What You Should Know: Last Week's Top News

If you’ve seen nothing else this week, take a minute and read these tidbits. The following are the top five news leads from last week:

WEEK OF: (October 1-7) 2011

1. On Wednesday night (Oct. 5) Apple announced co-founder Steve Jobbs passed away after a long battle with cancer. Jobbs started the $350 billion computer company in 1976 with partners Steve Wozinak and Ronald Wayne. He was influential in pioneering smart phone and mobile internet technologies.

2. Also on Wednesday (Oct. 5) former Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin made a surprise announcement that she would not seek the 2010 GOP nomination for President of the United States. In a statement released on her official website, Palin explained that she still plans on being involved in the 2012 Republican campaign by saying: “I believe that at this time I can be more effective in a decisive role to help elect other true public servants to office.”

3. In a story that’s been demanding national coverage since it began on September 17, the “Occupy Wall Street” movement continued this week with some new developments including:

- An unofficial “list of demands” compiled and released by a private individual on the Occupywallst.org message board became a fast-trending and widely quoted source for online social media - At the Liberty Square epicenter of the protest in NYC, multiple reports and videos have been posted of violence coming from both protestors and security police officers alike. - Thursday (Oct. 6) was recognized as a “Student walk-out day” with over 75 colleges nation-wide with students and faculty who left class in order to join the protests. While there have been no official goals announced by movement leaders, the common themes focus on spreading awareness of the working class’s discontent with the “upper one-percent.”

4. This year’s Nobel Peace Prize was given as a shared award to three female recipients on Friday (Oct. 7). The women honored were Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and activists Leymah Gbowee (Liberia) and Tawakkul Karman (Yemen). The Nobel committee announced on Friday that the three women were being given the award due to “their nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work."

5. Friday (Oct. 7) was the 10-year milestone of the U.S-led war in Afghanistan.