A kinkajou, 1886. A prison fire in Honduras killed 359 people, making it the deadliest such fire on record. An inmate was reported to have started the fire after phoning the state governor’s office and saying he was going to burn down the prison, then lighting his bedding on fire. The facility officially housed 857 prisoners, more than double its intended capacity, and was being supervised by 12 guards, who prevented firefighters from entering while the fire spread. “The guards first thought they had a prison break,” said the director of Honduras’s prison system, “so they followed the law saying …

Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Syria for its campaign to suppress dissent and backing an Arab League plan for Bashar al-Assad to step down as Syrian leader. The vote came as the Assad regime was launching a major offensive on the city of Homs, whose residents were under mortar attack over the weekend and into Monday morning. “A couple members of this council remain steadfast in their willingness to sell out the Syrian people and shield a craven tyrant,” said the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov argued that …

An American cattleman. Three women were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which has not gone to a female recipient in seven years. Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee, and Tawakkol Karman of Yemen, the “mother” of that country�??s rebellion, were recognized by the Nobel committee “for their nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.” Johnson Sirleaf, nicknamed the “Iron Lady,” was lauded by 1984 Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu, who celebrated his 80th birthday in Cape Town. “Who? Johnson Sirleaf? The president of Liberia? Oooh,” said Tutu. “She’s …

Workers at Japan�??s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, where 110,000 tons of radioactive water have collected since an earthquake and tsunami in March, were forced to suspend a new filtration scheme after a cesium absorber that was expected to last a month wore out in five hours. Addressing fears that Japan�??s seasonal rains could cause some of the contaminated water to spill into the Pacific, a spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Company said the utility would “probably be able to solve the problem” before the holding facility was overwhelmed. Kyodo via Japan TimesBBCIn China, where the worst floods in half a …

An American cattleman. With 112 missiles fired at Libyan military targets, the United States and allies commenced Operation Odyssey Dawn. The military attack followed a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing military action against Muammar Qaddafi’s regime and demanding that attacks against rebel troops cease immediately. “You have proven to the world that you are not civilized,” said Qaddafi, in response to the allied air strikes, “that you are terrorists�??animals attacking a safe nation that did nothing against you.”CNNABC NewsNew York TimesThe confirmed death toll from Japan’s earthquake and tsunami rose to about 8,400, and the final death toll was …

A suicide bomber struck Moscow’s Domodedovo airport, killing as many as 34 people and leaving at least 168 injured. “From the preliminary information we have, it was a terror attack,” said Russian president Dmitry Medvedev in a televised briefing. Former Department of Homeland Security official Stephen A. Baker noted, “They�??d like to be bombing planes and they can�??t, so they�??re bombing airports.” Artyom Zhilenkov, a taxi driver, claimed he was about 10 yards from the bomber, a short, dark man carrying a suitcase. “How did I manage to save myself? I don�??t know,” he said. “The people behind me on …

North Korea bombarded the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong with 180 artillery shells, killing two marines and two civilians in one of the largest skirmishes on the Korean peninsula since the end of the Korean War. New York TimesThe U.S.-led war in Afghanistan turned older than the Soviet Union�??s 3,339-day campaign in the country. A new Defense Department assessment of the war cited “modest gains” in security and governance but listed a number of ongoing challenges. “In no way, shape or form is anyone guaranteeing success,” a Pentagon official said. Peace talks between the Afghan government, the Taliban, and NATO …

An American cattleman. Republicans took control of the House after picking up 60 seats in midterm elections, the largest gain in the House since 1948. Democrats maintained control of the Senate (though they lost six seats), and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did not lose to Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle. “Harry Reid isn’t just Dracula. He isn’t just Lazarus; he’s our leader,” said Senator John Kerry. “Our whole caucus is thrilled that he’s unbreakable and unbeatable.”TimeNew York TimesThree Iowa Supreme Court judges who ruled in favor of same-sex marriage were voted out of office, and exit polls suggested that …

Congress defied President Barack Obama and adjourned for the summer without passing a health-care-reform bill. The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved its own version of the bill 31-28 (with five Democrats and all 23 Republicans voting against it); its bill is one of five already produced or soon to be produced by the House and Senate. President Obama and congressional Democrats planned to tour the country to talk about the issue, while Republicans planned to identify the health-care plan as a failure akin to the $787 billion stimulus package, which after six months has yet to reverse unemployment. Health-insurance …

An American cattleman. The Congressional Budget Office announced that a proposed plan to control health-care spending would save only $2 billion over ten years, compared to a proposed $1 trillion in spending, although the agency also pointed out that the legislation could increase the proportion of people receiving insurance through their employers, despite Republican claims to the contrary. Democrats, with control of both the House and Senate, fought among themselves. House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman threatened to move the bill to the floor without a committee vote if the Blue Dogs, seven conservative Democrats, refused to cooperate; Nancy …

President Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor, a Bronx-born, divorced, childless, diabetic, Hispanic federal judge on the U.S Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, to replace Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. Analysts studying Sotomayor’s decisions were unable to determine whether she would uphold Roe v. Wade, or whether she was distinctly pro- or anti-business, but much was made of a 2001 speech at the University of California at Berkeley in which she expressed hopes that a “wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male …

An American cattleman. After much bargaining with the largest banks in the United States,Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced the results of the Treasury’s “stress tests,” studies that estimate how the banks will fare if the economic crisis deepens. Ten banks, said Geithner, including Bank of America, Citibank, and Wells Fargo, must collectively raise $75 billion in extra capital by November; the rest, however, are fine. Analysts questioned Geithner’s conclusions, which assume a worst-case unemployment rate of 10.3 percent when the current rate is 8.9 percent, and which, after banks complained, ended up measuring bank-capital levels with standards more forgiving than …

Caught in the Web, 1860. The Department of Justice released four Office of Legal Counsel memos, issued in 2002 and 2005, to address CIA concerns that interrogation methods used on some high-level Al Qaeda members in custody were torture. Besides waterboarding, stress positions, slapping, and face-grabbing, the memos permitted “walling,” or repeatedly slamming prisoners into fake, flexible walls specially designed to make a loud noise when people are slammed into them; keeping a prisoner awake and shackled upright for more than a week, if “diapers are checked and changed as needed”; and putting a prisoner who is scared of insects …

Israel and Hamas agreed to a one-week ceasefire in Gaza, where Gazan officials estimated that 1,300 Palestinians had died.Hamas Agrees to One-Week Cease-Fire in Gaza Conflict“My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow,” said Sir Gerald Kaufman, a British MP who was raised as an Orthodox Jew. “A German soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers.”UK Jewish lawmaker: Israeli forces acting like NazisA Berlin court ruled to allow the display of Hamas flags and paraphernalia at anti-Israel protests, …

The world economy continued its collapse. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 22 percent over eight days, Wall Street lost $2.4 trillion in market value, and Iceland went bankrupt.CNNBusiness WeekThe head of the International Monetary Fund warned that the world was on the “brink of systemic meltdown,”BBCand Democrats in Congress called for a $150 billion economic stimulus plan to rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure.Yahoo! NewsBarack Obama called for firms that create jobs to be rewarded with tax credits and for a moratorium on foreclosures;AFPJohn McCain refused to answer questions about his economic plan, but was reportedly considering a cut in the …

A Christian martyr. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 777 points in one day after the House of Representatives failed to pass a Wall Street bailout plan, first put forth by President George W. Bush, that would have granted Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson up to $700 billion to buy, at any price, toxic mortgage-backed assets from financial firms. “It’s not based on any particular data point,” said a Treasury spokeswoman of the $700 billion figure. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”Wall Street JournalWashington PostForbes.comSenator John McCain announced that fixing the economy was more important than politicking, suspended …

Stocks on Wall Street and other exchanges throughout the world dropped as brokerage Merrill Lynch was bought by Bank of America, insurance giant AIG sought tens of billions of dollars in government loans, and investment bank Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy.The New York TimesJohn McCain and Barack Obama suspended political advertising and appeared together at the World Trade Center site to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks,The New York Timesand former Massachusetts governor Jane Swift, chair of the Palin Truth Squad, demanded that Obama apologize for saying that McCain’s promise to change Washington amounted to putting “lipstick on …

The Treasury Department seized control of mortgage and loan giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, firing the companies’ chief executives and promising to provide as much as $200 billion to prevent insolvency.New York TimesThe jobless rate rose from 5.7 percent to a five-year high of 6.1 percent, with more than 84,000 jobs lost in August,Yahoo and Senator John McCain accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for the presidency.KTLA.com“This campaign is not about issues,” said McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis. “This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.”Washington PostIt emerged that McCain did not properly …

Claiming that South Ossetian separatists had attacked its villages, U.S. ally Georgia sent troops to capture the city of Tskhinvali. Russia retaliated by sending ground troops into Tskhinvali, then into Georgia proper; Georgia claimed that hundreds of troops had been killed on both sides along with “huge numbers” of civilians. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili described Russia’s troop actions as “the preplanned, cold-blooded, premeditated murder of a small country.”NYTimes.comItar-TassBloomberg.comThe Olympics began in Beijing, heralded on television by fake, computer-generated fireworks.All Headline NewsPresident George W. Bush told Bob Costas that China “is a big, important nation…it is important for this country to …

Barack Obama began his week-long foreign tour in Afghanistan, where he met with President Hamid Karzai, and continued on to Iraq. There, he flew in a helicopter to the Green Zone with General David Petraeus. Before he left the United States, he was asked what he would say to foreign leaders. “I’m more interested in listening,” Obama replied, “than doing a lot of talking.”CNNNew York TimesPoliticoBBCJohn McCain went to a Yankees game and took a drive in a golf cart with former President George H. W. Bush. CBSSenator Joe Lieberman argued that the success of the “surge” policy made the …