The world

THURSDAY

Slovak officials rejected the overwhelming results of a popular Internet campaign to name a new pedestrian and cycling bridge near the capital after U.S. action film star Chuck Norris.

Negotiations between the dockworkers union and the organization for shipping companies and ports were extended for 90 days, through December 29, averting a potential strike that would stop deliveries to ports along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

FRIDAY

Space Shuttle Endeavour touched down in Los Angeles on the back of a jumbo jet, greeted by cheering crowds as it ended a celebratory final flight en route to its retirement home at a Southern California science museum.

Colorado’s Chimney Rock, a 4,726-acre archeological site spiritual to Native Americans, was named a national monument by President Barack Obama.

A new study shows voting laws in 23 of the 50 states could keep more than 10 million Hispanic U.S. citizens from registering and voting in the November 6 election.

Democratic lawmakers Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, Frank Pallone of New Jersey and Nita Lowey of New York introduced a bill to limit the amount of arsenic allowed in rice and rice-based products.

WEEKEND

Turkish rescue workers were called by panicked residents to save a drowning woman in the Black Sea only to find the woman was an inflatable sex doll. After a wide-stretching search, she was deflated and thrown into the garbage.

The Senate unanimously passed a bill on Saturday that would shield U.S. airlines from paying for their carbon emissions on European flights, pressuring the European Union to back down from applying its emissions law to foreign carriers.

A double amputee in a wheelchair was shot and killed by Houston police Sunday after threatening an officer with what turned out to be a pen.

The giant panda cub born at the National Zoo just one week ago died on Sunday.

A man who posed as an airline pilot and traveled in the cockpit of at least one plane was arrested in Turin Airport in Italy, using forged identity cards and wearing a pilot’s uniform.

MONDAY

Officials in the Zimbabwe city of Bulawayo urged all residents to flush their toilets at 7:30 p.m. on Mondays and Thursdays to help clear sewage waste that has accumulated in sewers after a water outage. After citizens complained, government officials explained they can also flush whenever they use the toilet.

School administrators will be allowed to paddle students of the opposite sex under a rule approved by the school board in the North Texas community of Springtown.

Protesters clashed with police in Spain’s capital as the government prepared a new round of unpopular austerity measures for the 2013 budget to be announced on Thursday.

Charles Larkin Cowart, 29, led police in Bunnell, Fla., on a half-hour chase as he drunkenly rode his horse throughout the city. Cowart ignored several verbal commands to get off the horse, which eventually became exhausted.

A bust of Ben Franklin valued at $3 million by its owner was returned to the Philadelphia region after authorities arrested a former cleaning woman who they said was carrying the stolen sculpture in a bag on a bus in Maryland.

TUESDAY

Britain’s National Pig Association sounded the alarm that the world should brace for an “unavoidable” bacon and pork shortage next year.

The finger found inside a trout caught at Priest Lake by Fisherman Nolan Calvin was identified by fingerprints as that of Haans Galassi of Colbert, who had lost four fingers in the lake in a wakeboarding accident in June.

Anna Gristina, Manhattan’s “Soccer Mom Madam” pleaded guilty in state court to promoting prostitution.

Norwalk, Ohio, man Tyler Myers, 19, was killed after he ran a stop sign in his Ford F-150 pickup truck and was struck by a tractor-trailer. Police found several stop signs inside Myers’ truck stolen from intersections along the route Myers had been traveling before his accident.

WEDNESDAY

Japanese Coast Guard vessels fired water cannons to turn away about 40 Taiwan fishing boats and eight Taiwan Coast Guard vessels from waters Japan considers its own in the latest twist to a row between Japan and China.

Compiled by Gazette staff from a variety

of sources.