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 kinkajou, 1886. Tunisia commemorated the first anniversary of the Arab Spring�??and of the ousting of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali�??by pardoning 9,000 prisoners and commuting 122 death sentences. BBCMyanmar released 651 political prisoners, leading the U.S. State Department to move toward restoring full diplomatic relations with the country for the first time in 21 years.New York TimesNobel Peace laureate Mohammed ElBaradei ended his bid for the Egyptian presidency, citing his country�??s military autocracy as an insurmountable obstacle to legitimate elections. “The regime did not fall yet,” he said.Wall Street JournalHundreds of Saudis gathered to protest the killing of a …

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 …

Weighing the soul, 1875. Russians in nine time zones rallied to demand a revote of their country’s December 4 parliamentary elections, in which the ruling United Russia party won a slim majority. Russia�??s only independent election-monitoring group logged more than 5,000 fraud allegations, while videos posted to YouTube showed stuffed ballot boxes, voting booths supplied with erasable ink, and buses taking people to vote at multiple locations. “If someone writes the phrase �??party of swindlers and thieves�?? on a blog,” tweeted Russian president Dmitri Medvedev, “he is just a fuckface.” As many as 50,000 people protested in Bolotnaya Square across …

An American cattleman. The first round of parliamentary elections in Egypt since president Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February brought to the polls an unprecedented 62 percent of registered voters, many of whom had never voted before. “I don�??t know any of the parties or who I�??m voting for,” said a Christian woman in the southern city of Assiut. “The first names I see, I guess.” The hard-line Nour party, which seeks to impose strict Sharia law, won 24 percent of the vote, while the Muslim Brotherhood, which claims it will apply Islamic law “in a fair way,” led with …

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 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 …

A kinkajou, 1886. A Second World War�??era military plane crashed into a group of spectators at the Reno National Championship Air Races in Nevada, killing 10 people, including Jimmy Leeward, 74, who became the twentieth pilot to die at the event since it began 47 years ago. “It looked like just someone sprinkled Legos in every direction,” said one witness. National Transportation Safety Board investigators refused to speculate on what brought down the plane, which was built in 1944 and had previously crashed in 1970. “Our job is to identify what caused this accident,” said NTSB member Mark Rosekind, “so …

Somali government troops killed at least ten famine refugees at the Badbaado camp in Mogadishu after distribution of dry rations by the World Food Program devolved into looting. “They fired on us as if we were their enemy,” said Abidyo Geddi. “We don�??t get much food, and the rare food they bring causes death and torture.” Thousands of Somalis fled to the United Nations�?? Dadaab complex in Kenya, enduring a weeks-long journey through hyena- and bandit-infested desert. “It is peaceful here,” said Ali Hulbale, who lives with his family at the edge of the camp. “There is no gunfire. But …

A bomb exploded at the Norwegian capitol building in Oslo, killing eight people. Hours later, a gunman opened fire at an island camp for young members of Norway’s ruling Labor Party, killing another 76, many of them teenagers. Police took into custody 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik, who claimed responsibility for both attacks. “We are not sure whether he was alone or had help,” said a Norwegian police official. “What we know is that he is right-wing and a Christian fundamentalist.” On the day of the attack, Breivik posted online a 1,500-page manifesto entitled “2083: A European Declaration of Independence,” in …

The “News of the World,” a British tabloid, was shuttered amid a police investigation into allegations its journalists had hacked into the cell phones of as many as 7,000 people, including politicians, celebrities, and murder victims. Two former editors were arrested, owner Rupert Murdoch called the scandal “deplorable,” and a disgruntled staffer told the paper�??s former editor in chief, Rebekah Brooks, that she�??d “toxified” the publication. Crossword clues in the paper�??s final edition included the terms “Brook,” “stink,” “catastrophe,” “criminal enterprise,” “string of recordings,” “will fear new security measure,” “digital protection,” and “mix in prison.”CNNGuardianAtlanticTelegraph (London)A computer virus attached to …

