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 …

Swine flu, renamed under pork-lobby pressure to “influenza A (H1N1) virus, human,” and referred to as “killer Mexican flu” by anti-immigration activists, had infected 985 people, or 0.0000145 percent of the world’s population. Twenty countries reported infections; one death from the flu was confirmed in the United States; and 25 people had died in Mexico, where a cute five-year-old boy named Edgar Hernandez was presented to the media as “patient zero.”SFGate.comUSA TodayThe World Health OrganizationThe GuardianThe New York Daily NewsMexico shut down for five days to contain the illness,The TelegraphChina began to quarantine Mexicans,The Wall Street Journaland Vice President Joe …

An American cattleman. Gunmen terrorizedMumbai for more than two days, killing at least 180 people during attacks at a train station, a restaurant, two five-star hotels, a movie theater, a hospital, a police station, and a Jewish center. At the peak of the violence more than one tweet per second with the word “Mumbai” was being posted to Twitter.com. Indian authorities claimed there were only ten attackers, with nine killed and one captured, but others, including the captive gunman, suggested that many others were involved in the attacks. Evidence suggested that the Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani militant group that has fought …

Doctors in Berlin announced that they had cured a man of AIDS by giving him transplanted blood stem cells from a donor naturally resistant to the virus; other researchers cautioned that the treatment was of little immediate use, and justified in this case only because the patient had leukemia. “Frankly,” said Dr. Robert C. Gallo of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, “I’d rather take the medicine.”NYTA German shoplifter with no arms stole a 24-inch television. “It’s hard to believe,” said a police officer, “that the sight of an armless man walking along with a giant TV clamped to …

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 …

One million people fled New Orleans to avoid Hurricane Gustav, which landed in Louisiana as a weakened category-2 hurricane and caused relatively little damage. Mississippi officials ordered people still living in the FEMA trailers erected after Hurricane Katrina to evacuate, and John McCain canceled opening-day ceremonies for the Republican National Convention at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota. “This is a time when we have to do away with our party politics and we have to act as Americans,” said McCain. “Not as Republicans.”GuardianIOL.co.zaNew York TimesUSA TodayYahoo!McCain picked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, 44, as his running mate. Palin, …

Radovan Karadzic was arrested in Belgrade and awaits imminent extradition to The Hague, where he will face charges of genocide for his role in the Srebrenica massacres and the siege of Sarajevo. The former Bosnian Serb president, a psychiatrist and poet who in 1991 pledged to drive Bosnian Muslims down “the highway of hell and suffering,” had been living in the Serbian capital as a New Age guru, promoting alternative medicine and “Human Quantum Energy” under the name “Dragan David Dabic.” Serbia hoped the arrest would hasten its campaign to join the European Union, and it was reported that Ratko …

Colombian military commandos infiltrated a settlement operated by the guerilla group FARC and freed 15 hostages, among them three U.S. contractors and the Colombian-French politician Ingrid Betancourt. President George W. Bush called Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to congratulate him. “What a joyous occasion it must be to know that the plan had worked,” said Bush. “That people who were unjustly held were now free to be with their families.”WhiteHouse.govA federal appeals court ruled that evidence against Hozaifa Parhat, a ChineseMuslim held at Guantanamo Bay for six years, consisted of nothing more than the reassertion of his guilt in three top-secret …

Twenty U.S. soldiers were killed last week fighting across Iraq, and 1,300 Iraqi officers and soldiers were fired for poor performance. The Bush Administration said it was optimistic that many more refugees from the estimated 4.4 million people who had fled Iraq or had been “internally displaced” would be allowed into the United States. Since the war began the United States has accepted only 5,000 Iraqi refugees. Sweden has taken 34,000.ReutersIHTHillary Clinton and John McCain accused Barack Obama of elitism after Obama commented on the bitterness of working-class people in a speech at an expensive San Francisco fund-raiser. “They cling …

President George W. Bush unveiled a $3.1 trillion spending package that would increase military funding while protecting tax cuts,Bush Unveils $3.1 Trillion Spending Planand Wal-Mart announced an economic “stimulus plan” that offers steep discounts on thousands of items, including a five-pound bag of Tyson frozen chicken wings ($8.88) and two Hillshire Farms Cocktail Smokies or Ropes ($5).Wal-Mart &lq;Stimulus&rq; Pkg: Will Doritos Rescue The Economy?Mississippi lawmakers introduced a bill that would make it illegal for restaurants in the state to serve obese people,Mississippi Legislature Introduces Bill that Would Ban Restaurants from Serving the Obeseand an unidentified robber killed five women in …

At 20 points along the Gaza Strip’s southern border, Hamas operatives detonated explosives to topple an Israeli-built fence, allowing as many as 200,000 Palestinians�??13 percent of the territory’s population�??to cross into Egypt and shop. The Gazans purchased camels, candy, cement, chairs, cheese, cigarettes, computers, cows, doughnuts, gasoline, generators, goats, mattresses, medicine, motorcycles, pistols, potato chips, sheep, snack cakes, soap, and televisions. Supplies at Egyptian shops dwindled, prices spiked, and fistfights ensued. Several Gazan women married Egyptians, and the Israel Defense Force patrolled its southern border for would-be suicide bombers and hostage takers.New York TimesJerusalem PostAFPDublin IndependentSeif al-Islam Qaddafi, the 36-year-old …

An American cattleman. Members of a North African faction of Al Qaeda detonated bombs at the U.N. complex in Algeria and at the country’s Supreme Court, killing at least 26 people and injuring more than 170.Washington PostNew York TimesA top Lebanese army general was assassinated by a car bomb as he was leaving his home,Washington Postand a triple car bombing in southern Iraq killed at least 46 people. “I don’t think,” one resident said, “there will be any safe place in Iraq after what happened today.”Washington PostThe U.S. Postal Service was throwing away hundreds of thousands of holiday cards addressed …