The world - Dec. 2, 2010

THURSDAY

Italian students stormed the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Rome’s Colossuem in protest against university reforms, including tuition raises, spending cuts and time limits on research, planned by the government.

A chemistry professor in eastern France was fined 8,000 euros for using faulty rubber tubes in a 2006 experiment that caused an explosion, killed a colleague and injured a student.

Former US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin called for the U.S. to “stand with our North Korean allies,” in a radio interview. When corrected by the radio host, she changed her statement to say the U.S. needs to back South Korea.

FRIDAY

Three teenage boys from the New Zealand territory of Tokelau were rescued on the South Pacific after spending 50 days adrift in a small boat. They survived on coconuts, a seagull they managed to catch and by drinking rain water. A memorial service had been held for the boys two weeks ago.

U.S. border agents said they found a multi-million dollar drug-smuggling tunnel between Tijuana and San Diego. The tunnel is a half-mile long and is big enough to drive large trucks through.

FedEx found a small radioactive rod lost in shipping earlier in the week. The rod, used to calibrate medical equipment like CT scanners, was found at a Knoxville FedEx depot.

WEEKEND

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a 19-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, was arrested for attempting to detonate a phony car bomb at a Christmas Tree lighting ceremony in Portland. FBI officals and other law enforcement agents supplied Mohamud with the bomb after contacting him in a sting operation. An Islamic center in Corvalis was burned before dawn Sunday in protest against the alleged failed bomb plot by Mohamud.

President Barack Obama had to get 12 stitches in his lip after taking an elbow from a friend in a pickup basketball game.

SpiderMan, Broadway’s most expensive show ever with a $65 million production cost, debuted with a dud Sunday as the show’s star dangled from mid-air suspension cables that malfunctioned. The New York Times reported crew members intercepted and attempted to grab his foot to pull him down, leaving the audience laughing.

MONDAY

The remains of 18 soldiers from Napoleon’s Grand Armee were reburied in Lithuania, almost 200 years after the men were killed in the failed siege of Moscow.

Fearing an accident might make him late for work, New York grocery clerk Carlos Flores jumped onto city subway tracks to haul an injured passenger to safety after he fainted.

A small dog survived the crash of a single-engine homemade plane that killed the pilot about 30 miles south of Portland. The dog was found singed and smelling of smoke, but in good health.

TUESDAY

Credit card use by Black Friday shoppers was at its lowest level ever seen, according to a survey by America’s Research Group and UBS. Only 16.3 percent of consumers polled said they used credit cards for their shopping, down from 30.9 percent last year.

A two-year-old girl died after her grandmother allegedly threw her from a balcony at a shopping mall in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. Police said they had no clear motive for the grandmother’s actions.

Portland International Airport was ranked as the best in America by a Zagat survey of 30 airports. New York’s LaGuardia was ranked the worst.

WEDNESDAY

The UK put an old aircraft carrier on the auction block in an effort to boost the government’s revenues. The ship HMS Invincible was decommissioned in 2005, and saw its heaviest action in the 1982 Falklands war. Prince Andrew served as a helicopter pilot on the ship during that conflict.

Researchers at Britain’s Warwick University released a study that found men whose index finger is longer than their ring finger were one-third less likely to develop prostate cancer than men with the opposite pattern of finger lengths.

Compiled by Gazette staff from a variety of sources.