion to receive an ultrasound and a doctor’s description of the fetus.