The week at a glance...United States

Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.

Killer sentenced: A U.S. soldier who carried out one of the worst atrocities of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was sentenced last week to life in prison with no chance of parole, angering survivors and victims’ families seeking his execution. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales pleaded guilty in June to murdering 16 Afghan civilians during a one-man shooting rampage in Kandahar province, as part of a deal that allowed the soldier to avoid the death penalty. A six-member military jury announced their decision in front of villagers who had travelled nearly 7,000 miles to testify against Bales, describing through an interpreter how he had gunned down their relatives as they slept in March 2012. “We wanted this murderer to be executed,” said Haji Mohammad Wazir, who lost 11 family members in the attack.

Yosemite National Park, Calif.

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Massive fire: A huge forest fire that has torched parts of Yosemite National Park swelled to nearly 180,000 acres this week, raining ash on a key reservoir and sending San Francisco officials scrambling to find alternative water supplies. More than 4,100 firefighters were called in to battle the Rim Fire—the biggest on record in the Sierra Nevada—backed up by DC-10 and C-130 cargo planes that dropped fire retardant in the fire’s path. The blaze charred about 21,000 acres of the park, forcing the closure of a main route, destroying at least 23 structures, and threatening two groves of giant sequoia trees. Officials were considering diverting water from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir through a treatment plant before delivering it to San Francisco, after ash drifted onto the lake.

San Diego

Filner resigns: After six weeks of civic turmoil over charges of sexual harassment, San Diego Mayor Bob Filner finally announced last week that he will leave office. His resignation forms part of a deal in which the city of San Diego will pay $98,000 toward Filner’s legal costs and will direct his defense against claims made by 18 women that the mayor groped them, put them in “Filner headlocks,” and in one case, requested that a colleague not wear panties to work. Filner originally refused to step down, opting instead to undergo two weeks of “intensive therapy.” But in an emotional speech last week, he said that the “hysteria of the lynch mob” had forced him to resign. A spokesman for the state attorney general’s office said it had launched a criminal investigation into Filner’s behavior.

Fort Hood, Texas

Death for Hasan: Maj. Nidal Hasan was sentenced to death this week for killing 13 U.S. soldiers and wounding 32 others in a mass shooting at Texas’s largest Army base on Nov. 5, 2009. The jury of senior military officers deliberated for just over two hours before handing the former Army psychiatrist the death penalty. Hasan had been found guilty last week by a military court of gunning down fellow soldiers shortly before he was to deploy to Afghanistan. Hasan, a radicalized American Muslim who said he supported the Taliban, acted as his own attorney but called no witnesses. He has indicated he wants to die “a martyr.’’ But it may take years before Hasan’s execution occurs, as the sentence passes through several mandatory reviews, including presidential approval.

Sanford, Fla.

Zimmerman request: Lawyers acting on behalf of George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer acquitted of second-degree murder in the killing of black teenager Trayvon Martin, have asked the state of Florida to reimburse Zimmerman for at least $200,000 worth of expenses incurred during the controversial trial. The main expenses for Zimmerman’s team were expert witnesses who testified that they could not determine who was screaming in the background of a 911 call. “We had to bring in four to five experts on the voice issue,” said lead attorney Mark O’Mara. “That was as much as $75,000 to $100,000.” Zimmerman, meanwhile, was photographed smiling and posing with an employee at the Kel-Tec gun manufacturing company in Cocoa, Fla., where he was allegedly shopping for a tactical shotgun. The 29-year-old is already familiar with the gun manufacturer, having used a Kel-Tec PF-9 pistol to shoot Martin in February 2012.

Boston

Hernandez charged: Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was charged last week with the first-degree murder of his friend Odin Lloyd, a semi-pro football player who was killed execution-style in June. As the charges were read out, Hernandez smiled and mouthed the words “I love you” to his mother, who was also in court. A Rolling Stone investigation published this week says that Hernandez surrounded himself with drug dealers and gangsters while playing for the Patriots, and became a regular user of angel dust—a hallucinogen also known as PCP. The report also alleges that Hernandez failed drug tests while playing college football at the University of Florida, and that head coach Urban Meyer may have helped the player cover up two violent incidents: an assault and a drive-by shooting outside a local bar.