The World 10/6/11

THURSDAY

Bank of America announced plans to charge customers who use their debit cards to make purchases a $5 monthly fee beginning early next year.

Alabama game wardens Thad Holmes and Clem Parnell created Holy Smoke, a service which puts hunters’ cremated ashes into ammunition the deceased’s loved ones can fire at will.

FRIDAY

The U.S. government did not pay $16 for each muffin served at a legal conference after all, the Justice Department inspector general’s office announced. The claim was based on an invoice from the Capital Hilton Hotel of $4,200, including gratuity.

Florida set its U.S. presidential primary election for January 31, a move likely to push forward the 2012 election schedule as other states jockey to keep their influence.

Rappelling firefighters rescued David La Vau, a 67-year-old California grandfather, from the bottom of a forest ravine where he had spent the previous six days after his car careened off the road.

Police in San Francisco arrested Ernesto Gonzalez, 53, suspected in the shooting death of a Hells Angels motorcycle club chapter president during a brawl between rival bikers in Nevada last week.

Marine biologists were trying to determine what killed at least 10 harbor seals whose carcasses were found this week on beaches in New Hampshire.

WEEKEND

Police reopened the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday evening after more than 700 anti-Wall Street protesters from the “We are the 99 percent” demonstrations were arrested for blocking traffic lanes and attempting an unauthorized march across the span.

A Libyan revolutionary officer announced the creation of a 22,000-man secular armed group to keep order in Tripoli.

A mother grizzly previously has been euthanized by Yellowstone officials after being linked to a pair of fatal maulings.

MONDAY

Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend left prison after four years when an Italian appeals court cleared them of the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher.

Engineers resumed rappelling down the earthquake-damaged Washington Monument after high winds forced a weekend delay in their checks of the 555-foot-high obelisk.

Coast Guard officials are keeping a fishing vessel off the coast of Alaska as they prepare to remove the crew and kill hundreds of rats on board.

A black bear chased a dog into a central Pennsylvania house, attacking and injuring a couple who lived there. The two were taken to a hospital in Harrisburg.

Donald Lapre, 47, the self-proclaimed “King of Infomercials,” was found dead in his Arizona jail cell of an apparent suicide. Lapre earned his title for his television pitches for “The Greatest Vitamin in the World.”

TUESDAY

Thousands of inmates in up to eight California prisons have taken part in a nine-day-old hunger strike, demanding an end to what they call inhumane conditions.

Country music singer Hank Williams Jr. said he was sorry for any offense given by his recent statement comparing President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler. Williams’ statement prompted ESPN to pull his theme song from the “Monday Night Football” broadcast.

A dust storm in Arizona cut visibility to zero along Interstate 10 between Tucson and Phoenix on Tuesday, causing two pile-ups that killed one person and severely injured several others.

A Virginia man pleaded guilty on Monday to felony charges for selling sperm whale teeth he imported from Ukraine over the internet.

WEDNESDAY

A third of U.S. military veterans who have served in the armed forces since the September 11, 2001, attacks think the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not worth fighting, according to a Pew Research Center poll.

Afghanistan’s intelligence agency said it had thwarted a plot to assassinate President Hamid Karzai after arresting a bodyguard and five people with links to the Haqqani network and al Qaeda.

Compiled by Gazette staff

from a variety of sources.