The world - Aug. 19, 2010

THURSDAY

Flight attendant Steven Slater becomes a national sensation after standing up to a rude passenger on a flight. After a passenger opened an overhead locker door that hit him in the head, Slater launched into an expletive-filled tirade on the plane’s intercom, grabbed two beers from the drink cart and slid down the emergency chute out of the plane. He was arrested on several charges and released on bail.

Congress passed a $600 million border security bill that will provide funding for some 1,500 new border patrol agents in a crackdown on security along the Mexican border.

The bankrupt Texas Rangers baseball club sells for $593 million to an ownership group led by Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan.

AAACK! Cathy Guisewhite announced she will cancel her comic strip “Cathy”, which has run in 1,400 newspapers during its 34-year run, this fall.

FRIDAY

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White banned the planting of sugar beet seeds that had been genetically modified by Monsanto Co. to resist weed-killer Roundup. Monsanto also manufactures Roundup.

BP said it had completed a pressure test on its blown-out Gulf of Mexico well and those results are under review by government scientists and the British oil company.

Doctors looking for a tumor in the lung of 75-year-old Ron Sveden, Cape Cod, were surprised to find the dark spot on the X-ray was a germinated pea that had sprouted in his lung.

WEEKEND

Thousands gathered in New York’s Times Square for a group “kiss-in” to mark the 65th anniversary of the end of WWII. Couples embraced for smooches in the same pose in which an unidentified sailor embraced Edith Shain in the iconic V-J Day picture taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick said floods in Pakistan appear to have destroyed crops worth around $1 billion and that the organization was considering redirecting aid to the country.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak approved the purchase of 20 U.S.-built radar-evading F-35 stealth fighters in a deal worth $2.75 billion.

A Hong Kong player at the women’s baseball World Cup in Venezuela was shot in the leg during a game against Netherlands. Play was suspended.

Former Utah Jazz power forward Karl Malone and Chicago Bull Scottie Pippen were among 10 inductees into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

MONDAY

Value of the Japanese gross national product dropped to $1.28 trillion in the second quarter of 2010, making China the world’s second largest economy with a GDP of $1.33 trillion. The U.S. still sits atop world economies with an annual GDP of about $14 trillion.

Severe storms that damaged a 32,124-acre nature reserve in Mexico have threatened the future of the country’s endangered and fabled monarch butterflies.

Retired General Stanley McChrystal, who was removed from command in the Afghan war last month after making inflammatory comments about President Barack Obama to Rolling Stone magazine, has taken a job as a senior fellow with the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale University.

TUESDAY

A giant 45-year-old mirror carp in Britain, that was nicknamed the “marriage wrecker” because so many anglers left home to try and snare it, was found floating dead in Conningbrook Lake in Kent, south-east of London. Fishermen across England have sent in tributes to the fish, who will have a funeral next to the lake this Sunday.

DNA tests on former chess champion Bobby Fischer’s corpse show he was not the father of a Filipino girl, as claimed by his former lover.

WEDNESDAY

Federal prosecutors said they will seek a new trial of ousted Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich after a jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on 23 of the 24 counts of corruption he had been charged with. Allegations included an attempt to sell or barter the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama. Blagojevich was found guilty on one count of making false statements to federal officials.

Harvard retains the crown as top university for the eighth year in the 2010 Academic Ranking of World Universities published by the Center for World-Class Universities. Joining Harvard in the top 10 were the University of California, Berkeley; Stanford; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; California Institute of Technology; Princeton; Columbia and University of Chicago.

At least 67 people were missing after mudslides hit a remote southwest Chinese town near Myanmar, adding to the thousands killed or missing in floods and landslides this year.

Compiled by the Gazette from a variety of sources.