The World

THURSDAY

“Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart.” Pope Benedict sent out his first tweet. @Pontifex is his main account. #Mayans?

Circus trainers claim two of their elephants were saved from the deadly Siberian cold by vodka. Emergency ministry spokesman Alexander Davydov said the elephants were in a trailer that caught fire outside the city of Novosibirsk, forcing trainers to take them out into the bitter cold before another truck arrived to deliver them to a warm gym at a local community college. The Komsomolskaya Pravda daily reported that trainer Leonid Labo had the animals, aged 45 and 48, drink 10 liters (2.6 gallons) of vodka diluted in warm water — and a veterinarian said later that only the tips of their ears were frostbitten.

The Florida Supreme Court ruled motorist Richard Catalano’s $73 ticket for playing Justin Timberlake tune too loud in his car on his way to work violated his First Amendment right to freedom of expression. Catalano, a Clearwater lawyer, challenged the law as subjective, arguing that determining whether music was too loud was in the ears of the beholder.

FRIDAY

Heavily-armed gunman Adam Lanza, 20, forced hisway into the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and fatally shot 26 people, including 20 children at the school before turning the gun upon himself. His mother, Nancy Lanza, was found shot to death in her Newtown home earlier in the day. Killed in the attack were:

Charlotte Bacon, 2/22/06; Daniel Barden, 9/25/05; Rachel Davino, 7/17/83; Olivia Engel, 7/18/06; Josephine Gay, 12/11/05; Ana M. Marquez-Greene, 04/04/06; Dylan Hockley, 3/8/06; Dawn Hochsprung, 06/28/65; Madeleine F. Hsu, 7/10/06; Catherine V. Hubbard, 6/08/06; Chase Kowalski, 10/31/05; Jesse Lewis, 6/30/06; James Mattioli, 3/22/06; Grace McDonnell, 12/04/05; Anne Marie Murphy, 07/25/60; Emilie Parker, 5/12/06; Jack Pinto, 5/06/06; Noah Pozner, 11/20/06; Caroline Previdi, 9/07/06;Jessica Rekos, 5/10/06; Avielle Richman, 10/17/06; Lauren Rousseau, 6/19/82; Mary Sherlach, 2/11/56; Victoria Soto, 11/04/85; Benjamin Wheeler, 9/12/06; Allison N. Wyatt, 7/03/06.

WEEKEND

President Barack Obama decided to nominate Massachusetts Senator John Kerry to be the next secretary of state. Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate in the 2004 election and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, would replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton if confirmed by the Senate.

A barge with a leaking cargo tank spilled fuel oil into a New York City waterway on Saturday. The barge was carrying 112,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil, but it was unclear how much oil spilled into the water.

Gunfire erupted in the lobby of the medieval-themed Excalibur Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas strip, killing two people in an apparent murder-suicide and sending guests fleeing the casino.

MONDAY

Dina Manfredini, a 115-year-old Iowa woman who was crowned the world’s oldest person less than two weeks ago by Guinness World Records, died at the retirement center in Johnston, Iowa, where she was living. Guinness said the world’s oldest living person is now a Japanese man named Jiroemon Kimura, who is also 115 years.

Ohio Governor John Kasich commuted the death sentence of Ronald Post, 53, who weighs 450 pounds, agreeing with a parole board that his legal representation was inadequate and did not procure the defendant mercy because of his obesity.

Police in Quebec arrested three suspects and seized vehicles and syrup-making equipment after a manhunt aimed at solving the disappearance of $18 million to $22 million worth of syrup last August.

TUESDAY

One in five children in the United States was living in a family with an income below the official poverty level of $23,000 in 2011, marking an increase from 15.6 percent in 2001 to 21.4 percent in 2011.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began clearing rocks from a shallow stretch of the drought-hit Mississippi River - its largest such undertaking in at least 25 years - to maintain the flow of billions of dollars’ worth of goods to Gulf Coast ports.The work, which could take a month to 45 days, is expected to hamper the movement of barges carrying grain from production centers to export terminals at the U.S. Gulf.

The bodies of Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, the two men executed for the 1959 murders of a western Kansas family in a case made famous by the book “In Cold Blood,” were exhumed as part of an investigation into a quadruple homicide in Florida that same year.

Iowa couple Brian and Mary Lohse donated $3 million from their $202 million Powerball jackpot to build a new football stadium for their son’s high school, stipulating, though, that the visitor’s locker room be painted pink.

Compiled by Gazette staff from a variety

of sources.