Human Race

EXECUTED: John Allen Muhammad, the mastermind of the 2002 Beltway sniper attacks that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area and left 10 people dead, died by lethal injection Nov. 10 after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to stay his execution. Muhammad, 48, and accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo, who is serving a life sentence without parole, randomly targeted their victims over a period of three weeks outside shopping plazas, schools, and gas stations.

HONORED: Country music sensation Taylor Swift, 19, swept the Country Music Association Awards Nov. 11, taking home awards for Video of the Year, Album of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year, and Entertainer of the Year-making her the youngest winner of the association's highest honor. "I will never forget this moment," she said, "because in this moment everything that I have ever wanted has just happened to me."

RESIGNED: Interim White House Communications Director Anita Dunn will step down at the end of November. Dunn, who during her brief tenure advocated a "rapid response" to counteract critics, made headlines after she called Fox News "a wing of the Republican Party" and said it wasn't "a news network the way CNN is."

CHOSEN: Regent University appointed Carlos Campo to succeed school founder Pat Robertson as president when he retires in July. Robertson will remain at Regent as executive chairman of the board.

DIED: John J. O'Connor III, husband of former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, died Nov. 11 at the age of 79. O'Connor retired from the high court in 2006 to spend more time with her husband, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease.

COMING: After leaving the position unfilled for 10 months, Rajiv Shah, a 36-year-old medical doctor and health economist, has been appointed to head the United States Agency on International Development: His main experience is with large non-governmental organizations, including the Gates Foundation, and big government agencies.

TOURING: Two days after her Nov. 16 appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin kicked off her Going Rogue: An American Life book tour in Grand Rapids, Mich. Palin is skipping big cities typically included on book tours in favor of many sites that voted Republican last November. She plans a Dec. 6 stop in Iowa-home of the famed presidential caucuses.

CHARGED: Three Americans detained by Iranian authorities last July after allegedly straying into the country while hiking along the Iraq border are now facing charges of espionage. Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Joshua Fattal, 27, remain in custody at Tehran's infamous Evin prison.