The World 11/10/11

THE WORLD

THURSDAY

Thirty large U.S. corporations paid no income taxes in 2008 through 2010, said a study by Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Average corporate tax rate over that time was 18.5 percent.

BP agreed to pay $50 million in civil penalties to the state of Texas for pollution from its Texas City refinery, including the deadly March 2005 explosion, which killed 15 workers and injured 180 other people.

Idaho became the first U.S. state to require two online courses for high school graduation when state officials approved the requirement.

Three alleged drug gang leaders from Mexico were arrested in southern Texas following the shooting of Deputy Hugo Rodriguez after he pulled over a vehicle containing a person kidnapped by members of Mexico’s Gulf Cartel.

FRIDAY

The crew of a Mars simulator emerged bleary-eyed after 520 days locked away in windowless, cramped cells to simulate the journey to the red planet.

About 2,000 foreign hikers have been trapped in bad weather on the slopes of a mountain near Mount Everest in a remote corner of Nepal for the past four days.

Halliburton faces lawsuits over groundwater pollution near a now-closed facility in Oklahoma that cleaned missile casings for the U.S. Defense Department during the Cold War.

WEEKEND

The number of poor Americans hit a record 49 million in 2010, or 16 percent, according to new data released by the Census Bureau under a broad new measure intended to supplement the official standard with a fuller picture of poverty.

A pet cat named Jack who spent two hungry months lost inside New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport after escaping from a baggage center has had to be euthanized by veternarians for American Airlines.

An Israeli air strike killed a Palestinian member of Islamic Jihad and wounded two others in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday. Palestinian militants fired a rocket into southern Israel, causing no injuries or damage.

Nigerian actor Babatunde Omidina was freed by authorities after taking 25 closely monitored bowel movements when he was arrested on suspicion of ingesting drugs to smuggle to Europe. After 24 days in detention during which his bowel movements were earnestly followed by authorities and the media, an apologetic High Court judge in Lagos ordered his release.

Greek leaders are struggling to agree on a new prime minister, despite EU demands that the political class commit itself fast to the nation’s financial salvation and end the chaos threatening the entire euro project.

MONDAY

Penn State University Athletic Director Tim Curley and finance official Gary Schultz resigned and face charges for covering up alleged sexual assaults of young boys by former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky.

Michael Jackson’s personal doctor Conrad Murray, 58, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the pop star’s drug-related death in 2009. Murray faces up to four years behind bars when he is sentenced on November 29 but may spend only months in Los Angeles’ overcrowded cells.

Heavyweight boxing Champion Joe Frazier died from liver cancer at the age of 67. “Smokin’ Joe” used an historically powerful left hook to rule the heavyweight division from 1970 to 1973. He was the first boxer to beat Muhammad Ali.

Urban guerrilla ‘Carlos the Jackal’ went on trial for deadly Paris bomb attacks he is accused of mounting at the height of his “anti-imperialist campaign” in the 1970s and 1980s.

TUESDAY

Controversial ballot measures aimed at banning abortion in Mississippi and reducing public sector union power in Ohio were soundly defeated in local elections.

A black asteroid as big as an aircraft carrier zoomed past Earth about 200,000 miles above the planet, delighting astronomers who trained telescopes on the ancient body in hopes of learning more about its composition and origin.

Cleveland police were searching for an election worker who allegedly bit a voter on the nose in a confrontation outside a Cleveland area polling place.

Wal-Mart Heiress Alice Walton, 62, opened her 217,000-square-foot Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark.

WEDNESDAY

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi pledged to resign after implementing economic reforms in an attempt to stabilize the country’s economy. Despite the news, yields on Italian bonds pushed past the “red line” of seven-percent, territory previously only touched by Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

The U.S. military handed over to the Iraqi government Joint Base Balad, the 2nd largest Iraq base, a joint army and air force complex that housed some 36,000 American troops and contractors at the peak of the war, U.S. officials said.

Compiled by Gazette staff

from a variety of sources.