Mark Memmott

Reporter Sara Ganim of The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., continues to lay out the scope of the child sex abuse scandal that has engulfed Penn State University and the many missed chances that authorities had to stop what former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky allegedly did to many young boys.

It was a weekend "of frenetic political activity" in Italy, as NPR's Sylvia Poggioli said on Morning Edition, and now the race is on there and in Greece to see if new governments can get those nations' economies back on track and head off a further spread of the so-called eurozone crisis.

The stands were blue at Penn State University this afternoon, as students and fans of the school's football team showed their symbolic support for victims of child sexual abuse.

Most of the more than 107,000 spectators at the game against Nebraska were wearing blue and many gave money to organizations that battle sexual abuse — their way of responding to the allegations that a former assistant football coach at the school abused young boys for more than a decade, sometimes on campus.

Seven employees of the Securities and Exchange Commission have been disciplined, but no one has been fired, after investigations into how the agency failed to stop Bernard Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme despite repeated warnings that he was stealing billions of dollars from investors, The Washington Post reports.

All the attention this week on the firing of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, the protests afterward by many of the school's students and the actions or inaction of school officials when they learned that a former assistant football coach might have been sexually abusing young boy

Mexican authorities say Secretary of the Interior Francisco Blake Mora, "the highest ranking official in the country after the president" and the person in charge of the fight against drug cartels, has been killed in a helicopter crash, The Associated Press reports from Mexico City. Seven other people also died, according to the Mexican government.

Reuters says that local media are reporting that the minister's helicopter went down south of Mexico City.

The spectacular collapse of the brokerage unit at MF Global has now cost all 1,066 employees their jobs.

For the many Americans who have been following the story of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) as she recovers from being shot in the head last January, there's now a chance to briefly hear her voice.

She feels "pretty good," Giffords has told ABC News' Diane Sawyer, although things are still "difficult."

"My heart aches for the victims and the families and my mind searches for answers," Penn State University's interim president, Rodney Erickson, just said at the opening of a meeting of the school's board of trustees.

WPVI-TV is streaming the meeting here.

It's become the formula.

1. Have an embarrassing gaffe, such as Texas Gov. Rick Perry did during Wednesday's Republican presidential debate, when he couldn't remember the third of three federal agencies he would eliminate.

Good morning. We've veered from the solemn to the silly already today. Our early headlines:

-- We Pause On Veterans Day To Reread 'In Flanders Fields'

-- Penn State Scandal: Alleged Victim's Mother Was 'Horrified'

Jim Romenesko, a blogger who pioneered online reporting about the news media, "has submitted his resignation" to the Poynter Institute "and I have accepted it," Poynter's online director Julie Moos writes.

Here are some of the latest developments in the scandal at Penn State, where former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky has been charged with sexually abusing young boys for more than a decade (he says he's innocent) and head coach Joe Paterno has been fired after coming under withering criticism for not having done more to investigate the allegations:

There's so much that can be said about this day's date.

The arrival of Nov. 11, 2011, or 11-11-11, brings with it:

-- "Nigel Tufnel Day." Spinal Tap fans know: 11 is "one louder."

-- All Songs Considered's 11 songs you can turn up to 11.

Before we move on to the day's news, serious and silly, we want to pause for a moment to note that it's Veterans Day.

As President Obama's declaration states, on this day Americans "pay tribute to our veterans, to the fallen, and to their families." And, the proclamation adds, "to honor their contributions to our Nation, let us strive with renewed determination to keep the promises we have made to all who have answered our country's call."

Wilson Ramos of the Washington Nationals appears to be the first Major League Baseball player to have fallen victim to what's become an alarming trend in Venezuela: the kidnapping and holding for ransom of the rich. He was grabbed Wednesday by gunmen and hasn't been seen since.

But he's not the first major leaguer to have been touched by the epidemic of kidnappings-for-ransom in Venezuela.

With so much attention being given to the firing of football coach Joe Paterno and school President Graham Spanier, as well the long-term impact on the school from the sexual abuse scandal that came to light at Penn State this week, there's a danger of the alleged victims being forgotten.

Disgraced American cyclist Floyd Landis, who was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title, today was convicted in absentia by a French court "for his role in hacking into the computers of a French doping lab," The Associated Press reports. Landis was given a suspended sentence of 12 months.

For Penn State's Joe Paterno, the winningest football coach in Division I history, his career ends with this statement Wednesday night from the school's board of trustees:

"The board determined that it is in the best interest of the University for Joe Paterno to no longer serve as head football coach, effective immediately."