The U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision seized the IndyMac Bank of California, worth an estimated 32 billion dollars, after the bank’s closure in the wake of mortgage industry collapse,AFPand the Bush Administration proposed a rescue package for ailing mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that would allow the Treasury to buy billions of dollars of their stock and lend them billions more to meet their short-term funding needs. The two companies’ total debt is estimated at $1.54 trillion.NYTimesAbu Dhabi bought New York City’sChrysler building for $800 million,GuardianUKand the Belgian brewer InBev planned to buy Anheuser-Busch for nearly $50 billion.AP …

The United Nations warned that 2.5 million people will die of hunger in Niger if the country does not receive foreign food aid immediately. President Mamadou Tandja responded that “the people of Niger look well-fed.”AlertNetBBC NewsMauritania, Burkina Faso, and Mali were also facing major food shortages.BBC NewsA study found that the worldwide percentage of land stricken by drought has doubled within the last 30 years.Vail DailyThe Space Shuttle Discovery landed safely in California.BBC NewsIran decided to start producing enriched uranium,Reutersand the Environmental Protection Agency was working on ways to limit the radioactivity of the planned Yucca Mountain, Nevada, nuclear-waste dump …

Eighteen people died when a U.S. helicopter crashed in Afghanistan. The Taliban claimed they shot down the helicopter; the United States blamed bad weather.BBC NewsChicago TribuneIraq’s parliament elected Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, as president; his Presidency Council then named Ibrahim Jaffari, a Shiite, as prime minister.BBC NewsSenior American defense officials noted several positive developments in Iraq: only thirty-six American soldiers, they said, died there this March; attacks on allied forces were down to thirty or forty a day; and by early 2006, only 105,000 American soldiers may be needed in the country.New York TimesTens of thousands of Iraqis held a …

Approximately eight million people turned out to vote in Iraq. International monitors gave the election their seal of approval, though all 129 of them stayed inside Baghdad’s Green Zone.The New York TimesSecurity measures included sealing the country’s borders, banning travel between provinces, prohibiting private vehicle traffic, and imposing curfews in cities.ReutersFake polling stations were set up with snipers positioned to guard the real ones, which were revealed 24 hours before opening. Many of the candidates kept their identities secret until election day, though two had made it known they were direct descendants of the Prophet Mohammed.The New York TimesIraqi insurgents, …

Two government reports, one civilian and one military, were issued on the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. The Army reported that military intelligence officers and civilian contractors were deeply involved in the abuse; the civilian report went to great lengths to avoid the logical conclusion that the Bush White House had created the conditions (legal, operational, and military) that directly led to the Abu Ghraib horrors. Both reports found that many of the techniques employed at Abu Ghraib originated in CIA torture chambers in Afghanistan.New York TimesArmy investigators discovered that military police dogs were used to terrify teenage Iraqi prisoners as …

The United States raised its terror alert level and said that Al Qaeda might be planning to attack financial institutions in New York, Washington, and Newark, New Jersey. Howard Dean pointed out that, once again, the timing of a new federal terror alert was suspiciously convenient; other Democrats, such as Joseph Lieberman, denounced Dean’s suggestion as “outrageous.”Independent, Washington PostIt was reported that Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a close associate of Osama bin Laden, retracted his claim that Iraq helped Al Qaeda with weapons of mass destruction, andNew York Timesthe 9/11 commission, which runs out of funds next month, was seeking private …

The Senate Intelligence Committee released a scathing report on the CIA’s unfounded, unjustified, and unreasonable claims about Iraq’s purported weapons of mass destruction; the report was oddly silent, however, about the Bush Administration’s well-documented and apparently successful campaign to intimidate the CIA into coming up with justifications for the President’s fraudulent case for the invasion.New York TimesSenator Trent Lott was outraged by the CIA’s “totally ridiculous, uncalled for, and counterproductive” redactions of the report and called for an independent commission to oversee the classification of government information.New York TimesJapan’s defense ministry said that it will issue its annual defense whitepaper …

L. Paul Bremer, the American proconsul in Iraq, in one of his final acts before handing over “sovereignty” to Iraq’s new interim government, decreed that American forces will remain immune from prosecution by Iraqi courts for crimes against Iraqi citizens or destruction of property. It was noted that a similar grant of immunity in Iran in the 1960s had unfortunate consequences. “Our honor has been trampled underfoot; the dignity of Iran has been destroyed,” said the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1964. He said that the order “reduced the Iranian people to a level lower than that of an American dog.”Washington …

Israel continued to demolish Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip as part of “Operation Rainbow”; a tank and a helicopter gunship opened fire on protesters in Rafah and killed at least 10 people, including several children; military officials expressed “deep sorrow over the loss of civilian lives” and said that only warning shots had been fired.New York TimesAmerican forces attacked what survivors said was a wedding party in Iraq, near the Syrian border, and killed at least 43 people, including 12 women and 14 children; U.S. military officials said they had attacked a safehouse for foreign fighters and that there …

