The World 9/29/11

THURSDAY

Alabama executed Derrick O’Neal Mason, 37, by lethal injection - the third execution carried out in the U.S. last week. Mason’s execution followed two high-profile lethal injections this week in Georgia and Texas. In a case that drew international attention, Troy Davis was put to death in Georgia on Wednesday for the murder of a police officer despite claims by his advocates that he may have been innocent. Also Wednesday, Texas executed Lawrence Brewer, a white supremacist convicted of helping to kill a black man by dragging him behind a truck.

A three-judge panel in North Carolina ruled two men who spent a decade in prison after confessing to a murder charge are innocent of the crime and should be immediately released. They plead guilty to avoid the death penatly.

A state of Arkansas archivist looking through boxes of former President Bill Clinton’s gubernatorial papers found a long-lost moon rock from the Apollo 17 mission.

FRIDAY

Texas abolished its tradition of offering an opulent last meal to condemned inmates before their executions. Brewer requested a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, a meat-lover’s pizza, a big bowl of okra with ketchup, a pound of barbecue, a half a loaf of bread, peanut butter fudge, a pint of ice cream and two chicken-fried steaks for his last meal Wednesday. He declined to eat it before he was executed.

CERN, home to the Large Hadron Collider, said it had recorded invisible neutrino particles that had traveled faster than the speed of light, potentially refuting Albert Einstein’s theory that the speed of light was a “cosmic constant,” and nothing could go faster.

A Texas jury sentenced drug dealer Kenza Triplett, 23, to 60 years in prison for the shotgun slaying of a man in a robbery which netted a grand total of one cent.

Some 84 residents face drug charges in Roswell, N. M., after a 150-agent raid on a major drug ring which netted 14 high-powered firearms and thousands of grams of drugs.

WEEKIEND

A poll of primary care physicians found more than half said their patients received too much medical care, including unnecessary tests, excess drug prescriptions and diagnosing diseases without symptoms. On the other hand, just six percent of doctors believed their patients were getting too little care. According to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. spent $7,960 per capita on healthcare in 2009. That’s $2,608 more than Norway, the runner-up, shelled out.

A bus-sized NASA science satellite crashed to Earth Saturday, leaving a mystery about where a ton of space debris may have landed.

Several hundred marchers, carrying signs that read “Tax the rich,” and “We Want Money for Healthcare not Corporate Welfare,” wound their way through the streets of lower Manhattan Saturday in protest over corporate greed on Wall Street.

A shooting erupted during a brawl between the Hells Angels and Vagos motorcycle clubs at a high-rise casino in Sparks, Nev., Saturday, killing a bystanding biking enthusiast and wounding two others.

MONDAY

Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey vetoed a $420,000 film tax credit dubbed the “Snooki Subsidy” for the reality show “The Jersey Shore,” citing the state’s budget crunch.

A fiery explosion from a natural gas leak leveled a house in Seattle, seriously injuring two people and shattering windows in the surrounding neighborhood, authorities said.

The United States Postal Service announced a new rule that would allow living or recently deceased persons to appear on a stamp.

The North American Animal Liberation Press Office claimed responsibility for a fire that caused $100,000 in damage to a Boise-area store that sells fur coats and fireworks.

TUESDAY

Israel approved construction of 1,100 settlement homes on annexed land in the West Bank near the proposed capital of a Palestinian state, just after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas applied at the U.N. on Friday for full Palestinian membership.

Arch West, the recently-deceased founder of Doritos, ordered his beloved snack chips be buried with his ashes at a Dallas cemetery.

Idaho Falls police closed an investigation into the origins of a mummified hand after learning it dates back 700 to 1,000 years.

WEDNESDAY

Libya’s first crude oil cargo to be shipped in months sailed from the eastern port of Marsa el Hariga for Italy. The country, formerly Africa’s third-largest producer, had exported only two other crude oil cargoes since a rebellion erupted against former leader Muammar Gaddafi in February. Gaddafi was toppled last month.

Compiled by Gazettestaff

from a variety of sources.