The World 9/1/11

THURSDAY

Arizona was swept up in a wave of “pandamonium” after a street sign hacker warned motorists of a “ROGUE PANDA ON RAMPAGE” in Flagstaff.

Newlyweds Arthur Phillips and Brittany Lurch spent their honeymoon in jail after stealing $1,049 worth of groceries for their reception from a Wegmans supermarket in State College, Penn.

Merriam-Webster added 150 words, including “bromance” “cougar” “tweet” and “crowdsourcing” to its 2011 Collegiate Dictionary.

Federal authorities are investigating the fatal shooting of a polar bear at an Alaska oil field operated by BP. The female bear was shot in early August by a security guard working for a BP contractor and died of its wounds about 11 days later.

FRIDAY

Astronomers spotted an exotic planet that seems to be made of diamond racing around a tiny star some 4,000 light years toward the center of the Milky Way.

An Amtrak train carrying 175 passengers and 17 crew members struck a crane that was being used to tear down an old grain elevator in southwest Nebraska, partially derailing and sending nearly a dozen people to local hospitals.

An evacuation order was lifted for hundreds of workers at a U.S. Energy Department nuclear site in Idaho as firefighters battled for a second day to tame a wildfire that has scorched 30,000 acres of the sprawling compound.

Four miners were killed when a coal mine collapsed in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila.

Honduras recognized Palestine as an independent state amid a drive by the Arab League to upgrade it to full membership status in the United Nations.

WEEKEND

Lady Gaga picked up two awards and Katy Perry won three, including video of the year. But it was Beyonce showing off her new baby bump that stole the show at MTV’s Video Music Awards on Sunday.

Nearly 4.2 million homes and businesses along the U.S. East Coast were without power Sunday evening as Tropical Storm Irene, downgraded from a hurricane as it hit New York early Sunday, continued to wreak havoc on power grids in New England. Irene killed at least 21 people and caused substantial property damage from North Carolina to Vermont over the weekend.

Algeria’s Foreign Ministry denied on Saturday a report that a convoy of six Mercedes cars possibly containing deposed tyrant Mouamar Ghadaffi had crossed its border from Libya.

Sipping coconut water and honey, Indian anti-corruption reformer Anna Hazare ended a hunger strike on its 13th day on Sunday, a protest that had sparked huge rallies across the country, exposed a weak government and ushered in a new middle-class political force.

MONDAY

Filettino, a small town in central Italy is trying to go independent and mint its own money to fight the central government’s plans to merge towns with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants.

Eric Cantor, the number 2 Republican in the House of Representatives, said his party will only clear federal aid to the Hurricane Irene clean up if it is offset by spending cuts to other programs.

Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn apologized to the institution’s staff in his first return visit since charges of sexual assault against him were dropped last week. He was greeted with warm applause.

Serbia is planning to set up a new agency to investigate disasters at sea, despite having no coastline of its own and little money to spare in the public purse.

TUESDAY

Florida State Senator Gary Siplin of Orlando is welcoming students back to school by handing out 200 leather belts to help them comply with a new state law that bans saggy pants on campuses.

Leroy Luetscher, an 86-year-old Arizona man who was impaled through the skull with pruning shears in a freak gardening accident, was expected to make a full recovery. Luetscher dropped a pair of pruning shears while working in his yard in Green Valley, south of Tucson. The shears landed in the ground point downward. When Luetscher bent down to pick them up, he overbalanced and fell face-down on the handle, which punched through his eye socket and went down into his neck.

Eight people, seven of them police, were killed in a suicide attack in Chechnya’s capital Grozny during celebrations at the end of the Muslim festival of Ramadan.

Compiled by Gazette staff

from a variety of sources.