The World - Dec. 3, 2009

THURSDAY

Running an end around the Secret Service, Virginia couple Tareq and Michaele Salahi crash the White House to attend President Barack Obama’s state dinner in honor of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The White House officials have asked the Secret Service for a full review of what happened. The couple posted pictures on Facebook showing them with distinguished dinner guests.

Swiss ‘jetman’ Yves Rossy landed in the Strait of Gibraltar after ditching his bid to make aviation history by flying from Africa to Europe using a jet-powered wing attached to his back. Rossy encountered turbulence about half-way through his planned 38-kilometre trip between Tangier in Morocco to Atlanterra in southern Spain.

The Iraqi National Theatre in Baghdad opens its curtains for a night-time performance for the first time in six and a half years.

FRIDAY

Golf star Tiger Woods cuts his face after crashing his Cadillac SUV into a fire hydrant and then a tree at the end of the driveway of his house in Windermere, Florida, around 2:25 a.m.

State and federal prosecutors charge Pacific couple Maria Bartola Santos-Gonzalez and Juan Gonzalez-Guerra for smuggling illegal immigrants from Mexico and keeping them as indentured servants in the couple’s suburban Tacoma home. Investigators found a family that was fed twice a day. The couple kept a chain around the refrigerator so the family could not get any more food.

Twenty-two people were killed and 55 more injured when four carriages of a Russian luxury train derailed, in what officials said could have been an act of terrorism.

A group of 33 Cuban nationals who fled their country by boat landed in the cooling canal of a nuclear power plant along Florida’s coast.

WEEKEND

A gunman walked into the Forza coffee shop in Tacoma Sunday morning and fatally shot four police officers and law enforcement officials. Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39, and Officers Ronald Owens, 37, Tina Griswold, 40, and Greg Richards, 42, were preparing for their day shift shortly after 8 a.m. when the man shot them with a handgun.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced the U.K. will send 500 more soldiers to Afghanistan in December as part of a troop surge to tackle worsening violence and train Afghan forces.

Opposition candidate Porfirio Lobo was elected president of politically-tumultuous Honduras on Sunday.

MONDAY

The “Big Bang” experiment at CERN near Geneva scored a world record by accelerating beams to1.8 trillion electric volts (TeV) - the highest energy ever achieved in a particle collider. The previous record had been set in the U.S. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, which circulated beams to just under 1 TeV.

Twenty-six ministers in Nepal’s cabinet announce plans to meet on Mount Everest next week to highlight the impact of global warming on the Himalayas ahead of UN climate talks in Copenhagen.

Officials within the Kenya Wildlife Service seized 1,100 kg of ivory and arrested 65 people in a major international operation stretching across six African nations.

TUESDAY

Seattle police officer Benjamin L. Kelly shoots and kills Maurice Clemmons, the 37-year-old man suspected of the Tacoma coffee shop killing that took the lives of four police officers Sunday. Kelly was doing paperwork on a stolen car when he suddenly encountered Clemmons, who allegedly reached for a gun. Clemmons’ gun matched the serial number of the gun used in Sunday’s shooting spree.

In a speech delivered from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, President Barack Obama said he will deploy 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan in the first part of 2010 as part of a new strategy that aims to lay the ground for an eventual withdrawal.

Wells Fargo & Co said it would fold up 122 California branches due to its takeover of Wachovia Corp last year. The closures, scheduled to occur in April, will involve shutting down 101 Wachovia offices and 21 Wells Fargo locations.

WEDNESDAY

The Afghan Taliban, in a statement e-mailed to media, said President Barack Obama’s plan to send tens of thousands of extra troops to the country would not work and would only strengthen their resolve.

Over 3,000 square miles in Alaska would be protected as critical habitat for the endangered Cook Inlet beluga whale, under a proposal issued by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Compiled by staff from a variety of sources.