The world

THURSDAY

NASA’s Cassinin spacecraft found evidence of an ocean of water beneath the frozen crust of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon.

An 11-year-old girl who waded into a pond to retrieve her ball died after being electrocuted at a mini-golf course in Kissimmee, Fla. Spokespersons for both the sheriff’s office and the resort said they did not know how the water became electrified.

The raging wildfire in Colorado destroyed 346 homes in Colorado Springs, making it the most destructive in state history.

FRIDAY

Dozens of Lebanese protestors rolled out colorfully decorated tires in protest of daily tire-burning demonstrations by political protestors.

An American grad student was hospitalized after being mauled by two large male chimpanzees in South Africa when he stood close to their enclosure at the Jane Goodall Institute Chimpanzee Eden. The victim lost several fingers.

The U.S. Senate confirmed geologist Allison Macfarlane to head the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Macfarlane takes over for Gregory Jaczko who resigned last month after being publicly criticized by fellow commissioners for his abrasive demeanor.

WEEEKEND

Nearly four million homes and businesses were without power after deadly thunderstorms downed power lines from Indiana to New Jersey. Hurricane-force winds prompted emergency declarations in Washington, D.C., Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia. Temperatures after the storm topped 100 degrees.

A “leap second” was added to the world’s atomic clocks in a rare adjustment to keep them in time with the slowing rotation of the earth. Clocks read 23:59:60 before moving to midnight Greenwich Mean Time.

A crocodile in Bunawan, the Philippines, was named by Guinness as the world’s largest crocodile, weighing more than a ton and measuring 20.24 feet. The croc, named Lolong, was captured from a creek by about 100 villagers who caught it with a steel cable and hoisted it by crane on a truck after a child was killed and a fisherman went missing.

Marathon swimmer Penny Palfrey was thwarted by strong Gulf Stream currents and failed to complete a record 103-mile swim from Cuba to the United States.

MONDAY

Raymond Bitar, the 40-year-old CEO of online poker site Full Tilt, surrendered to U.S. authorities on charges of illegal gambling and that the site defrauded its players.

Anita Guzzardi, the former CFO of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, pleaded guilty to stealing $906,000 from the church.

An Air Force C-130 crashed while battling a South Dakota wildfire, killing a yet-undetermined number of crew members.

Jeneba Tarmoh conceded the final spot on the U.S. Olympic team to Allyson Felix by canceling their scheduled runoff in the 100-meter dash. After Tarmoh celebrated the third spot in the championship dash last week, officials declared the contest a rare dead-heat, as both runners’ torsos crossed the line at 11.068 seconds. In her concession, Tarmoh said she felt she won the race and should have been given the spot.

TUESDAY

Petitioners failed to get enough verified signatures to qualify an anti-gay marriage initiative for the November ballot. The measure would have created a statute that defined marriage as between one man and one woman. A referendum to repeal February’s law allowing gay marriage will be on the ballot.

Former Barclays CEO Robert Diamond blamed other banks for forcing his institution to mislead markets about its ability to borrow money. Barclays last week agreed to pay a record $455 million fine for lowballing the Libor, the global financial standard upon which some $360 trillion of global securities is centered. Diamond told a tribunal in the British Parliament his firm was merely keeping up with other banks who were reporting falsely low interest rates.

Danish archeologists unearthed a mass grave of scores of slaughtered warriors from the Iron Age that had been preserved in a peat bog on the Jutland peninsula.

Actor Andy Griffith, best known for his iconic portrayal of a small-town sheriff in “The Andy Griffith Show,” died in his North Carolina home at age 86.

WEDNESDAY

Competitive eating legend Joey “Jaws” Chestnutt of San Jose, Calif., matched his own record by chowing down 687 hot dogs and buns in the annual 10-minute frankfurter contest at Nathan’s on New York’s Coney Island. It was Jaws’ sixth title.

A chlorine leak at a private water distribution company in Georgia sent 73 people to the hospital.

Compiled by Gazette staff from a variety

of sources.