The World

THURSDAY

A rare white buffalo, a male calf named Lightning Medicine Cloud, was found slaughtered and skinned on Lakota Ranch near Greenville, Texas, just shy of its first birthday. Its mother died the next day.

Manhole covers are being stolen from the streets of New York City. More than 30 of the 300-pound covers have been stolen, presumably by thieves selling them for scrap metal.

Oceanside,Calif., police found former NFL great Junior Seau dead of an apparent suicidal shot to the chest in his home at the age of 43. Reports said Seau shot his chest to preserve his brain for concussion researchers.

New Jersey mother Patricia Krentcil, 44, was arrested for allegedly putting her 5-year-old daughter in a tanning booth after her daughter showed up for school with what appeared to be a sunburn, then told classmates she “went tanning with Mommy.” Custom doll retailer HeroBuilders.com released a nuclear orange “Tanorexic” doll of the mother with a $29.95 price tag.

A snake crawled into an electrical substation and knocked out power to nearly 14,000 homes on the northwest side of Oklahoma’s state capital.

FRIDAY

The bodies of 23 people were found hanging from a bridge or dismembered in ice boxes and garbage bags in the drug-war-torn region of northeastern Mexico. Hours later, police found the dismembered corpses of 14 people in garbage bags and ice boxes dumped near the police station of Nuevo Laredo in an apparent retaliation.

A Kansas City jury awarded Susann Bashir, 41, $5 million in punitive damages after determining telecommunications giant AT&T created a “hostile work environment” after her conversion from Christianity to Islam.

WEEKEND

Greek voters elected an anti-austerity bloc of communist and neo-Nazi candidates while France elected Socialist Francois Hollande over incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy as President in a sharp rejection of austerity-for-aid policies pushed by Germany to stave off backruptcy.

I’ll Have Another won the 138th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs Saturday. Ridden by Mexican jockey Mario Gutierrez, the outsider I’ll Have Another paid $32.60 for a $2 win bet. Bodemeister, who started as the 4-1 favorite, finished second, 1-1/2 lengths back, after trying to lead all the way.

Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd, two of the three American hikers jailed in Iran after allegedly straying over the Iraq-Iran border in 2009, were married Saturday in a private ceremony in California. The third hiker, Josh Fattal, was to be the best man.

Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels was suspended five games and fined for intentionally throwing a 93-mph fastball at 19-year-old Washington Nationals rookie Bryce Harper. Harper advanced from first to third on a subsequent single before stealing home off Hamels.

MONDAY

Former KGB spy Vladimir Putin was sworn in as Russia’s president at a glittering ceremony held hours after violent clashes between police and protesters.

U.S. intelligence officials said they foiled a bomb plot by al Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate.

Beef Products Inc. announced the closure of “pink slime” producing plants in Amarillo, Texas; Garden City, Kansas, and Waterloo, Iowa.

A roofer in New Jersey jumped waist-high into a vat of nitric acid to save a co-worker who had fallen in.

TUESDAY

Maurice Sendak, author of the classic childrens’ book “Where the Wild Things Are” died this morning.

Senator Richard Lugar, a 35-year Senate veteran, was soundly defeated in the Indiana Republican primary by Tea Party-backed Richard Mourdock, jolting the American political establishment during a volatile election year.

Police arrested ten members of an alleged white supremacist group training near Orlando and Disney World for a “race war.”

Light from an alien “super-Earth” named 55 Cancrie twice the size of our own Earth was detected by a NASA space telescope for the first time in what astronomers hailed a historic achievement. It orbits a star 41 light-years from Earth and has an 18-hour day.

WEDNESDAY

Hackers blocked Putin’s web site, carrying out a promise to disrupt government information portals two days after his swearing-in for another six-year term that has drawn street protests.

Syria began importing significant volumes of grain via Lebanon to work around western sanctions and secure vital supplies, according to European traders.

Compiled by Gazette staff from a variety

of sources.