California got its man, ex-LAPD cop turned killer Chris Dorner, to end the largeat manhunt in state history, while weary passengers aboard the crippled Carnival Triumph finally made it back to port.
In Washington, the White House revealed that President Obama made no phone calls on the night of the Benghazi terror attack, while Sen. Marco Rubio stole the spotlight on State of the Union night by reaching for and sipping a bottle of Poland Spring water during his nationally televised rebuttal.
Here’s a recap, or wrap, on the week that was from The Washington Times:
Former Los Angeles police officer Christopher Dorner is believed to have murdered four people, including two cops, the daughter of a retired police captain and her fiancee.
He is suspected in the shootings of three other police officers.
Following a massive, violent manhunt that involved hostage-taking, a high speed car chase and an entire region set on edge, he reportedly was killed Wednesday during a shootout with police at a cabin in Big Bear, Calif.
Nevertheless, Mr. Dorner has a Facebook fan page — dozens of them, actually — and as of Thursday, two of those pages had collected more than 20,000 “likes.”
Some warriors inside the Pentagon are reacting with amusement and anger over outgoing Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta’s decision to create a prestigious heroism medal for cyber and drone combatants who sit inside stations outside a war zone.
Mr. Panetta is exiting the building as a man generally admired by the Pentagon population, including hundreds of those tested in battle, for his hawkish views on killing Islamic terrorists and his devotion to the troops.
But he is now also the brunt of jokes for his announcement Wednesday that he had created the Distinguished Warfare Medal and placed it high on the medal prestige list.
“I suppose now they will award Purple Hearts for carpal tunnel syndrome,” said a retired Green Beret who does contract work for the Pentagon.
Domestic-violence opponents say the apparent murder of a South African model by her world-famous athlete boyfriend shows that dating violence can happen to anyone, anywhere.
South Africans were reeling Thursday from the news that Olympic track star and national sporting hero Oscar Pistorius, 26, was charged with murder of fashion model Reeva Steenkamp, 29, inside his gated home in Pretoria, South Africa.
President Obama didn’t make any phone calls the night of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the White House said in a letter to Congress released Thursday.
“During the entire attack, the president of the United States never picked up the phone to put the weight of his office in the mix,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, who added that if Mr. Obama had picked up the phone, at least two of the Americans killed in the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi might still be alive because he might have been able to push U.S. aid to get to the scene faster.
A Carnival cruise nightmare for 4,000 passengers has finally come to an end, as the ship — after five days disabled at sea — pulled into a Mobile, Ala., dock late Thursday evening.
“This was my first and my last cruise,” groused one passenger, who stepped from the ship and promptly kissed the ground.
Sen. Marco Rubio’s now-infamous reach for a sip of water during his State of the Union rebuttal is the best thing to happen to Poland Spring since the invention of plastic packaging.
Twitter feeds were, well, atwitter, about Mr. Rubio’s post-State of the Union reach for a bottle of the Maine product. Poland Spring, according to search statistics, was soaring on Twitter search trends.
Mr. Rubio’s awkward reach and sip out of a Poland Spring water bottle during his national TV appearance sparked a Twitter frenzy about his perceived klutzy mannerisms.
Pope Benedict XVI broke centuries of precedent Monday by resigning the papacy because of issues of old age, surprising the globe’s 1.1 billion Roman Catholics and prompting speculation that the next pope will be the first non-European to lead the church in modern times.
Once the shock wore off, church leaders and followers praised Benedict’s legacy on such matters as liturgy and dealing with the church’s sex-abuse scandals, but also began to debate the merits of a younger pope who might reign for decades and be more representative of the global church, which has had its biggest recent membership increases in South America, Africa and Asia.
Thousands lined streets and highway overpasses in Midlothian, Texas, on Tuesday to pay respects to slain former Navy SEAL Christopher Kyle as his funeral procession travels 200 miles to Austin.
“I think it’s wonderful that they’re honoring this man. So I think it’s — I think it’s beautiful,” said Midlothian resident Ana Juarez, in the NBC report.
Mr. Kyle, 38, was a celebrated veteran who completed four tours of duty in Iraq and wrote the best-selling book “American Sniper.” He was murdered at a North Texas gun range.
Republicans succeeded Thursday in blocking a vote on Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s defense secretary nominee, by launching the first filibuster in history against a president’s choice to fill the Pentagon’s top civilian post.
GOP senators said they are delaying the confirmation in order to have more time to study Mr. Hagel’s record and to obtain more information on the White House’s handling of the September attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, a matter on which they accuse the administration of stonewalling or providing wrong information.
Republicans expect they will green-light him later this month after the chamber returns from a weeklong vacation.
Researchers at Granada University in Spain have found that beer can help the body rehydrate better after a workout than water or Gatorade.
Professor Manuel Garzon also claimed the carbonation in beer helps to quench the thirst and that its carbohydrate content can help replace lost calories.
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