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 …

Greece�??s parliament approved an austerity bill, cutting 15,000 government jobs and reducing the minimum wage by 22 percent in exchange for $170 billion in bailout funds from the European Union and the I.M.F. “We must show that Greeks, when they are called on to choose between the bad and the worst, choose the bad to avoid the worst,” said finance minister Evangelos Venizelos. More than 80,000 protesters marched in Athens on Sunday, some of them looting and vandalizing local stores. At least 34 buildings burned, including a Starbucks and an underground movie theater once used as a torture chamber by …

A Christian martyr. Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich released their most recent tax returns. Romney’s showed that he made $21.6 million in 2010, paid taxes at a rate of 14 percent, and gave $4 million to the Mormon church over two years. Gingrich’s return showed that he earned $3.1 million last year and may have cheated on his taxes. Washington PostChristian Science MonitorForbesLos Angeles TimesPresident Barack Obama made increasing the tax rate on the super-rich a theme of his State of the Union address, saying, “Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary,” …

A Small Family. Mitt Romney won the first stage of the Republican leadership race, beating Rick Santorum by eight votes, 30,015 to 30,007, in the Iowa caucus. “This has been a great victory for him,” said Romney of Santorum. Michele Bachmann, who had claimed she would stay in the race regardless of the Iowa results, suspended her campaign after receiving 5 percent of the vote.CBSThe 2008 Republican nominee, John McCain, endorsed Romney. “I am confident, with the leadership and the backing of the American people, President Obama will turn this country around,” said McCain. “President Romney,” he then corrected himself. …

People around the world celebrated the passing of another year as 2012 began. The first to ring in the new year were the South Pacific nations of Samoa and Tokelau, which officially switched to the Western side of the international date line by jumping ahead to Saturday on Thursday at midnight. New York City celebrated by dropping the Times Square Ball; objects dropped in other American cities included a giant peach, in Atlanta, a giant sardine, in Eastport, Maine, and a giant conch, a pirate wench, and a giant glittering red high-heeled shoe bearing a drag queen named Sushi, in …

A kinkajou, 1886. After weeks of infighting, Congress passed a two-month extension of the payroll-tax cut. House Republicans, who had rejected a nearly identical measure days earlier, were left divided over the stopgap measure, which pitted recently elected lawmakers seeking major reforms against party veterans. “When you start making decisions based on elections,” said Representative Mo Brooks (R., Ala.), “then you run the risk of having the mess we just did.” President Barack Obama also signed into law a $1 trillion spending bill, warning that he reserved the right to challenge certain provisions promoted by Republicans, such as a prohibition …

A Christian martyr. The congressional supercommittee assigned to devise a plan for reining in the federal deficit failed to reach an agreement, triggering $1.2 trillion in budget cuts that will take effect in 2013, including cuts to defense spending and Medicare. Senate Democrats planned to follow up the failed talks by introducing $400 billion in new spending legislation over the coming weeks, while Republicans indicated that they would try to reconfigure the automatic cuts in order to spare defense programs. “The knives,” said Senator Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), “are over our heads.”Los Angeles TimesThe HillReuters via NBCPoliticoProtesters with the Occupy …

Egyptian troops killed at least 30 people and wounded at least 1,250 when demonstrators descended on Cairo’s Tahrir Square following an attempt by the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to delay a presidential election and increase the military’s power under Egypt’s forthcoming constitution. The country’s interim civilian cabinet submitted its resignation, and a Supreme Council spokesman urged protesters to consider the damage they were doing to the economy. “There is an invisible hand in the square,” he said, “causing a rift between the army and the people.”MSNBCNew York TimesNew York TimesA police officer at the University of California, …

Greek prime minister George Papandreou agreed to step down following a week in which he proposed a referendum on EU measures to save his country’s collapsing economy, narrowly won a confidence vote, retracted his referendum proposal, and signed a coalition deal to approve the bailout. “I am not tied to my chair,” said Papandreou. ReutersCNNReutersGuardianAmid sex scandals and corruption allegations, and ahead of a key budget vote, Silvio Berlusconi denied rumors he would step down as Italian prime minister. Berlusconi was also reported to have delayed the release of his Greek-folk-influenced album, “True Love,” over concerns about the European financial …

A Small Family. A Taliban suicide bomber rammed a Toyota Corolla loaded with an estimated 1,500 pounds of explosives into an armored bus in Kabul, killing 17 people; the Taliban killed three civilians and a policeman in a suicide attack then seized an animal clinic in Kandahar; and Abdisalan Hussein Ali, 22, a former pre-med student at the University of Minnesota, blew himself up in a suicide attack on African Union troops in Mogadishu. “Don’t just sit around, you know,” said Ali in an audio suicide note that was posted online, “and be, you know, a couch potato and just …

A kinkajou, 1886. Libyan forces shot and killed deposed leader Muammar Qaddafi after finding him hidden in a drainage pipe in Sirte. Upon being discovered, Qaddafi reportedly raised his hands and begged, “Don’t kill me, my sons.” Video footage showed him being taunted, beaten, and sodomized with a weapon, possibly after he had been shot in the head and stomach. His body was mounted on a truck and paraded around Misrata before it was placed in a shopping-center freezer. Crowds said, “We want to see the dog!” as they lined up to view the corpse. “The dark shadow of tyranny …

As the occupation of Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan finished its first month, the Occupy Wall Street movement spread to cities and college campuses across the United States and to more than 70 other countries. A city-mandated cleanup of Zuccotti Park by its owners, which protesters believed was a pretext for their removal from the area, was cancelled, and Vikram Pandit, the CEO of Citigroup�??which announced third-quarter profits of $3.8 billion, a 74 percent increase over last year�??called the sentiments of protesters “completely understandable,” adding that he would “be happy to talk to them anytime.” Hundreds of people were arrested …

A Christian martyr. Two American citizens, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, were killed by a CIA drone in Yemen. Awlaki, a cleric whose speeches purportedly inspired young Muslim radicals, had been added to the CIA�??s list of terrorist targets in early 2010. According to the U.S. government, Awlaki, who has never been tried or convicted of a crime in the United States, directed several failed terrorist plots. Khan, who edited a jihadi magazine, was never an official U.S. target. “Make no mistake,” said President Barack Obama, “this is further proof that Al Qaeda and its affiliates will find no safe …

Mahmoud Abbas went before the United Nations General Assembly in support of Palestine�??s bid for UN membership, saying his was a “defenseless people, armed only with their dreams, courage, hope, and slogans.” “Yeah,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his UN address. “Hopes, dreams, and 10,000 missiles.” Abbas returned to cheering crowds in Ramallah, though some Palestinians were skeptical of his quest. “We are not against a peaceful solution, but we don�??t believe it,” said one West Bank resident.BBCUnited NationsUnited NationsNY Times In what it called an expression of Islamic mercy, Iran released a pair of American hikers detained …