Salt Lake City
Death by firing squad: Two-time murderer Ronnie Gardner was put to death by firing squad last week, the third such execution in the U.S.—all of them in Utah—since 1976. Gardner, who’d been on death row for 25 years, was convicted in 1985 of murdering a lawyer while attempting to escape during a court appearance for an earlier murder. Gardner met his death blindfolded and strapped to the execution chair in the Utah State Prison. Five marksmen fired into a target pinned to Gardner’s chest. Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff announced the execution through his Twitter account, stirring complaints that his use of the medium trivialized the occasion.
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Huge fire burns on: A wildfire extending over 14,000 acres near Flagstaff has forced thousands of people to evacuate a suburban neighborhood. More than 800 firefighters from several states were battling the blaze, whose cause remained unclear. The fire, fanned by high winds funneling through a mountain pass, forced the temporary closure of U.S. Highway 89. Firefighters were being hampered by high temperatures, steep, rugged terrain, and altitudes as high as 12,000 feet. Authorities said it could take two weeks to contain the fire, and that recovery would be slow. “Those woods won’t look decent again for 100 years,” said Coconino County Supervisor Carl Taylor.
Fremont, Neb.
Immigration crackdown: The voters of Fremont, Neb., this week approved a law barring businesses from hiring illegal aliens and landlords from renting to them. The law, which passed with 57 percent of a referendum vote, was drafted in response to a recent influx of 2,000 predominantly Mexican immigrants into the town of 25,000. Most of the immigrants work in nearby meatpacking plants. The law mandates that employers check each applicant’s immigration status against a federal database and requires would-be renters to first obtain a permit. The American Civil Liberties Union said it would challenge the law in court.
Phoenix
Feds vs. Arizona: The U.S. Justice Department plans to challenge Arizona’s strict new immigration law in federal court, administration officials announced. Attorney General Eric Holder said the U.S. would sue on the grounds that immigration is a federal, not a state, matter, and because the law could foment racial and ethnic discrimination. The Arizona law, which was passed in April, requires immigrants to carry their papers and mandates that police question people about their immigration status if there is “reasonable suspicion” that they are in the country illegally. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed the administration’s intentions during a visit to Ecuador. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a supporter of the law, called it “shameful” that Arizona learned of the planned suit through the media.
New York City
Failed bomber confesses: Faisal Shahzad, the would-be terrorist who in May tried to detonate a car bomb in Times Square, this week pleaded “guilty 100 times over” to charges that will put him in prison for the rest of his life. Shahzad, 30, aired his jihadist views in federal court in Manhattan, calmly telling Judge Miriam Cedarbaum that he was “part of the answer to the U.S. terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people.” He admitted to making a bomb after receiving five days of training at a Taliban camp in Pakistan, and warned that other jihadists would launch attacks as long as the U.S. remained in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Asked if he worried about harming children with his bomb, Shahzad replied, “The drone hits in Afghanistan and Iraq, they don’t see children.”
Omaha
The $600 billion challenge: Launching what experts say could be the biggest fundraising drive in the history of philanthropy, billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are urging other American billionaires to donate half their net worth to charity. The pair is initially targeting the 400 richest Americans, as identified by Forbes magazine. Those 400 have a combined net worth of $1.2 trillion, making for a potential charitable windfall of $600 billion. Gates and his wife, Melinda, have endowed the world’s biggest charitable foundation, to which Buffett has contributed $6.4 billion.
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