The week at a glance ... United States

last updated 8 January 2015

Fresno, Calif.

Candidate’s illegal employee: Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman’s longtime employment of an undocumented immigrant housekeeper sparked a contentious debate last weekend with her Democratic rival, state Attorney General Jerry Brown. Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, employed Nicandra Diaz Santillan for nine years, firing her in 2009 just before launching her campaign. The former housekeeper held a press conference last week, accompanied by celebrity attorney Gloria Allred, at which she accused Whitman of forcing her to work long hours without extra pay. Whitman denies the charge and says she was unaware of Santillan’s illegal status until shortly before she fired her. Whitman has said employers should be held “accountable” for hiring illegals, so Brown called her a hypocrite; Whitman accused Brown of “sacrificing Nicky Diaz on the altar of your political ambitions.”

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Soldier suicides: Four soldiers based at Fort Hood fatally shot themselves last week, adding to an already grim tally of suicides at the base. There have been 14 confirmed suicides at Fort Hood this year, including last week’s, while six other deaths are under investigation. “Every one of these is tragic,” said Maj. Gen. William Grimsley, the post commander. “It’s personally and professionally frustrating as a leader.” The suicide rate in the Army and Marines has more than doubled since 2005, which a Pentagon report attributes in part to “unprecedented” physical and psychological demands imposed by two wars and multiple deployments.

Obion County, Tenn.

Firefighters idle at blaze: Firefighters allowed a double-wide trailer in a rural neighborhood to burn to the ground last week because the owners hadn’t paid a $75 fee. Gene and Paulette Cranick lost all their possessions along with their three dogs and a cat because the family hadn’t paid a yearly fee required of county residents outside city limits to obtain fire protection from the closest city, South Fulton. Cranick offered firefighters money to douse the blaze, but they said it was too late. “I thought they’d come out and put it out even if you hadn’t paid your $75, but I was wrong,” Cranick said. Only after the fire spread to a neighboring house, for which the fee had been paid, did firefighters respond. Neighbors were outraged, but Mayor David Crocker of South Fulton was unapologetic. “It’s a service we offer—either they accept it or they don’t,” he said.

New Castle, Pa.

Murder charges in cold case: Two men were charged last week with a 17-year-old murder after the estranged wife of one told police that her husband had killed a teenage girl in 1993. Shannon Marshall said Joseph Marshall told her of the killing several months after he and another man, Sean McDonough, had murdered 15-year-old Laura Thompson, after McDonough had raped her. Shannon Marshall, who is divorcing her husband, said she had acted as a lookout while he dug up Thompson’s remains shortly after the killing and reburied them. Thompson’s mother said her daughter, a single mother, had never returned after leaving the house to play cards with Marshall and McDonough. She said she had always assumed the girl had run away “because she didn’t like being poor.”

New York

Big Apple, lower case: New York City last week began changing city street signs—all 250,900 of them—to upper-and lowercase from the all-capital letters that have graced them for more than a century. Federal Highway Administration officials say that the new signs, in which only the first letter is capitalized, are easier to read, enabling drivers to spend less time with their eyes averted from the road. The change, they say, will save lives. At $110 per sign, the effort will also cost New York state $27.6 million. City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan noted an additional benefit of the switch: It’s more polite. “Writing in all caps means you are shouting,” she said.

New York

Terrorist gets life: “Brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun.” Those were the defiant words of Faisal Shahzad, as the Pakistani-born U.S. citizen was sentenced to life in prison this week for attempting to detonate a car bomb in Times Square last May. Shahzad, who parked a Nissan Pathfinder outfitted with crude explosives in Times Square with the intent to kill scores of Americans, pleaded guilty to all charges against him. In a long beard and white skullcap, he argued with federal District Judge Miriam Cedarbaum over his interpretation of the Koran and his justifications for the crime. After sentencing him, Cedarbaum said she hoped he would “spend some of the time in prison thinking carefully about whether the Koran wants you to kill lots of people.”