People around the world celebrated the passing of another year as 2012 began. The first to ring in the new year were the South Pacific nations of Samoa and Tokelau, which officially switched to the Western side of the international date line by jumping ahead to Saturday on Thursday at midnight. New York City celebrated by dropping the Times Square Ball; objects dropped in other American cities included a giant peach, in Atlanta, a giant sardine, in Eastport, Maine, and a giant conch, a pirate wench, and a giant glittering red high-heeled shoe bearing a drag queen named Sushi, in …

U.S. military officials declared the end of the Iraq War during a 45-minute ceremony in a fortified compound at Baghdad International Airport. Iraq�??s president and prime minister did not attend, and local reporters were not invited. “To be sure, the cost was high,” said Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, “in blood and treasure of the United States and also the Iraqi people.” In Fallujah, Iraqis celebrated by burning American flags. “I lost brothers and many relatives because of American bombs,” said a resident of Ramadi. “I benefited by having a good job and a salary with which I can get whatever …

An American cattleman. Violence broke out between Israel and Gaza following an ambush near the Egyptian border that killed eight Israelis, six of them civilians. After retaliatory air strikes killed an estimated 15 people in Gaza and militants fired dozens of rockets into southern Israel, Hamas declared that all Palestinian groups had agreed to a cease-fire, including the Popular Resistance Committees, which claimed responsibility for further rocket attacks a few hours later. “If they will cease fire, there will be a cease-fire,” said Israeli president Shimon Peres.APThe Libyan forces who have been trying since mid-February to overthrow Muammar Qaddafi gained …

An American cattleman. Europe’s most wanted war-crimes suspect, former general Ratko Mladic, was arrested for the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica. Supporters said the 68-year-old Bosnian Serb had suffered two heart attacks and three strokes over the years, and that his condition should preclude a jail sentence. “If you put a bird in a cage you can give them whatever it wants, but it�??s not going to be happy,” said his lawyer and friend Milos Saljic.New York TimesNew York TimesA U.S. federal judge ruled that Jared Loughner was not competent to stand trial for attempting …

An American cattleman. Europe’s most wanted war-crimes suspect, former general Ratko Mladic, was arrested for the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica. Supporters said the 68-year-old Bosnian Serb had suffered two heart attacks and three strokes over the years, and that his condition should preclude a jail sentence. “If you put a bird in a cage you can give them whatever it wants, but it�??s not going to be happy,” said his lawyer and friend Milos Saljic.New York TimesNew York TimesA U.S. federal judge ruled that Jared Loughner was not competent to stand trial for attempting …

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad lifted the country’s 48-year-old state of emergency and legalized peaceful protests in an attempt to placate opposition groups who have been calling for him to step down. The following day, Syrians returned to the streets to protest, security forces shot into the crowds, and more than 100 people died, according to witnesses. “Bullets started flying over our heads like heavy rain,” said one protester.BBCAl JazeeraAl JazeeraBBCThe civil war in Libya was “moving toward a stalemate,” according to Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the U.S. military confirmed that two armed Predator …

An American cattleman. With 112 missiles fired at Libyan military targets, the United States and allies commenced Operation Odyssey Dawn. The military attack followed a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing military action against Muammar Qaddafi’s regime and demanding that attacks against rebel troops cease immediately. “You have proven to the world that you are not civilized,” said Qaddafi, in response to the allied air strikes, “that you are terrorists�??animals attacking a safe nation that did nothing against you.”CNNABC NewsNew York TimesThe confirmed death toll from Japan’s earthquake and tsunami rose to about 8,400, and the final death toll was …

An American cattleman. The U.S. Department of Labor announced that employers added 162,000 jobs in March, the first increase in more than two years. “We are beginning to turn the corner,” said President Barack Obama, despite the fact that nearly one third of the jobs were temporary hires by the U.S. government for the 2010 Census. The ADP Employer Services report, which does not include government jobs, found that the private sector lost 23,000 jobs in March. “The economic recovery,” said Macroeconomic Advisers Chairman Joel Prakken, “has not been long enough or strong enough along the way yet to produce …

Amid hundreds of rocket and mortar explosions that killed dozens of people throughout the country, Iraq held parliamentary elections. Large numbers of Sunnis, who had boycotted previous elections, voted. “We have experienced three wars before,” quipped one voter, “so it was just the play of children that we heard.” Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s coalition failed to secure a majority of seats, leaving his political future uncertain; the U.S. military said its plans for withdrawal remained “on track.”New York TimesA memoir by Karl Rove said that the Bush Administration would not have started the Iraq war without the threat of …

