The world - March 17, 2011

THURSDAY

Libyan tanks fired on rebel positions around the oil port of Ras Lanuf and warplanes hit another oil hub further east as Muammar Gaddafi carried counter-attacks deeper into the insurgent heartland.

With personal wealth listed around $74 billion, Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim topped Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s richest people for the second straight year.

More than 20,000 Filipinos lined a football field at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila to mark the start of Lent by forming the world’s largest ever human cross.

FRIDAY

A massive earthquake, initially measured at 8.9 magnitude and later upgraded to a magnitude 9, struck northeast Japan. The quake triggered a tsunami with 30 foot waves that swept away homes, crops, vehicles and boats. More than 1,800 were initially reported dead from the disaster.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin declared a state of emergency in all 77 counties, including popular “noodling” spot Canada County, after grass fires pushed by gusting winds swept across the state.

A two-headed turtle with five feet hatched in Slovakia. The fifth foot of the turtle, named Magdalena, sticks out between its two heads.

WEEKEND

As strong aftershocks continued to shake Japan, crews began a fight to contain a radiation leak at an earthquake-crippled nuclear plant.

Up to 100,000 people protested at the Wisconsin state Capitol on Saturday against a new law curbing the union rights of public workers. Republic Gov. Scott Walker earlier signed into law a bill that eliminated collective bargaining rights for many state government workers.

NFL players, in a contract dispute with team owners, dissolved their union. Union decertification allowed players to file antitrust law suits against the league. Owners answered by locking players out of football activities.

More than 800 motorists had to be rescued after a fast-moving blizzard stranded hundreds of vehicles for as long as 12 hours in North Dakota.

A U.S.-led research team may have finally located the lost city of Atlantis, the legendary metropolis believed swamped by a tsunami thousands of years ago in mud flats in southern Spain.

MONDAY

Radiation levels west of Tokyo measured up to nine times the normal levels.

Five Somali men were sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in a U.S. prison after being convicted of piracy and trying to attack an American warship off the coast of Africa last year.

Federal agents raided state-sanctioned medical marijuana greenhouses and dispensaries in several Montana cities. It was the first crackdown under the Obama administration since the Justice Department in 2009 called for a halt on federal raids.

Almost half of America’s millionaires feel they need at least $7 million in annual income to be financially secure. Forty-two percent said they do not feel well off. The average U.S. household has a net worth, including retirement asesets and real estate holdings, of $86,000.

TUESDAY

Two more explosions rocked a quake-stricken nuclear power plant in Japan, prompting orders that anyone living within 30 kilometers of the site stay indoors.

The electronic Omega clock counting down the 500 days to the start of the 2012 London Olympics stopped less than a day after it was unveiled in a glitzy launch.

Long-standing soloist Yan Godovsky was named the new director of Russia’s famed Bolshoi ballet troupe after erotic photographs of former director Gennady Ynin appeared on the internet.

A three-foot-long, nine-pound lobster - the largest and oldest ever caught in Britain - was pulled out of a cooking pot and given a home in an aquarium, where it will live out the rest of its life.

WEDNESDAY

Workers at Japan’s stricken nuclear power plant were ordered off the job because of surging radiation levels. After a helicopter failed to drop water on the troubled reactor, police moved in a riot control water cannon to try and soak the facility.

Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor, was acquitted of two murder charges and released from a Pakistan prison after being ordered to pay restitution to the victims’ families.

Compiled by Gazette staff from a variety of sources.