An American cattleman. Revelers at New York City�??s gay pride parade waved signs reading “Thank You Governor Cuomo” and “Promise Kept!” after New York became the sixth and largest U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage. The state senate vote marked the culmination of an intensive lobbying campaign by gay-rights advocates and Governor Andrew Cuomo, backed by three wealthy Republican businessmen. “We were outgunned,” said Dennis Poust of the New York State Catholic Conference, which opposed the bill. “That is a lot to overcome.” Republican congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann said she would support a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to …

A kinkajou, 1886. Republican and Democratic leaders, including Nancy Pelosi, called for the resignation of Representative Anthony Weiner (D., N.Y.), who admitted at a press conference that he had publicly tweeted a photograph of his crotch intended to be sent privately to a 21-year-old woman, and that he had in recent years sent explicit photographs and messages to other women. Before the press conference, publisher Andrew Breitbart, who had disseminated some of these photos, took the podium and demanded an apology from the mainstream media for impugning his coverage of Weiner. “Everything we’ve reported about this story has been true,” …

Former senator John Edwards was indicted for soliciting contributions to his 2008 presidential campaign that were intended for covering up his affair with Rielle Hunter and Hunter’s subsequent pregnancy. Edwards reportedly turned down a plea bargain that included up to six months of prison time. “We will not permit candidates for high office … to circumvent our election laws,” said Lanny A. Breuer, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department�??s Criminal Division. “It�??s not illegal to be a pig,” said campaign-finance expert Brett Kappel. Washington PostAn Australian politician apologized for “meowing” at a female cabinet member during a senate debate; …

The wire master and his puppets, 1875. President Barack Obama announced that the government would not release pictures of Osama bin Laden’s mutilated corpse, saying, “We don’t need to spike the football.”CBS NewsThe Associated Press filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all photos and video shot during the raid on the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where bin Laden was hiding, and reporters discovered cabbage, potatoes, and marijuana growing around the property. National Press Photographers AssociationSarah Palin tweeted that President Obama was “pussy-footing around,” and the White House released footage found in the compound showing bin Laden watching himself …

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad lifted the country’s 48-year-old state of emergency and legalized peaceful protests in an attempt to placate opposition groups who have been calling for him to step down. The following day, Syrians returned to the streets to protest, security forces shot into the crowds, and more than 100 people died, according to witnesses. “Bullets started flying over our heads like heavy rain,” said one protester.BBCAl JazeeraAl JazeeraBBCThe civil war in Libya was “moving toward a stalemate,” according to Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the U.S. military confirmed that two armed Predator …

In response to the burning of a Koran in Florida, riots broke out in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, where a mob overran U.N. offices and killed seven staffers, and elsewhere, including Kandahar, where young men burned American flags, tires, cars, and a girls’ school. Terry Jones, the pastor whose church burned the Koran, defended the actions. “The time has come to hold Islam accountable,” he said. “It is not that we burn the Koran with some type of vindictive motive. We do not even burn it with great pleasure or any pleasure at all. We burn it because we …

Muammar Qaddafi’s forces in Libya continued air strikes against antigovernment forces as fighting there devolved into civil war. Rebels took control of the oil port at Ras Lanuf but were beaten back at the coastal town of Bin Jawwad, which Qaddafi recaptured with the help of air strikes that killed at least five people. Saying he was “deeply concerned” about the fighting, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon promised that he would send a new “special envoy to Libya” to meet with officials in Tripoli. New York TimesCNNThe Obama Administration resisted urging from Senators John Kerry, Mitch McConnell, and John …

The wire master and his puppets, 1875. In Egypt tens of thousands of antigovernment demonstrators, inspired by the fall of Tunisia’s dictatorship, defied curfews for a week to demand that President Hosni Mubarak step down after 29 years in power. President Obama urged Egypt, America’s closest ally in the Arab world, to refrain from violence against protesters, some of whom had faced tear gas and water cannons, and said he would review U.S. aid to Egypt, currently estimated at $1.5 billion annually, but Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, who emerged as an opposition leader, criticized the United States for …