An American cattleman. After much bargaining with the largest banks in the United States,Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced the results of the Treasury’s “stress tests,” studies that estimate how the banks will fare if the economic crisis deepens. Ten banks, said Geithner, including Bank of America, Citibank, and Wells Fargo, must collectively raise $75 billion in extra capital by November; the rest, however, are fine. Analysts questioned Geithner’s conclusions, which assume a worst-case unemployment rate of 10.3 percent when the current rate is 8.9 percent, and which, after banks complained, ended up measuring bank-capital levels with standards more forgiving than …

An American cattleman. President George W. Bush announced a $13.4 billion bailout for General Motors and Chrysler. The bailout, which will make use of funds authorized by Congress in October for the rescue of U.S. financial institutions, requires among other things that the automakers sell their fleets of private aircraft. “I’ve abandoned free-market principles,” said Bush, “to save the free-market system.”New York TimesBreitbartPresident-elect Barack Obama called for an expansion of his economic recovery plan in order to save a half-million more jobs atop the 2.5 million he already hopes to save, at a total cost of $600 billion or $700 …

The Labor Department reported that 533,000 people lost their jobs in November, a further 621,000 people were forced into part-time employment, and 422,000 more simply dropped out of the labor force. The report, describing a situation far worse than economists expected, also recorded 24,000 layoffs by auto dealers.MarketwatchRepresentatives of the Big Three car companies, facing their lowest sales in decades and, in the case of Chrysler and General Motors, imminent collapse, again appeared before Congress (traveling by car and commercial flights this time, rather than on private jets) to ask for $34 billion in aid, a few billion less than …

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 United States marked the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. “He was normal as a person could be,” said his sister Christine King Farris. “I want people not to think of him as some mythic character from out of space.” Speaking from the Memphis hotel, now a museum, where King was shot, John McCain was booed after describing how he had voted against creating a federal holiday in King’s honor, and Hillary Clinton, speaking from the church where King delivered his last sermon, called for the creation of a poverty czar.CNN.comKUTV.comNY TimesThe Clintons released thirty …

An American cattleman. As the war in Iraq stretched beyond its fifth year the U.S. death toll rose to 4,000, and a national conference intended to reconcile sectarian groups was boycotted by Sunnis.BBC NewsAssociated PressMSNBCSenator John McCain visited Jordan and told reporters that it was “common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran.” Senator Joe Lieberman was seen whispering into McCain’s ear, after which McCain apologized. “The Iranians are training extremists,” he explained. “Not Al Qaeda.” Later, in Jerusalem, a …

The Cloaca Maxima, 1872 Friday marked Mexico‘s Day of the Dead, which was celebrated as hundreds of thousands of people attempted to flee the flooded state of Tabasco by boat, helicopter, jet ski, tractor, or by swimming through murky, snake-infested currents.AP via Yahoo! The town of Orme, Tennessee, which has suffered from a prolonged drought, announced that it had run out of water.APFormer FEMA director Michael D. Brown, who now works for a disaster recovery company, was made available for comment regarding the wildfires raging in California,.PR Newswireand the ten-year-old boy who started a fire that spanned 60 square miles …

President George W. Bush attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in Sydney, where he gave a speech referring to APEC as OPEC and thanking Australian Prime Minister John Howard for sending Austrian troops to Iraq.AP via Yahoo NewsA B-52 bomber plane flew across the United States, mistakenly loaded with nuclear-armed missiles,BBCand “bio-warfare” chemicals found at a United Nations office in New York turned out to be cleaning supplies.BBCPolice in Germany claimed to have foiled a massive terror plot that would have targeted U.S. facilities in the country,BBCand Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for two suicide bombs that killed at least 50 …

In the midst of a brief thunderstorm that transfixed the New York City subway system and killed one motorist, a tornado formed over the Atlantic Ocean, grazed the north coast of Staten Island, and blew into Brooklyn, felling 292 trees, ripping roofs off dozens of buildings, and displacing 200 people from their homes. New York TimesNY1Losses among lenders to American debtors led to a one-day plunge of 387 points in the Dow Industrial Average. The Federal Reserve injected $62 billion into the market–its largest intervention since September 19, 2001–and its international counterparts followed suit. Hedge funds were in the red. …

An American cattleman. President Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the Palestinian unity government and declared a state of emergency after masked Hamas gunmen seized control of the Gaza Strip. Hamas looters broke into former Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat’s home and stole military outfits, photographs of his daughter, and his Nobel Peace Prize. “I see Iraq here,” a bystander in Gaza said. “There is no mercy. We are afraid. See how ferocious this fight was? There is no future for us.”New York TimesThe Jerusalem PostNew York TimesIsrael and the United States tacitly agreed on a policy to treat the West Bank and …