The week at a glance...United States

Delano, Calif.

Bird stabs man: A man died after he was stabbed by a blade attached to a gamecock’s leg last week, during a cockfight near a rural crossroads in central California. José Luis Ochoa, 35, wounded in the right calf, fled with other spectators when sheriff’s deputies, acting on a tip, arrived at the makeshift cockpit, where they found five dead roosters and other evidence of illegal cockfighting. Ochoa was declared dead at a local hospital two hours later. “I have never seen this type of incident,” said a sheriff’s spokesman. “People have been known to bleed out from those injuries if medical assistance is not obtained immediately.” John Goodwin of the Humane Society of the United States said that stakes can rise to $10,000, even in small cockfights. “Considering the knives they put on those birds, it’s not a surprise that somebody got killed,” he said.

Helena, Mont.

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Senate endorses ‘cowboy code’: The state senate this week moved to adopt the “cowboy code” as a guide for Montana’s residents, urging them to “live each day with courage,” “be tough but fair,” and “always ride for the brand,” along with other folksy directives. Senate President Jim Peterson said he views the code as “a set of golden rules that makes us stronger as a state, and as a nation, and as a person,” but Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer is not convinced. He has threatened to veto “frivolous” bills that don’t promote jobs, and said Montana families are already guaranteed “an opportunity to live a life of freedom as they choose.” Native Americans less convinced of the virtue of cowboys have also criticized the bill. The code was first laid down in the 2005 book Cowboy Ethics, by Wall Street investor James P. Owen.

Galveston, Texas

Mexican patient denied surgery: A woman with a banana-sized tumor along her spine was under treatment in Houston this week after having been yanked from the surgery roster at a Galveston hospital for being an illegal immigrant. Maria Sanchez, 24, had been in the John Healy Hospital for six days and was being prepared for surgery when she says a doctor told her to go to Mexico instead. “They treated us like animals, like dogs or something,” Luis Aguillon, Sanchez’s husband and a legal U.S. resident, told the Houston Chronicle. While hospitals are not obliged to admit illegal immigrants, they are obligated to provide care for any patient they’ve admitted, especially when a life is at risk. “Every hospital knows this,” said Laurence B. McCullough, head of medical ethics at Baylor College of Medicine. “This is not rocket-science ethics.” The Galveston hospital issued a statement that it couldn’t discuss the specific case because of privacy laws. Aguillon said the pair had tried eight other facilities before qualifying for treatment in Houston.

Tulsa and south-central states

Snows in the South: Before the south-central states had entirely dug out from last week’s storm, another blizzard dumped more than a foot of snow on the region. The town of Gentry, Ark., in the northwest corner of the state, got 20 inches, leaving it unable to reopen schools that have been closed for more than a week. Across the state line in Delaware County, Okla., county official Richard Real said one state road had been rendered impassable. “The whole county is a whiteout,” he said. This week’s storm brought Tulsa’s seasonal snowfall total to almost 26 inches, burying the previous record set in 1923–24. Farther south, in Dallas and Fort Worth—where record snowfalls earlier this month made travel difficult for thousands of Super Bowl attendees—the new snow closed schools and led to more canceled flights. The administrators of Texas’s electrical grid had to order rotating outages to cope with frozen pipes at power plants.

Youngstown, Ohio

Frat house shooting: Two men who were tossed out of a fraternity house party last week after a dispute over a girl came back to spray guests with gunfire, killing one and injuring 11. Omega Psi Phi member Jamail E. Johnson, 25, a senior at Youngstown State University, was shot as he tried to defuse the situation. “He was trying to be a hero,” said one witness. Police later arrested Braylon L. Rogers, 19, and Columbus E. Jones Jr., 22, and charged them with aggravated murder and felonious assault. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who took office last month, visited the city to pledge new crime-reducing initiatives ranging from a crackdown on alcohol sales to minors to stiffer sentences for using weapons near schools, universities, or churches. “I can’t tell you that any one of those things could have stopped this from happening,” Kasich said.

Washington, D.C.

Unwilling stowaway: A baggage handler was rescued from the tiny baggage compartment of a U.S. Airways jet this week after passengers awaiting takeoff at Reagan National Airport heard his pounding and screaming from beneath the floor. The handler had been locked into the space, only 37 inches high, after he crawled in to load luggage. Once he was freed, the worker resumed his routine, driving the tug that pushed the plane, a Brazilian-made Embraer E-170, away from the gate. The flight was not delayed, and took off earlier than scheduled for its trip to Hartford.