The World

THURSDAY

Mysterious Mickey Mouse-shaped crop circles appeared in about an acre of Greg and Cindy Geib’s wheat field outside Wilbur, Wash. Cindy told reporters they do not have alien insurance.

Uganda’s Little League baseball team has gotten visas to come to the United States for the Little League World Series, overcoming birth certificate discrepancies to become the first team from Africa to play in the Little League Baseball World Series’ 66-year history.

Researchers in Spain used a huge archive known as the Million Song Dataset, to determine that pop music has become louder and more bland in terms of chords and melodies over the last 50 years.

FRIDAY

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II declared the London Olympics open after skydiving into Wembley Stadium in a cameo role in a ceremony highlighting the grandeur and eccentricities of the nation that invented modern sport.

Seattle officials and the Department of Justice reached a sweeping agreement to refine the use of force by police officers under a plan to be overseen by an independent, court-appointed monitor.

A boy is recovering after he was hit in the face by a bird while riding the 128 mph, 45-story Kingda Ka roller coaster at a Six Flags amusement park in New Jersey.

WEEKEND

Canada’s Enbridge, Inc prepared Sunday to replace part of a pipeline that leaked more than 1,000 barrels of oil in a Wisconsin field.

Two men in Long Island robbed a pet store, one making off with a Pomeranian puppy stuffed down his pants while the other distracted store employees.

The Reverend Stan Weatherford of First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs, Miss., refused to host the wedding of a black couple who had regularly attended its services, because their wedding plans “made some congregants uncomfortable.”

Carolyn Dukeshire, 62, affectionately known in the Florida Keys as “Sea Hag” was arrested Sunday, charged with first-degree murder, for fatally shooting a man who refused to give her a beer.

MONDAY

Alleged “Batman” shooter James Holmes was charged with 24 counts of first-degree murder for the July 20 shooting at a full movie theater in Aurora, Colo. The charges make him eligible for the death penalty if convicted.

Panda Bai Yun, 20, the first giant panda born in captivity in China, delivered her sixth live cub at the San Diego Zoo, a four-ounce baby. All but one have been fathered by her companion, Gao Gao.

Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Jenns Robertson has created a database that allows people to use their computers to see where every U.S. bomb has been dropped since World War I.

A Japanese gymnastic coach handed over a wad of $100 bills to Olympic judges, not as a bribe, but to file an appeal on behalf of athlete Kohei Uchimura.

TUESDAY

U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps earned his 19th Olympic medal to eclipse the decades-old record of 18 medals set by Russian gymnast Larissa Latynina.

“Born again” by a trip to Jamaica, rapper Snoop Dogg is changing his name to Snoop Lion and will release a reggae album and a film this fall.

Swimmer Christopher Myers was likely mauled by a great white shark in the waters off Massachusetts’ Cape Cod, marine officials concluded, the first such attack in the state in 76 years.

Eight Olympic badminton players were banished from the games for allegedly tanking their matches to earn easier draws in the next round by faking efforts to keep the birdies from falling to the ground. Doubles players Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang of China and their South Korean opponents Jung Kyun-eun and Kim Ha-na, along with South Korea’s Ha-Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung and Indonesians Meiliana Jauhari and Greysia Polii were appealing the decision.

Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday sacked his air defense chief and the head of the border guards for failing to stop a Swedish plane from dropping hundreds of teddy bears over the state in a pro-democracy stunt.

WEDNESDAY

Some 620 million people were left without electricity in India when an overload of usage shut off power to the nation’s northern region.

Writer Gore Vidal, the self-described “gentleman bitch” author of a series of historical novels and 1948’s “The City and the Pillar,” which featured one of the first open portrayals of a homosexual main character, died at his home in Los Angeles of complications from pneumonia at age 86.

Compiled by Gazette staff from a variety

of sources.