The World 6/23/11

THURSDAY

Representative Anthony Weiner, 46, a New York City congressman, ensnared in a humiliating flap for sending lewd photos of himself to women online, resigned, ending a weeks-long scandal that made his fellow Democrats cringe.

A climber attempting to reach the 14,410-foot peak of Mount Rainier was overcome by hypothermia and slid 2,000 feet into a treacherous “icefall” area to his death.

A black mamba, widely considered the world’s most poisonous snake, was suspected in the death of a woman who kept 75 snakes as pets at her suburban New York home.

Riot police fired tear gas to control a mob that turned violent in downtown Vancouver after the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup final to the Boston Bruins.

FRIDAY

U.S. District Court judge Lewis Kaplan dismissed all criminal charges against Osama bin Laden following the al Qaeda leader’s death in a military raid in Pakistan.

The U.N. Human Rights Council declared there should be global equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Colton Harris-Moore, the “Barefoot Bandit,” pleaded guilty to seven federal charges stemming from a two-year wave of some 80 crimes across nine Western and Midwestern States, British Columbia and the Bahamas. The plea deal could net Harris-Moore a maximum of 78 months in prison and force him to pay more than $1.4 million in restitution.

A deer fawn apparently dropped by a bald eagle onto a high-voltage line knocked out power to some 30 homes for roughly half an hour in western Montana.

WEEKEND

A monster black hole shredded a Sun-like star in the constellation Draco, producing a strange flash of gamma rays that has lasted for two months and probably won’t be seen again in a million years, reported astronomers at the University of California-Berkeley.

Aerospace group EADS, owner of planemaker Airbus, unveiled a hypersonic jet that flies above the atmosphere, but takes off from a regular runway. The plane could make a Paris to Tokyo trip in two and a half hours.

The pleated ivory dress that blew around Marilyn Monroe in her iconic scene from “The Seven Year Itch” sold for $4.6 million at a weekend auction of actress Debbie Reynolds’ collection of Hollywood costumes.

MONDAY

The Supreme Court threw out a massive class-action sex-discrimination lawsuit against WalMart. The justices unanimously ruled that more than 1 million female employees nationwide could not proceed together in the lawsuit seeking billions of dollars and accusing WalMart of paying women less and giving them fewer promotions.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers decided to let people and companies set up a web site with almost any suffix on the address, removing the restriction that all addresses end in .com or .gov.

TUESDAY

The 192-nation U.N. General Assembly unanimously approved a second five-year term for U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon. The former South Korean foreign minister took over as U.N. secretary-general from his predecessor Kofi Annan in 2007.

California controller John Chiang said he would not pay lawmakers after they approved a state budget whose “numbers simply did not add up,” vowing to withhold paychecks until they submit a balanced budget.

Texas executed Milton Mathis, 32, convicted of fatally shooting two people and paralyzing a third near Houston in 1998, despite evidence that he was mentally disabled.

Mexican police captured Jose de Jesus, the suspected leader of cult-like drug cartel La Familia, in the latest blow to a gang that was until recently one of the most notorious in the country.

WEDNESDAY

Australian airlines struggled to move a backlog of tens of thousands of passengers after an ash cloud from a Chilean volcano, which had grounded flights across the country’s eastern and southern states, cleared.

The Brookings Institute reported layoffs of thousands of government workers pose a threat to the already slow-motion economic recovery in many U.S. metropolitan areas. Since the recession began in 2007, 19 out of the 20 metropolitan areas with the strongest economies gained government jobs. Conversely, 13 of the lowest performing 20 areas lost government jobs.

Compiled by Gazette staff from a variety of sources.