MONDAY, JULY 6 The week kicks off with a horrifying story from the land of horrifying stories: Germany, where last week brought the shameful killing of Marwa el-Sherbini, the 32-year-old Egyptian pharmacist who was stabbed to death in a Dresden courtroom. Let's start at the beginning: In 2005, Sherbini moved from Egypt to Germany with her genetic-researcher husband, settling first in Bremen and then in Dresden. The trouble began last August, when Sherbini and her 3-year-old son visited a Dresden playground, where they were accosted by a man who denounced the hijab-clad Sherbini as an "Islamist whore" and a "terrorist." As the UK Guardian reports, Sherbini alerted police, and last November, her verbal attacker—identified only as Alex W., a 28-year-old unemployed Russian—was found guilty of insult and abuse and fined 780 euros (approximately $1,100). Which brings us to last Wednesday, when Sherbini and Alex W. once again came face-to-face, at the latter's appeal hearing. Ms. Sherbini was seated in the witness stand, recounting her run-in with Alex W. at the Dresden park, when her harasser strode across the courtroom and stabbed her 18 times with a knife. Each detail of the killing makes it exponentially worse: The fatally stabbed Sherbini was three months pregnant with her second child; the stabbing was witnessed by her 3-year-old son and her husband; when the husband raced to help his wife, he was shot by a police officer who reportedly mistook him for the attacker, and he remains in intensive care in a Dresden hospital. Meanwhile, today in Alexandria, Egypt, Marwa el-Sherbini was laid to rest, with funeral services for the "head-scarf martyr" drawing government leaders and thousands of mourners. Stay tuned for word on the slow-growing but steady outcry against the German government for allowing such a kaleidoscopic travesty to happen (in a freaking courtroom, no less).

TUESDAY, JULY 7 At a health center in Seattle's International District, a Muslim woman in a hijab was allegedly accosted by a Muslim-hating psycho with a knife. Details on this instantly proliferating and absolutely horrifying international trend were reported today by Jonah Spangenthal-Lee on Slog: "According to a Seattle Police Department probable cause document, [24-year-old Auburn man] Eric Lee Garner approached a woman inside of the Seattle Indian Health Board office and began yelling at her. 'You Muslim people scare people when you wear things like that,' Garner allegedly told the woman, who was wearing a head scarf and carrying her 6-month-old child. Garner continued to rant at the woman, documents say, repeatedly calling her a 'Muslim bitch'... Garner then pulled out an 8-to-10-inch knife, held it in front of the woman, and threatened to cut the woman and her baby." Thank God for the clinic employee who attempted to seize the man's knife and sent him fleeing from the building. The next day, Garner was apprehended by Seattle police, to whom he identified himself as "a white supremacist just doing his part" before being booked into the King County Jail on hate-crime charges.

••Also today: Michael Jackson was sent packing with a memorial gala at the Los Angeles Staples Center, where the dead King of Pop was placed before the stage in a golden coffin. (Once a ham, always a ham.) Memorial highlight: The deep, vast, and communal appreciation of the man's amazing artistry, presented with just the right amount of accentuate-the-positivity to keep things honest. Memorial lowlight: The coerced testimony of Jackson's daughter, Paris, who haltingly told the world about losing the greatest dad in the world, while a flurry of Jackson-family ladyhands jerked the mic down toward her mouth and Aunt Janet pressed her to speak up. Runner-up for both highlight and lowlight: Long-estranged Jacko boy-toy Corey Feldman, who showed up solemnly dressed like Thriller-era Michael Jackson.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 8 The week continues with a thrilling blast of law and order on Capitol Hill, courtesy of a police report obtained by the Capitol Hill Seattle blog, which we'll share verbatim: "Witness reported that he had seen a man and a woman pointing guns at each other inside an apartment. Patrol officers formed a team and positioned themselves so that they could observe the apartment. People could be heard arguing inside, and at one point someone said, 'Ow, jeez, stop it' and 'Go ahead and shoot me.' Once the apartment was contained, officers established voice contact with the occupants. Three people came out of the apartment and were taken into custody. Officers swept the apartment and found a fourth person inside the bedroom, on a bed. She was taken into custody without incident. Investigation revealed that the four subjects were filming themselves as part of a school project. Three guns were located and determined to be false. All four subjects were investigated and released at the scene."

THURSDAY, JULY 9 Better news comes out of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which yesterday shot down the 2007 lawsuit brought by Ralph's Thriftway and two Washington State pharmacists seeking to sidestep state regulations requiring pharmacists to stock and dispense the Plan B "morning after" birth-control pill—which some Christians consider to be a form of abortion—on the grounds that such mandates violated their religious freedom. Bullpoop, said the 9th Circuit Court, where a three-judge panel ruled the right to freely exercise one's religion "does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability. Any refusal to dispense—regardless of whether it is motivated by religion, morals, conscience, ethics, discriminatory prejudices, or personal distaste for a patient—violates the rules."

FRIDAY, JULY 10 Today we get a dirty pleasure from an unlikely source: Peggy Noonan, the GOP loyalist, former Reagan speechwriter, mealymouthed torture supporter, and Wall Street Journal columnist who warmed Last Days' heart by using Sarah Palin's abrupt resignation from the Alaska governor's office as an opportunity to bash the GOP's sudden superstar from the inside. "In television interviews, she was out of her depth in a shallow pool," wrote Noonan in the WSJ about Palin's 2008 campaign. "She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read, because she didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She makes the party look stupid."

SATURDAY, JULY 11 Nothing happened today, unless you count the bazillion things happening all over the Northwest on this gloriously sunny day, including but not limited to the West Seattle Summer Fest, the Chinatown–International District Festival, the Vera Project's "A Drink for the Kids" night at Neumos, and the No Depression Festival at Marymoor Park.

SUNDAY, JULY 12 The week ends with the kind of information that makes you drink enough to pass out, then wake up screaming: the results of a Gallup poll conducted in the wake of Sarah Palin's resignation, which found that 7 in 10 Republicans would vote for Palin for president.

You know what's a great diversion from the shortcomings of President Obama? The failures of Sarah Palin! Send Hot Tips to lastdays@thestranger.com.