An American cattleman. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control declared a public-health emergency over an outbreak of swine flu that has infected at least 20 people in California, Kansas, New York, Ohio, and Texas. The virus is believed to have originated in Mexico City, where more than 149 people, all aged between 20 and 40, have died, and at least 1,300 people have gotten sick. Mexico‘s government closed all schools, universities, and zoos, canceled church services, soccer games, and bullfights, and banned visits to beauty salons and juvenile detention centers. Swine flu has been found in Canada, China, France, Israel, …

Israel bombed Hamas targets in Gaza for three days, killing at least 300 people, 50 of them civilians, and blowing up a mosque and a television station. Palestinians seeking to flee into Egypt were turned back; a doctor at a Gaza hospital said that after 18 months of Israeli sanctions the lack of medical facilities made it better for a patient “to be brought in dead.” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that the bombing, ordered in retaliation for ongoing rocket attacks by Hamas, would be “widened and deepened as is necessary,” and an area around Gaza was declared a …

Stocks on Wall Street and other exchanges throughout the world dropped as brokerage Merrill Lynch was bought by Bank of America, insurance giant AIG sought tens of billions of dollars in government loans, and investment bank Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy.The New York TimesJohn McCain and Barack Obama suspended political advertising and appeared together at the World Trade Center site to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks,The New York Timesand former Massachusetts governor Jane Swift, chair of the Palin Truth Squad, demanded that Obama apologize for saying that McCain’s promise to change Washington amounted to putting “lipstick on …

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 …

Jittery global markets brought on by the subprime mortgage crisis led the Federal Reserve to cut its discount rate on loans to banks by half a percentage point.AP via ForbesCiting America’s $1 trillion debt to China, Senator Joe Biden warned, “We have to get off that sucking off of that breast which is China.”Des Moines RegisterIt was reported that a South Carolina small-parts supplier run by twin sisters had cheated the Pentagon out of $20.5 million in shipping costs; two 19-cent washers sent to an Army base in Texas, for instance, incurred a $998,798 charge.BloombergJenna Bush, the younger of the …

The Republican candidates for the presidency debated at the Ronald Reagan Library in California. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas said that the day Roe v. Wade was repealed would be “a glorious day of human liberty and freedom” and that the current tax system “ought to be taken behind a barn and killed with a dull ax”; Senator John McCain of Arizona claimed that he would “follow [Osama bin Laden] to the gates of hell”; TexasCongressman Ron Paul said that not going to war in Iraq would have been “conservative,” because “it�??s a Republican, it�??s a pro-American, it follows the …

In a videoconference with Hong Kong investors, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said that America might sink into recession by year’s end; a frenzied worldwide sell-off ensued. The Shanghai Composite lost 8.8 percent of its value in a day, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 3.3 percent, its worst drop since September 17, 2001. “Alan Greenspan really needs to sit down,” said one economist, “and be quiet.” Others marveled at the ability of “the Maestro” to cause upheavals even in retirement; Greenspan later held another videoconference, for which he charges fees of $150,000, and said that a recession …

Federal agents in Missouri found two kidnapped adolescent boys in the apartment of Michael Devlin, a 41-year-old pizzeria manager. “I still feel like I’m in a dream, only this time it’s a good dream, not the nightmare I’ve had to live for the past four-and-a-half years,” said the mother of one of the boys. New York TimesThe Bush Administration announced plans to increase U.S. forces in Iraq by 20,000 troops,New York TimesAmericans in Erbil arrested six Iranians working at a diplomatic office, New York Timesand Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D., Del.) asserted that the authority Congress granted the Bush …

The Cloaca Maxima, 1872 The 110th Congress convened on Capitol Hill, and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California kicked off her tenure as America’s first female speaker of the House with four days of parties dubbed “Pelosi-Palooza.” The festivities included a performance by singer Tony Bennett and an honorary street-naming in Pelosi’s hometown of Baltimore. Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia disrupted the Congress’s opening prayer with shouts of “Yes, Lord!” and “Mmmhmmm!” and Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts mimed tipping a bottle to his mouth. Congress’s first Muslim member took his oath on a Koran once owned by Thomas Jefferson, …

“Into the palace parlor they stepped; her hand in his paw the old bruin kept,” 1875 Two hundred fifteen people were killed in a massive bombing and mortar attack on a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad, marking Iraq’s largest single-day death toll since the U.S. invasion. The killings prompted Shiite militiamen to seize and burn alive as many as twenty-four Sunnis; other Shiite residents of the capital stoned Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. “It’s all your fault!” one man shouted.AP via MSNBCReutersElsewhere in Baghdad, insurgents set fire to a U.S. base, APand the host of a popular satirical Iraqitelevision show was found …

President George W. Bush signed the Military Commissions Act, which suspends the right of habeas corpus for terrorism suspects and grants immunity to CIA interrogators and government officials, such as President Bush, for violations of the War Crimes Act. New York TimesChicago Sun-TimesDomestic security officials notified seven football stadiums of a discredited threat of radiological bomb attacks out of an “abundance of caution,” New York Timesand the United States Coast Guard announced plans to mount 7.62 mm, M-240B machine guns on official boats in the Great Lakes. Rear Adm. John E. Crowley Jr. said, “I don�??t know when or if …

Killing Ground. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking at the United Nations in New York, proclaimed his love for all the world’s peoples, and suggested that the United States halt domestic fuel production and buy its energy from him “at a fifty percent discount.”BBC NewsVenezuelan president Hugo Chavez objected to the smell of sulfur in the U.N.’s General Assembly hall, and offered to relocate the U.N.’s headquarters to Caracas. New York timesFox NewsTed Turner called the Iraq war one of the “dumbest moves of all time,”CNNand a spokesman for the Iraq Study Group, a think tank created to analyze events in …

President George W. Bush confirmed the existence of secret extra-territorial prisons operating beyond the scope of American law.ABC NewsThe U.S. Army promised to stop intimidating prisoners by placing hoods over their heads, or by simulating their drowning, or by threatening them with dogs,New York Timesand President Bush emphasized the fine line between “alternative” interrogation methods and torture.CNNThe Iraqi government took control of its own army,Times of Londonand the United States increased the number of troops in Iraq by 15,000.Houston ChronicleAn official at the Baghdad morgue said that last month’s death toll was actually triple the number first reported.Christian Science MonitorSecretary …