Weekly Review

An American cattleman.

With 112 missiles fired at Libyan military targets, the United States and allies commenced Operation Odyssey Dawn. The military attack followed a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing military action against Muammar Qaddafi’s regime and demanding that attacks against rebel troops cease immediately. “You have proven to the world that you are not civilized,” said Qaddafi, in response to the allied air strikes, “that you are terroristsâ??animals attacking a safe nation that did nothing against you.”CNNABC NewsNew York TimesThe confirmed death toll from Japan’s earthquake and tsunami rose to about 8,400, and the final death toll was expected to be more than 20,000. President Barack Obama made an unannounced visit to the Japanese embassy in Washington, D.C., to sign a condolence book. As the risk of full-scale meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant became more likely, 750 emergency staff were evacuated, leaving behind only 50 technicians, who either volunteered or were compelled to stay. “I may be a bit too callous about this due to the fact that I was really heavily exposed to radiation,” said seventy-one-year-old Kazuko Yamashita, who was five when her home in Nagasaki was destroyed by an atomic bomb, “but I don’t think this is anything to turn pale over.” New York TimesTalking Points MemoNew York TimesMSNBC

Authorities in Bahrain tore down a 300-foot sculpture in Pearl Square that had become the defining monument of the protest movement, saying the change was to “boost the flow of traffic” in the square, and security forces in Yemen opened fire on protestors, injuring more than 200 people and killing at least 40. “I actually expect more than this,” said one activist, “because freedom requires martyrs.” New York TimesNew York TimesThe Browning M1911 semiautomatic pistol was declared the state gun of Utah, and the U.S. House of Representatives ended a program (implemented when Democrats controlled the House) that had replaced plastic utensils and foam cups with compostable products in the House cafeterias. Talking Points MemoNew York TimesA New York City woman whose husband had jabbed a cyanide-filled needle into her buttocks died, as did a snake that bit an Israeli model’s fake breast, of silicone poisoning. New York Daily NewsOrange NewsPhysicists said that the Large Hadron Collider could be used as a time machine to send messages to the past or the future.Live Science

Former secretary of state Warren Christopher, 41-year-old hip-hop singer Nate Dogg, and Knut, Germany’s beloved polar bear, all died. “He was by himself in his compound, he was in the water,” said bearkeeper Heiner Kloes about Knut, “and then he was dead.” New York TimesAssociated PressNew York TimesDoctors in China were struggling to save Xin Xin, a two-month-old boy who was born with his heart growing on his stomach.Orange NewsThe most expensive dog in the world, an 11-month-old red Tibetan mastiff named Big Splash (or Hong Dong in Chinese), was sold to a Chinese coal baron for more than $1 million. “If you don’t give them enough attention they sit in front of the TV,” said Tibetan mastiff breeder James Pally.Daily MailA New York City mother sued a $19,000-a-year preschool for allowing her four-year-old daughter to play too much, claiming that the school had damaged her child’s chances of one day attending an Ivy League college, and high school students gathered online to grumble about an SAT prompt that asked test-takers to write about reality television. “I ended up talking about Jacob Riis and how any form of media cannot capture reality objectively,” one student wrote, invoking the 19th-century social reformer. “I kinda want to cry right now.”New York Daily NewsNew York TimesFour-year-old Suri Cruise was photographed holding a box of penis gummies. Daily MailAlexandra Wallace, a third-year UCLA undergraduate, apologized and withdrew from the school after creating a YouTube video in which she complained about “the hordes of Asian people” talking on cell phones in the campus library. “I swear they’re going through their whole families just checking on everybody from the tsunami thing,” she said. “You might as well go outside, because, if something is wrong, you might really freak out and you’re in the library, and everybody’s quiet.”New York Daily News