The week at a glance...United States

Tucson

Lion tacos 86’ed: A Tucson eatery this week canceled plans to serve African-lion tacos after a promotion for the dish ignited angry protests. Boca Tacos y Tequila, which hosts a weekly Exotic Taco Night that in the past has featured python, elk, and kangaroo tacos, had advertised the upcoming lion-taco night on Facebook and solicited preorders. But after owner Bryan Mazon said he and his staff received death threats, he called off the promotion. He had received “more calls telling me to go to hell and drop dead,” he said, than actual orders. Because lions are not an endangered species, it’s legal, though rare, to serve them as food in the U.S.

Houston

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Giffords starts rehab: Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, shot through the head on Jan. 8 during a meeting with constituents, was transferred this week from a Houston hospital to a nearby rehabilitation center. Doctors upgraded her condition from serious to good after draining excess fluid from her brain. “She’s been showing improvements every day,” said Dr. Dong Kim of the University of Texas Medical School. Giffords’ husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, reported that she has been watching television for up to an hour at a time. “With each day she’s able to do things that are a little more complex than she’s been doing before,” he said. Investigators said that before the shootings, accused murderer Jared Loughner had used his computer to research political assassinations, solitary confinement, and lethal injections.

Atlanta

Killer’s controversial execution: The state of Georgia executed Emmanuel “Demon” Hammond, 45, after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-minute appeal questioning the origins of a drug used in the three-drug cocktail that killed him. Lawyers for Hammond, convicted of murdering an Atlanta preschool teacher in 1988, claimed that the state had acquired the drug, sodium thiopental, from a “fly-by-night supplier operating from the back of a driving school in England.” Attorneys for the state disputed the claim, and the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal. The sole U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental, Hospira Inc. of Lake Forest, Ill., has stopped producing it. In response, Ohio last week approved the use of a single drug in executions—pentobarbital, which is also used to put down pets.

Chicago

Emanuel stays on ballot: The Illinois Supreme Court this week ordered Chicago to keep Rahm Emanuel, former White House chief of staff, on the mayoral ballot, despite an appellate court’s ruling a day before that Emanuel did not meet the city’s residency requirement to run for mayor. The state’s highest court said that with the election scheduled for Feb. 22, it would hear an expedited appeal of the ruling. The decision disqualifying Emanuel came as he was leading the three other main candidates in the race by a wide margin in opinion polls. Attorneys for Emanuel contend that the lower court’s ruling failed to reflect a state law that allows Illinois citizens to maintain their residency while they do government service out of state.

Gilgo Beach, N.Y.

Serial killer sought: Four women found dead along a lonely stretch of road on Long Island were likely the victims of a serial murderer, police said this week. The women, all in their 20s, had worked as prostitutes who advertised their services on Craigslist or other websites. The method of killing each woman was “substantially similar,” according to Thomas Spota, the local district attorney handling the case. Police found the bodies in mid-December, each wrapped in burlap and dumped along a deserted stretch of beach road. After one of the killings, a male used the victim’s cell phone to call her sister, taunting her that the dead woman was “a whore.’’

Brooklyn, N.Y.

Racketeer roundup: Law-enforcement authorities in the Northeast and Florida fanned out last week to arrest 127 alleged organized-crime figures, including several identified by federal prosecutors as senior figures in the Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Patriarca crime families. Most of those rounded up were arraigned in a Brooklyn federal court, where they are charged with offenses including extortion, loan-sharking, drug trafficking, and murder. In Florida, authorities arrested Luigi “Baby Shacks” Manocchio, 83, who allegedly brought discipline to Rhode Island’s notoriously fractious Patriarca crime family. In Brooklyn, Bartolomeo Vernace, said to be a member of the Gambino family, stands accused of murdering two men in a dispute over a spilled drink.