A Christian martyr. The U.S. Senate subpoenaed Terri Schiavo, a woman who has been in a persistent vegetative state since 1991, to testify before the Health, Education, and Labor Committee. The subpoena was intended to make it impossible for Schiavo to be taken off the feeding tube that allows her to survive; the order, however, was defied by a Florida judge, and the feeding tube was removed. Schiavo then began to die of dehydration. The House and Senate held emergency sessions in order to pass a bill that would transfer the case from state court to federal court. The bill …

Lost Souls in Hell, 1875. President George W. Bush demanded that Syria pull out of Lebanon.New York PostSyria agreed to move its troops into eastern Lebanon, but the U.S. State Department warned that this is not enough.GuardianIraqi insurgents killed seventeen people.New York TimesA poll found that most Americans are against Social Security reform,Bloombergand the U.S. Mint planned to circulate $5 million in new buffalo nickels.New York TimesA 22-pound, century-old lobster was caught off Nantucket,CNNand a 13-pound, 13-ounce baby boy was born in Britain; the boy’s mother credited the boy’s size to her steady diet of cockles, herring, mussels, and crab …

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 …

Caught in the Web. The Labor Department reported that the economy created a mere 96,000 jobs last month, thus failing to keep pace with the expansion of the nation’s work force and confirming that George W. Bush has the worst job creation record of any president since Herbert Hoover. The White House reacted to the bad news by declaring that the poor job numbers prove that the president’s tax cuts have been working.New York TimesThe Iraq Survey Group issued its final report and concluded that Saddam Hussein dismantled his nuclear weapons program in 1991 and did not attempt to revive …

A burning plain. The United Nations Security Council passed another resolution asking the Sudanese government to prevent its proxies from slaughtering people in Darfur (China, Algeria, Pakistan, and Russia abstained). The resolution, which for the first time formally invokes the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, says that the council will “consider” sanctions if the genocide continues.New York TimesChaos continued to rule Iraq; there were many attacks by insurgents, including several large suicide bombings, hostages were beheaded, and many civilians, including women and children, were killed in American airstrikes.New York TimesIraqi prime minister Iyad …

The United Nations continued to issue warnings about the ongoing genocide in Sudan, where Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, have been slaughtering and raping black farmers in Darfur; more than one million people have fled their homes and hundreds of thousands of refugees could soon die of cholera and other diseases.Reuters, Associated PressA court in southern Darfur sentenced ten Janjaweed fighters to have their left hands and right feet amputated; the Sudanese ambassador in London denied that his government was supporting the militias.BBCYasir Arafat rejected the resignation of Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, and the Palestinian National Security Council declared a …

Former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide accused the United States of overthrowing him in a coup. “I was forced to leave,” he said. “Agents were telling me that if I don’t leave they would start shooting and killing in a matter of time.”Associated PressState Department officials claimed that the U.S. had simply declined to protect Haiti’sdemocratically elected president from the advancing rebel mob.New York TimesAristide called for a restoration of democracy and for peaceful resistance against the foreign occupiers.GuardianTwo hundred seventy-one Shiite worshipers were killed in simultaneous bombing attacks on mosques in Baghdad and Karbala; international telephone service was knocked out …

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 …

Federal authorities placed the United States on “orange alert” and American embassies in Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia were closed after an Al Qaeda prisoner claimed that terror attacks were scheduled for the September 11 anniversary. The New York Lottery’s evening number came up 9-1-1 on September 11, and President Bush shed a tear during a speech on Ellis Island. Police shut down a large section of Interstate 75 after a woman named Eunice Stone thought she heard four young Arab men “laughing about 9/11″ in a Shoney’s restaurant in Calhoun, Georgia. The men, who were detained in Florida for …

A judge in Manhattan ruled that the federal death penalty is unconstitutional; the judge wrote that the number of exonerations due to DNA evidence demonstrated that there is an “undue risk of executing innocent people” and that capital punishment thus violates the constitutional right to due process. The death penalty, he said, is “tantamount to foreseeable, state-sponsored murder of innocent beings.” An American AC-130 gunship fired on a wedding party in Afghanistan for two hours, killing up to 50 people and injuring 150; an entire extended family of 25 was killed. The government of Afghanistan “expressed dismay”; President Bush “expressed …

President George W. Bush said that he would not support the creation of a Palestinian state until the Palestinian people get rid of Yasir Arafat. Bush sketched his vision of a Palestinian state, a vision that included an independent legislature and judiciary and other democratic institutions; Bush also said he wanted Palestine to be a land of free markets without corruption. “I am willing to take my chances and say that this speech will not result in anything,” said Schlomo Ben Ami, a former Israeli foreign minister. “At times I think he is talking about Switzerland and not about the …