President George W. Bush called for $145 billion in tax cuts, describing the measures as a “shot in the arm” for the U.S. economy, which caused stock values to plunge in Australia, Tokyo, Hong Kong, China, and across Europe. “There’s something approaching panic in the market,” said an analyst with Bank of America. “The short-term risks,” explained Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, “are to the downside.”BBC NewsNew York TimesBBC NewsResearchers found that foreigners invested $414 billion in American companies in 2007, up 90 percent from 2006. “This is a vote of confidence in the American economy,” said Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert …

White House photo. General George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, presented a plan for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.CNN.comSaddam Hussein, on trial with seven other defendants for killing civilians in 1982, complained to a judge about being denied a pen and paper;CNN.comIraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said that human-rights abuses in Iraq are “the same . . . and worse” than they were under Saddam Hussein.Guardian UnlimitedGunmen in Baghdad killed a Sunni Arab chief, his three sons, and his son-in-law,BBC Newsand south of Baghdad thirty people were killed when a …

A Christian martyr. The world marked the sixtieth anniversary of America’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.LATimes.comThe United States sentenced a South African man to three years in jail for smuggling nuclear bomb parts to Pakistan and India,IOL.co.zaIran rejected a plan put forth by the European Union that would have limited its ability to manufacture weapons-grade uranium,The Australianand North Korea would not make changes to its nuclear program, despite the efforts of China, Japan, Russia, the United States, and South Korea.VOA.comWisconsin opened a school for children who had been bullied.Local6.comAn archaeologist claimed to have found King David’s …

The United States was investigating claims that someone flushed a copy of the Koran down a Guant�namo Bay toilet. In Afghanistan, news of the flushing led to riots, where hundreds chanted “death to America” and at least fifteen people died.BBC NewsNewsweek, which published the original report of the Koran desecration, retracted the story but pointed out that similar behavior has been widely reported.BBC NewsConnecticut held its first execution in forty-five years,Reutersand a Holocaust memorial opened in Berlin. Some people were upset that it only commemorated the deaths of Jews.ReutersThe White House and Capitol Building were evacuated for a few minutes …

Two suicide car bombs blew up in central Baghdad, killing fifteen and injuring thirty.BBC NewsA bomb in Kirkuk killed twelve Iraqi guards,Al Jazeeraan American contractor was kidnapped north of Baghdad,BBC Newsand Marla Ruzicka, an activist from California who made it her mission to count the number of civilian casualties in Iraq, was killed in Baghdad by a suicide bomber.GuardianThe Iraqi army intervened to end a widely publicized hostage crisis in al-Madain, south of Baghdad, but found no hostages.ReutersIn the United States, Eric Rudolph, a Christianterrorist, pleaded guilty to several bombings, including those at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, an abortion-clinic …

A Christian martyr. In Iraq, the director of the al-Furat hospital in Baghdad was shot dead. A roadside bomb went off in Basra, killing a policeman, and two Sudanese drivers who work with U.S. forces were taken hostage.BBC NewsA gunman opened fire on a minibus filled with people working for a Kuwaiti company, killing one and wounding three, and a garbage-truck suicide bomb killed three people and injured more than twenty.BBC NewsThirty-nine dead bodies were found west and south of Baghdad; some had been beheaded, and others had been handcuffed before they were shot. Many were members of the Iraqi …

Weighing the soul, 1875. A suicide bomber set off a bomb at a mess tent on a U.S. base in Mosul, killing 22 and wounding 69. Among the dead were 13 American soldiers and four employees and subcontractors of Halliburton. A spokeswoman for Halliburton called for a full investigation into the attack. South of Kirkuk, insurgents set an oil well on fire,AP and south of Baghdad, an explosives-rigged gas tanker blew up, killing at least eight.AP Families returned to the bombed-out city of Falluja and found little clean water.APAPDonald Rumsfeld made a surprise trip to Mosul on Christmas Eve.New York …

Chechen militants took more than 1,000 children and adults hostage at a school in southern Russia, though the Russian government lied at first and claimed that there were only 354 hostages; at least 338 died, half of whom were children, when security forces stormed the school.Washington Post, ReutersA suicide bomber blew herself up in a Moscow subway station, killing at least 10 people.Associated PressPalestinian suicide bombers blew up two buses in Beersheba, killing 16 and wounding at least 80.Associated PressIraqi insurgents blew up another oil pipeline, and aAssociated Presscar bomb killed seven American marines and three Iraqi soldiers near Falluja.ReutersTwelve …

Pulling the Mule. Chaos continued to rule Iraq; a suicide bomber killed at least 13 people when he attacked a convoy of civilian contractors in Baghdad, whereupon a mob descended on the wreckage and set it on fire under the watchful eyes of Iraqi policemen; on the same day other bombs killed eight people.International Herald TribuneAt least 35 Iraqis were killed and 145 were wounded in a suicide car bombing at an army recruiting office in Baghdad; elsewhere six people were killed in another bombing.Chicago TribuneOil exports from Iraq’s main oil terminal were shut down because of two explosions, at …

Republican operatives were looking high and low for anyone who could remember serving in the National Guard with President George W. Bush between May 1972 and May 1973; one group of Vietnam veterans was offering a $1,000 reward for proof that the president met his military obligations.New York TimesWhite House officials tried unsuccessfully to wriggle out of a promise Bush made on national television to release his entire military file, though they continued to insist that the president has nothing to hide.Washington Post, USA TodayA dental chart from 1973 suggested that the future president had been neglecting his teeth; anotherNew …

Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Senate that President Bush had decided to overthrow Iraq’sSaddam Hussein but had not yet settled on a strategy and was considering his options. The administration was reportedly planning to create an “inspection crisis” by demanding that Iraq admit arms inspectors and then using the expected refusal to justify an attack. “I do not think I am at a point where a decision has been made about where to go next, leave alone the precision of how we will be going about doing this,” said General Tommy Franks, who would be leading any such …

As President Bush continued to ponder the political expediencies of permitting or banning federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, science was marching on, aided and comforted by medical ethicists. One company was using donated eggs and sperm to create human embryos from which stem cells could be harvested, a procedure that destroys the embryos. Another company, called Advance Cell Technology, was preparing to create human embryo clones, using a technique similar to that used to clone Dolly the sheep, in order to extract their stem cells. A French court upheld a “right not to be born” and awarded damages …

Israelisecurity forces assassinated five Palestinian soldiers as they prepared a late-night snack, which was a mistake, as it turned out, since the intended targets were stationed in another guardhouse nearby. The Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot observed that “only a revenge-seeking fool could believe that eliminations and missile fire, the demolition of neighborhoods, the killing of soldiers and civilians and the destruction of homes could restore personal calm and security.” A Palestiniansuicide bomber killed ten Israelis and wounded 100 others at a shopping mall; Israel responded with F-16 air strikes. More people died. Some New York politicians, including the governor, demanded …

Moscow warned the United States about its new Cold War rhetoric; the Russians were upset over remarks by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who said that “Russia is an active proliferator” of dangerous weaponstechnology which “seems to be willing to sell anything to anyone for money.” The United States expelled 50 Russian diplomats, four of whom were thought to have been working with Robert Philip Hanssen, the FBI agent recently arrested for spying; Russia in turn said it would expel the 50 diplomats most precious to America. Fighting with Albanian rebels continued in Macedonia; the Bush Administration and NATO were refusing …

After a heavy lobbying campaign by the electric industry, President George W. Bush broke a campaign promise and decided not to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, humiliating Christie Whitman, his EPA administrator, and effectively killing the Kyoto Protocol on global climate change. The President said that he was worried about an energy crisis and that he wasn’t entirely convinced that global warming was real. OPEC decided to cut production by 4 percent in order to keep oil prices high. North and South Korea exchanged mail for the first time since the Korean War. Apparently offended by President Bush’s comments last week …

American newspapers and other content providers were still ignoring growing evidence, reported in the British press, of George W. Bush’s electoral coup, including new evidence that thousands of black Floridians were improperly removed from the list of approved voters. Bill Clinton’s corrupt pardons continued to dominate the news; Senator Hillary Clinton chastised her portly brother for exercising “terrible misjudgment” when he accepted $400,000 to help a coke dealer and another felon obtain pardons from his brother-in-law. Federal authorities in New York were investigating whether the pardon of four Hasidic Jews convicted of fraud was granted in exchange for votes. Roger …

Liberal political groups were attempting to rally SenateDemocrats to oppose the nomination of John Ashcroft to be attorney general of the United States, though few seriously believed that members of the Democrat Party were brave or principled enough to do what it would take to defeat the right-wing Christian extremist.Afghanistan’s chief mullah decreed that encouraging a Muslim to convert to Christianity was a capital crime; Mullah Muhammad Omar also let it be known that selling any kind of anti-Islamic literature would be punished by five years in prison.An Iranian court sentenced several people, including a prominent journalist, to long prison …

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus tried unsuccessfully to block the acceptance of Florida’s electoral votes during a joint session of Congress. Federal law requires at least one senator and one member of the House to sign a formal objection questioning a state’s electoral votes; no senator was willing to sign. Black congressmen repeatedly interrupted the proceedings and were repeatedly “gaveled down” by Vice President Al Gore, who presided cheerfully over his own electoral demise.Hillary Rodham Clinton was sworn in as the junior senator from New York; Strom Thurmond, the oldest senator in history, rose up and asked, “Can I …

Bethlehem was empty this Christmas, devoid of lights or trees or public celebrations, having been sealed off by the Israeli army.Jerusalem’sChristian churches endorsed Palestinian demands for sovereignty in East Jerusalem; they condemned Israeli violence against demonstrators and noted that an oppressed people living under a military occupation has the moral right to resist its overlords.The United Nations Security Council rejected Palestine’s request for U.N. peacekeepers; United States Ambassador Richard Holbrooke commented that “this is a resolution that will never be adopted.” The Supreme Court of Zimbabwe ordered President Robert Mugabe to come up with a viable land-reform program, declaring his …

An international team of scientists announced that they had finished the first complete genetic sequence of a plant; Arabidopsis thaliana, or thale-cress, is related to cauliflowers and brussels sprouts and previously was a worthless weed.A new study found that marijuana slows the swimming of sperm in a test tube.The United StatesArmy was funding research aimed at allowing humans to hibernate.Experts on a National Toxicology Program panel said that estrogen should be listed as a carcinogen.Switzerland banned the sale of beef on the bone because of mad-cow concerns.Cargill Turkey Products recalled 16.7 million pounds of turkey products after it was linked …