Charges of a rigged presidential election triggered violence along tribal lines in Kenya, leading to more than 700 deaths and the displacement of 250,000 Kenyans. Opposition leader Raila Odinga, who lost the election to incumbent Mwai Kibaki, said that his first cousin Barack Obama had called him twice to express his concern, “despite being in the middle of the very busy New Hampshire primary.”AFP.comTelegraph.co.ukObama and Mike Huckabee were the surprise winners of the Iowacaucuses. “None of this worries me,” said Rudy Giuliani, who came in sixth place in the Republican caucus. “September 11, there were times I was worried.”NYDailyNews.comJohn McCain …

An American cattleman. The United StatesSupreme Court ruled in a 5 to 4 decision that the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act is legal.Washington PostAttorney General Alberto Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the firing of federal prosecutors; Senator Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) told Gonzales his ability to lead was in question, and Senator Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) asked Gonzales to resign. One prominent Republican said the hearing was like “clubbing a baby seal.”New York TimesRaw StoryA series of attacks in Shiite districts of Baghdad killed at least 158 people, the largest number of people killed in a …

In Iraq, a car bomb in Basra killed at least 33 people, CNNa mortar attack in southern Baghdad killed 9 people,Yahoo! Newsand 8 U.S. soldiers died.icasualties.orgPolice found 22 bodies with bullet wounds and signs of torture in Baghdad;Reutersnorthwest of the city, at an improvised checkpoint, 19 civilians were dragged from their cars and shot.Kuwait News AgencyTwenty-one Kurds and Shiites, many of them high school students, were ordered off a bus and executed in Ain Laila.Belleville News DemocratIn Baquba 7 policemen were killed,BBCand the heads of 8 Sunni men were found in Dole banana boxes.Indian ExpressReutersSix more policemen were killed in …

Caught in the Web, 1860. The Iraqi Defense Ministry announced that on average one person per hour was being killed in Basra.The Register-GuardIn Baghdad, 19 people were killed in attacks, including four U.S. soldiers, and a tae kwon do team was kidnapped.BBC NewsGayIraqis were fleeing the country to avoid being killed by militias.Times OnlineAmerican troops were using lasers to “dazzle” Iraqi drivers who do not stop at checkpoints; if used properly, said a Pentagon spokesman, the laser light will not blind its target.Local6.comThe Nepal House of Representatives declared the King of Nepal to be powerless,The Washington Timesand King Abdullah of …

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, released a video in which he showed his face and claimed that the Bush Administration had lied about its military victories. “America,” said Zarqawi, “will go out of Iraq, humiliated, defeated.”The Washington PostThe United States announced that it would free 141 of the 490 “enemy combatants” at the Guant�namo Bay prison in Cuba because they do not threaten U.S. security after all.The Los Angeles TimesIn Dahab, Egypt, three bombings killed 30 people,The New York Timesand in Baquba, Iraq, about the same number of people died in fighting.BBC NewsPresident George W. …

Caught in the Web, 1860. Iran announced that it had successfully produced low-grade enriched uranium; to celebrate, men in traditional dress danced with uranium samples.Reuters via Yahoo! NewsThe Iranian government also promised to give $50 million to the Palestinian Authority, now controlled by Hamas, which let it be known that it would recognize Israel’s right to exist if the Jewish state were to withdraw from the entire West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. CNN.comDemocracy Now!A suicide bomber killed nine people at a falafel restaurant in Tel Aviv,The New York Timesand in Sri Lanka bomb attacks by Tamil rebels killed 16 …

Thirty beheaded corpses were found in Baquba, Iraq, and 10 more bodies were found in Baghdad, where the homicide rate had reached 33 per day. Shiites were abducting Sunnis in bright daylight on crowded streets. “If the Americans leave,” said one Sunni man (whose brother had recently been executed after being tortured with power tools), “we are finished. We may be finished already.”The New York TimesThe New York TimesIn Miqdadiya, near Baquba, militants attacked a prison, killed 20 people, and freed 30 prisoners.BBC NewsA doctor in Baghdad admitted to killing 35 policemen and soldiers who were being treated at his …

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 …

Lost Souls in Hell, 1875. Pat Robertson called for the United States to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez; Robertson then lied about calling for the assassination (“‘take him out’,” he said, “can be a number of things”), and finally apologized. Chavez said that Venezuela would take legal action against Robertson.The New York TimesBBC NewsA man was arrested in Tallahassee, Florida, after threatening to blow up Governor Jeb Bush.The Tampa TribuneA New York man was recognized as having the world’s longest eyebrow hair at 3.78 inches,MyWayand a judge in Missouri decided a new statewide ban on semi-nude lap dances was unconstitutional.APScientists …

Lost Souls in Hell, 1875. In New Delhi, India, children and adults carrying both lit candles and hydrogen-filled balloons marched to mark the World Day Against Child Labor. At least twenty-five people were subsequently hospitalized for exploding-balloon-related burns.ReutersDennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz, former executives at Tyco, were found guilty on thirty counts of grand larceny, conspiracy, falsifying business records, and securities fraud.Houston ChronicleA llama was found on the freeway in Pennsylvania,TheWGALChannel.compolice in Tennessee arrested 144 people at a cockfight,Wired Newsand the sixty-two-year-old man who was attacked and mutilated by two chimpanzees in March was brought out of his coma.News4Jax.comBritish potato …

CIA Director Porter J. Goss claimed that the war in Iraq is making it easier for terrorist organizations to find new recruits,Washington Postand Sunni Arab tribal chiefs insisted that they be given a role in the new Iraqi government. “We made a big mistake,” said a sheik, “when we didn’t vote.”The AgeNew York TimesAn Episcopal priest who fought in Vietnam, distraught over the war in Iraq, killed himself in Wenatchee, Washington,Seattle Post-Intelligencerand President George W. Bush nominated John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, as the first director of national intelligence. Negroponte was ambassador to the U.N. from 2001-2004 and …

President George W. Bush traveled to Great Britain, along with 650 companions, including five personal chefs, but was unable to move freely in the country because of massive protests. At Buckingham Palace the president dined on roasted halibut with herbs, free-range chicken, potatoes cocotte, salad, and a sorbet bombe but presumably skipped the Puligny-Montrachet and the Veuve Clicquot, Gold Label, 1995. Truck bombs blew up the British Consulate and a British bank in Istanbul, killing at least 27 and wounding hundreds. Bloody victims ran screaming through the streets. Two hotels in Baghdad used by Westerners were bombed as was the …

President George W. Bush refused to declassify the twenty-eight pages of Congress’s September 11 report that pertained to Saudi Arabia, despite calls to do so by members of Congress and by the Saudi government itself, which said it intended to rebut the contents.New York TimesAccording to those who have read it, the redacted section lays out far more financial connections between the September 11 hijackers, fifteen of whom were Saudi, and the Saudi government than had been previously revealed.The most specific allegations concerned Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi man who had provided funds and assistance to two of the hijackers in …