The week at a glance...United States

Los Angeles

Jackson death trial: Dr. Conrad Murray, who is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson, declined to testify on his own behalf this week, bringing testimony in the six-week trial to a close. Murray, who was the pop star’s personal physician, withheld his decision to remain silent until the last minute, thus ending the defense case and setting the stage for closing arguments. A Jackson fan was removed from the courthouse after yelling, “Murderer! Murderer!” at Murray during a recess. The prosecution contends that Murray used propofol, a surgical anesthetic found in hospitals, to treat Jackson’s insomnia in his home, a deviation from accepted standards of care that made him criminally responsible for Jackson’s death. Murray’s defense team said Jackson injected the fatal dose himself. Murray faces four years in prison if convicted.

Denver

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Occupy protests turn ugly: Violent clashes broke out between Occupy Wall Street protesters and police in downtown Denver last week, resulting in the arrests of 20 demonstrators. Police said the trouble started when 2,000 protesters demonstrating against inequality and corporate greed marched toward the State Capitol building. A small group tried to advance up the steps, where they scuffled with police. Officers then used pepper spray and pepper balls—hollow projectiles filled with a chemical irritant—to break up the crowd. A few hours later, police entered the city’s Civic Park and tore down the protesters’ illegally erected tents. “It was just chaos, this wasn’t necessary,” said protester Chantrell Smiley, who claimed that her friend had been maced. Meanwhile, in Austin police arrested 38 people who had set up a food table outside City Hall and wouldn’t leave the area. Thirty demonstrators were also cuffed in Portland, Ore., after they refused to leave a city park.

Leavenworth, Kan.

Crack prisoners released: The first 1,900 prisoners eligible for immediate release under new federal sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine crimes left their cells in Leavenworth and other federal prisons this week. Over time, some 12,000 other inmates could follow, their average 13-year sentences shortened by an average of three years. These prisoners have been serving far longer jail sentences—up to 100 times longer—than people convicted of crimes involving powdered cocaine. In 2010, Congress responded to this disparity, which appeared to have racial overtones, by passing the Fair Sentencing Act, reducing the sentencing ratio to 18 to 1. The new rule will save “tens of millions of dollars and hopefully allow the bureau of prisons to use those beds to house more-dangerous people,” said federal public defender Michael Nachmanoff.

New Orleans

Bloody Halloween: Sixteen people were shot and at least two killed in a bloody Halloween shooting spree that brought gunfire to Bourbon Street, the tourist hot spot in the French Quarter. In the first incident, two men traded gunfire in a crowd while horrified tourists ran for cover. A 25-year-old New Orleans man was shot dead and seven others were wounded, while revelers carried on. “We were all upstairs having a good time,” said Rob Ratcher of North Carolina. “It sounded like firecrackers.” An hour later, on busy Canal Street, an argument erupted into gunfire, after which a 19-year-old lay dead and three others were wounded. Three other overnight shootings occurred in residential areas. New Orleans’s murder rate was more than 10 times the national average in 2009, according to a report commissioned by the Bureau of Justice Assistance.

Atlanta

Four charged in militia plot: Four members of a fringe militia group were charged this week with plotting to use the toxin ricin to kill thousands of federal agents and others in U.S. cities in an effort “to save the country.’’ Frederick Thomas, 73, of Cleveland, Ga., said he wanted to “make the country right again,” prosecutors said, and led a series of meetings beginning last March with alleged co-conspirators Dan Roberts, Ray Adams, and Samuel Crump. According to an affidavit, the group planned to extract ricin from castor beans and disperse it in several cities. They also allegedly discussed obtaining firearms and conducted surveillance on federal buildings. “There’s no way for us, as militiamen, to save the country, to save Georgia, without doing something that’s highly illegal: murder,” Thomas said, according to the affidavit. “When it comes to saving the Constitution, that means some people gotta die.”

W.Va. to Maine

Freak snowstorm slams East Coast: More than 2 million people were left without electricity this week after an early snowstorm hit the East Coast. The storm dumped up to 30 inches of snow in some places and was blamed for 23 deaths, including that of a 20-year-old man electrocuted by a downed power line in Springfield, Mass. Communities in Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire were forced to shut schools and delay Halloween celebrations for several days as toppled trees and downed power lines were cleared from roads. And in New York City’s Central Park, where a record 2.9 inches fell on branches still heavy with red and golden leaves, as many as 1,000 trees may have been damaged. “[The snow] was like wet cement that just adhered to trees, branches, leaves, and power lines,” said David Graves, a spokesman for the utility National Grid. “That’s what really caused the damage.”