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 …

Under the presumed influence of White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, who collects photographs of President George W. Bush’s hands, Karl Rove was relieved of his position as presidential policy adviser in order that he might focus his energies on the November midterm elections, and White House press secretary Scott McClellan resigned. “One of these days,” the President said of McClellan, “he and I are going to be rocking in chairs in Texas and talking about the good old days.”USA TodayForbes.comBBC NewsIn Iraq, three U.S. soldiers were killed by a bomb and at least 27 Iraqis were killed in …

Seven people died in a suicide car bombing in Iraq,The Guardianand a Norfolk, Virginia, man changed his name to Kentucky Fried Cruelty.com.NBC6.netRussia shut down a natural-gas pipeline to Ukraine; as a result, natural-gas supplies were diminished in Hungary, France, Italy, Poland, and Germany.BBC NewsU.S. financial giant Citigroup was attempting to purchase about 85 percent of the state-owned Guangdong Development Bank of China.The New York TimesThe U.S. Justice Department opened an investigation into who leaked information about the NSA’s domestic wiretapping program to the New York Times. Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Times editor Bill Keller refused to answer any …

Lost Souls in Hell, 1875. It was hot in most of the United States. Many U.S. cities set records for high temperatures, and huge wildfires burned in the Southwest. At least twenty people, many of them homeless, died from the heat in Phoenix, Arizona.The New York TimesWashington PostConcern over storms in the Gulf of Mexico led to an increase in oil prices,Reutersand the directors of Enron gave themselves large raises.KLTVInvestigations into the expenses of former Tyco executive Dennis Kozlowski revealed that Kozlowski had once held an extravagantbachelor party for his son-in-law. “It wasn’t like a three-ring circus,” said the son-in-law’s …

It was hurricane season.PR NewswireIt became clear that Karl Rove had leaked information about Valerie Plame to the press. In response, President George W. Bush, who had previously announced that he would fire anyone in his administration who was found to have leaked Plame’s identity, announced that he would actually fire only proven criminals. “I don’t know all the facts,” said Bush.The New York TimesBob Woodward offered to serve some of Judith Miller’s jail time.Editor & PublisherSuicide bombers killed at least 170 Iraqis, including twenty-six children who were waiting for American soldiers to give them candy,Washington Postand Saddam Hussein was …

A bovine idyll. It was the 229th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.Arrivenet.comThe U.S. Capitol was evacuated for a few minutes,CNN.comChina Export & Credit Insurance Corporation was planning to buyHuffy Bikes,BBC NewsSenator Gaylord Nelson died,The New York TimesNASA smashed a coffee-table-sized device traveling at 23,000 miles per hour into the Tempel 1 comet,Nasa.govand Toyota announced that it would open a new $800 million plant in Ontario. The company turned down hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies in the United States because, when compared to Canadians, U.S. workers are too hard to train, often illiterate, and expensive …

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 …

Amnesty International released a report calling the prison camp at Guant�namo Bay “the gulag of our time.” General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the prison camp was “a model facility” and pointed out that 1,300 Korans had been handed out at the prison in the last four years.BBC NewsBrigadier General Jay Hood, the camp’s commander, said that an investigation at Guant�namo Bay had uncovered five incidents of Koran abuse, but none involved toilets; protesters rallied against Koran abuse in Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, Malaysia, and in Lebanon, where they chanted “America is the biggest Satan.”BBC NewsMecca …

George Bush delivered his State of the Union address.CNNHe said the country was “confident and strong,”CNNthen announced he would reduce or eliminate 150 government programs.The New York TimesHe called Social Security “a symbol of the trust between generations,” then discussed proposals for the reduction of its benefits and an increase in the retirement age.The New York TimesHe suggested that his tax cuts be enshrined in perpetuityThe New York Timesand that “the spending appetite” of the federal government should be restrained.CNNHe said he would “confront” Middle Eastern nations in the name of peace,CNNbut insisted the United States had “no right, no …

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 …

President George W. Bush traveled to Asia and gave a speech in Manila comparing Iraq to the Philippines, a former U.S. colony that was “liberated” from Spain in 1898 and occupied for 48 years. Bush said that the Philippines, which he called “the oldest democracy in Asia,” should be seen as the model for a new democratic Iraq, and then quickly left the country because of security concerns.New York TimesOsama bin Laden released two new tapes and promised a new wave of suicide bombings.Voice of AmericaIraqis in Faluja were photographed dancing on a demolished U.S. Army truck after it was …

L. Paul Bremer, the new American overseer of Iraq, informed Iraqi leaders that the United States and Britain had changed their minds about setting up an interim government made up of Iraqis and that he would remain in control until further notice. Bremer toured Mosul and praised it as “a great example of embryonic democracy”; elsewhere in the city a crowd chanted “America is the enemy of God.”New York Times Kurdish leaders, who have been running their own affairs for about 12 years, were particularly irritated, and there were widespread accusations that the United States was now revealing its true …

Astrophysicists found evidence that the speed of light and other laws of nature might have changed over time. Donald Rumsfeld, the American secretary of defense, explained that his much-ballyhooed “revolution in military affairs” was not a revolution at all but was instead a “transformation”: “When they see that word,” he explained, seeking to comfort critics in Congress and among the troops, “there’s a tendency to think that you go from this to something different.” In fact, he said, you can do something rather modest, like improve communications, which “could be characterized as transformed or transformational.” President George W. Bush declared …

Ariel Sharon, a known war criminal, was elected prime minister of Israel; Sharon declared that the peace process was dead and that the Palestinians must submit to Israeli domination before negotiations could resume. Palestinians set off a car bomb in Jerusalem; Israeli soldiers shot and killed a teenage Palestinian goatherd. United States Secretary of State Colin Powell defended President George W. Bush’s plans to deploy the national missile defense system despite its technical and political flaws: “I don’t consider it as being an arrogant position,” he said. “Or one where we are trying to force anything on the rest of …

The Democratic Party demonstrated its seriousness of purpose by failing to mount a filibuster to block the confirmation of former senator John Ashcroft, who was defeated by a dead man in the last election; Ashcroft was sworn in as Attorney General by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in a private ceremony. President George W. Bush, a former oil man, named Vice President Dick Cheney, a former oil man, to head a special task force to devise ways to increase the profits of oil companies. In response to the continuing energy crisis in California, President Bush continued to affirm that pollution …

A National Academy of Sciences report found that most U.S. nuclear bomb-making facilities, including the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, will be contaminated “in perpetuity.” Defense Secretary William S. Cohen delayed making his recommendation to President Clinton concerning the wisdom of building a national missile defense program. The contents of a top secret report on the likely consequences of the anti-missile program were leaked to the news media, confirming numerous public statements by Chinese and Russian government officials that they would deploy more missiles. A standoff between workers and government agents continued at one of Russia’s premier vodka factories; President Vladimir Putin …

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat failed to meet President Bill Clinton’s deadline for making peace in the Middle East; Clinton declared the summit over and flew to Okinawa for a meeting of the G8, the world’s seven richest industrialized countries plus Russia, where the leaders issued a strongly worded statement decrying the alarming lack of Internet access in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere. They pledged to form a “dot force” to combat this “digital divide.” Barak and Arafat remained at Camp David, chaperoned by Madeleine Albright, who received an encouraging note from the G8 leaders, each …