Today is the 341st day of 2013. There are 24 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1965: Pope Paul VI and ecumenical patriarch Athenagoras I of Istanbul abolish the mutual excommunication of 1054 that split Christianity into Catholic and Orthodox.

OTHER EVENTS

1940: The British attack larger Italian forces in Libya by surprise, capturing 40,000 prisoners in three days.

1982: Convicted murderer Charlie Brooks becomes the first US prisoner executed by injection, at a prison in Huntsville, Texas.

1996: After nearly 18 days aloft, the Columbia space shuttle and its astronauts return to Earth, ending the longest space shuttle flight ever.

2001: A consortium of philanthropic foundations announces an initiative to provide treatment for an estimated 2.5-million pregnant women infected with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa.

2006: The Liberian government issues guns to a unit of its police force, making them the first officers to carry arms since the end of the West African country’s 14-year civil war.

2009: Tens of thousands of students, many shouting “Death to the Dictator!” and burning pictures of Iran’s supreme leader, take to the streets on more than a dozen campuses in the biggest anti-government protests in months.

2011: Preliminary results issued by Congo’s electoral commission TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

make it all but certain that President Joseph Kabila will be declared the winner of the recent presidential election, setting the stage for civil unrest as the opposition continued to insist they will reject the results.

Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587); Pietro Mascagni, Italian composer (1863-1945); Seigo Takamori,Japanese Restoration hero

(1827-1877); Mario Soares, first elected president of Portugal in 60 years (1924-)

— AP