Israel assassinated Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas; Sheikh Yassin, an elderly, partially blind quadriplegic, was hit in his wheelchair with a missile as he left a mosque in Gaza City.New York TimesThe Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade apologized for murdering a Palestinian college student who was jogging in East Jerusalem; the killers thought he was a Jew.New York TimesThe Pentagon dropped charges against Capt. James Yee, a former chaplain at Guant�namo Bay, Cuba, who was accused of being a Muslim spy.Straights TimesThe British government was fighting in court for the right to charge people who have …

Caught in the Web, 1860. President George W. Bush, apparently worried that John Kerry was beating him in recent opinion polls, appeared on a Sunday morning talk show. Bush defended his decision to conquerIraq, and although he admitted that his stated reason for invading was false, he also suggested that weapons of mass destruction might still be found. The president said that he had total confidence in the CIA but suggested that he had been misled by incorrect intelligence. “Saddam Hussein was dangerous with weapons. Saddam Hussein was dangerous with the ability to make weapons,” Bush said. “I believe it …

A Christian martyr. Former secretary of the treasury Paul O’Neill revealed in a new book that President George W. Bush was already looking for an excuse to invade Iraq during the first few weeks of his presidency. “It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it,” O’Neill said. “The president saying ‘Go find me a way to do this.’”CBS NewsO’Neill said that the very first meeting of the National Security Council involved discussions of a “post-Saddam Iraq,” peacekeeping troops, and war-crimes tribunals. O’Neill provided the book’s author, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, …

Lawyers at the Environmental Protection Agency announced that they were dropping lawsuits against 50 power plants for violating the Clean Air Act, because newly weakened enforcement rules have undermined the cases; theNew York TimesBush Administration previously had promised that the lawsuits would continue after the rules change.New York TimesThe state attorneys general of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, which are downwind from many of the plants, promised to sue the polluters directly.New York TimesA new study found that tiny golden “nano-bullets” could be used in the future to destroy cancer tumors.New ScientistEnvironmentalists sued the federal government to force it …

The United States Supreme Court upheld the University of Michigan law school’s use of affirmative action in its admissions process and overturned a Texassodomy law, saying that “the state cannot demean [homosexuals'] existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime.”New York Times“This opens the door to bigamy, adult incest, polygamy, and prostitution,” said the head of the FamilyResearch Council.New York TimesThe court also ruled that a California law that retroactively abolished the statute of limitations on sex crimes is unconstitutional; California’s attorney general said that the ruling will lead to the release of about 800 …

President George W. Bush staged a handshake between the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers at a summit meeting in Jordan.Guardian President Bush, Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas, and King Abdullah II of Jordan stood outdoors together in the hot sun wearing suits and ties but were kept free of unsightly perspiration by tubes installed by White House operatives that blasted cold air from an ultra-quiet air conditioner that was hidden nearby.New York TimesSharon and Abbas read statements about the “road map” to peace that were largely written by American officials.New York Times “I think when you analyze the …

Hans Blix, the chief United Nations weapons inspector, ordered Iraq to destroy all its Al Samoud 2 missiles after U.N. tests determined that the missiles exceed the 150-kilometer range set by the Security Council. The lightest version of the missile, Blix said, has a range of 193 kilometers. “If Iraq decides to destroy the weapons that were long-range weapons, that’s just the tip of the iceberg,” said President Bush. “So the idea of destroying a rocket, or two rockets, or however many he’s going to destroy, says to me he’s got a lot more weapons to destroy.” United Nations weapons …

President Bush, who continued to insist that he has “seen no evidence to date that indicates that this country could have prevented the [September 11] attack,” nonetheless called for a new cabinet-level agency for domestic security. The proposal combines 22 federal agencies into one but leaves the C.I.A. and the F.B.I., whose computers are so primitive that agents are able to search files for “aviation” and “schools” but not for “aviation schools,” essentially untouched. Attorney General John Ashcroft claimed that federal authorities had prevented a terrorist attack on Washington, D.C.; Ashcroft said that the arrest last month of an American …

The United States Commission on Civil Rights released its report on the Floridaelection, concluding that blacks were widely disenfranchised by the actions of state officials and calling for an investigation by the Justice Department. After the National Academy of Sciences, in a report requested by President Bush, confirmed that global warming is in fact real, the White House was forced to disappoint its stockholders in the petroleum industry and acknowledge that climate change is an “issue that nations do need to deal with�??all nations, industrialized nations, the United States, developing nations, as well.” President Bush went off to Europe, where …

The pharmaceutical industry dropped its suit against the South African government over a law that will permit the importation of inexpensive anti-AIDSdrugs; the drug companies agreed to pay the government’s legal costs and admitted that the law in question does in fact abide by international trade agreements. Dr. Tshabalala-Msimang, South Africa’s health minister, was asked what the government planned to do next, having won this important victory; she replied that actually there was no real need to use such drugs in a country with the highest rate of AIDS infection on earth. Scientists sequenced the genomes of two strains of …

The United States withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol on global climate change; Christie Whitman, the administrator of the EPA, announced that “we have no interest in implementing that treaty.” President Bush told German chancellor Gerhard Schr�der that “We will not do anything that harms our economy, because first things first are the people who live in America.” North Korea’s dear leader Kim Jong Il sent a large floral wreath to the funeral of Chung Ju Yung, the founder of the Hyundai group, in a further display of goodwill toward the south by the ruler of the Hermit Kingdom. Israeli prime …