The world at a glance . . . United States

Los Angeles

Researcher’s car bombed: Animal-rights activists this week claimed responsibility for firebombing a car belonging to a UCLA neuroscientist who uses primates in his research. The website of the Animal Liberation Front carried a posting from a group that said it had firebombed the car of a researcher studying treatments for schizophrenia and drug addiction. He was unhurt. Police withheld the researcher’s identity, citing concerns for his safety. The bombing is the latest in a series of attacks aimed at research scientists in California. A court injunction prohibits activists from distributing the names and personal information of scientists experimenting on animals.

Samson, Ala.

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Killing spree: In what may be the worst mass killing in the state’s history, an Alabama man this week went on a shooting spree that left five members of his family dead, along with five apparent strangers. The gunman eventually took his own life. Police said Michael McLendon, 27, began his rampage in the town of Kinston, where he killed his mother and set her house afire before moving on to Samson, where he shot his grandparents, an uncle, an aunt, and three neighbors. Then McLendon drove to another nearby town, killing a man and a woman along the way. He ended up at a metals plant where he’d once worked. He shot himself as police moved in. “I don’t think anybody has any idea what the motive is,” said Samson Mayor Clay King. “The whole community is in shock.”

New York City

Madoff guilty plea: Lawyers for disgraced financier Bernard Madoff said their client would plead guilty this week to masterminding a gigantic, long-running Ponzi scheme. Prosecutors emphasized that the plea was not negotiated in return for a lenient sentence. Court documents filed in connection with the plea shed new light on Madoff’s scheme. Madoff, prosecutors allege, moved money among various accounts to give the impression of active trading, and used poorly trained, inexperienced staffers to produce bogus trading records and account statements. Prosecutors pegged the amount of Madoff’s fraud at $68 billion, not the $50 billion that Madoff had admitted to, and demanded that Madoff forfeit $170 billion—a figure equal to the amount of money moving in and out of Madoff’s accounts during the two decades that the fraud was in operation. Madoff faces a prison term of up to 150 years when he is sentenced in June.

Atlanta

Child-porn ring busted: Georgia and federal law enforcement officials this week said they had rolled up a large child-pornography ring that shared pictures and videos over the Internet. Authorities fanned out across Georgia, making 19 arrests, executing at least 40 search warrants, and seizing computers and other evidence from alleged ring members. Rather than targeting specific websites, investigators focused on so-called peer-to-peer exchanges in which ring members uploaded and downloaded still images and videos of children, ranging from toddlers to adolescents. The images were “horrible stuff,” said Vernon Keenan of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The arrests were part of a Justice Department program aimed at Internet sex crimes. A sweep in Ohio last year resulted in the arrests of 41 adults and juveniles.

Springfield, Mass.

Researcher faked data: A prominent medical researcher this week confessed to fabricating the drug trials he discussed in a score of research papers. Dr. Scott Reuben, a well-known authority on pain management, told investigators that his deception stretched back 13 years, to when he first fabricated data on the pain reliever Celebrex. Reuben’s study was underwritten by Pfizer, the painkiller’s manufacturer. The case highlights the potential conflicts pharmaceutical researchers face when their work is sponsored by the maker of the drug they’re studying. “There is an incredible tendency to get results that are favorable to the company,” said Jerome Kassirer, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Washington, D.C.

Obama touts school plan: To the dismay of teachers’ unions that supported his candidacy, President Obama this week endorsed merit pay for teachers. In his first major address on education, Obama called for “treating teachers like the professionals they are while also holding them more accountable.” Good teachers should be paid more, he said, but school districts must “move bad teachers out of the classroom.” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said her group backed Obama’s goal of “providing all Americans with a comprehensive, competitive education,” but said that the workability of any merit pay plan depended on “the details.”