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 …

In Baghdad, at a gathering place for poor Shiite laborers, the owner of a truck filled with wheat announced that he was looking for workers. A crowd gathered around the truck and it exploded, killing 70 people and wounding 236.NYTIt was revealed that billions of dollars in Iraqi oil revenues had not been spent, and the head of Iraq’s Commission on Public Integrity was accused of graft.NYTOutgoing Representative Cynthia McKinney (D., Ga.) introduced a bill to impeach President George W. Bush for misleading Congress on the war in Iraq and implementing an illegal domestic spying program.Newsvine.comPresident Bush said that any …

President George W. Bush officially replaced the phrase “stay the course” in Iraq with “We will stay in Iraq,” and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki insisted he never agreed to a U.S. timetable for reducing sectarian violence. “I’m not America’s man,” he said.Chicago TribuneNew York TimesNews.com.auDefense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told critics of the war to “back off.”Yahoo NewsIn Basra, Prince Philip of Britain assured the troops “at the sharp end” that “a great many locals do very much appreciate what you are trying to do for them,”New Zealand Heraldand Senator Rick Santorum said, “As the hobbits are going up Mount …

War erupted between Hezbollah and Israel after the Lebanese militia launched Operation Truthful Promise against Israel by crossing the border and capturing two Israeli soldiers. The operation was staged in response to Operation Summer Rains, in which Israel occupied Gaza and destroyed a large portion of the civilian infrastructure. Israel countered Operation Truthful Promise by staging Operation Just Reward against Lebanon, bombing roads, bridges, power stations, fuel depots, ports, and airports, and killing numerous civilians. Hezbollah bombed Haifa, surprising Israel with the range of its rockets and killing at least eight civilians. “You wanted an open war,” said Hezbollah leader …

In Iraq over 66 people were killed in attacks, including two CBS News employees when their convoy was struck by a car bomb; a CBS correspondent was seriously injured in the same attack. In Baghdad two tennis players and their coach were killed for wearing shorts, and a Marine helicopter was shot down over the Anbar province.ABC NewsAP via Forbes.comABC NewsABC NewsABC NewsSoldiers were developing emotional relationships with their bomb-defusing robots. “Please fix Scooby Doo,” said one soldier, “because he saved my life.”MSNBCSenator John Warner called for hearings into the killings of more than 20 civilians in Haditha by U.S. …

It was revealed that the National Security Agency, with the assistance of AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth, has secretly stored the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans. “It’s the largest database ever assembled in the world” said an anonymous whistleblower. A poll found that 63 percent of Americans feel that it is acceptable for the NSA to build such a database.USA TodayMedia Matters for AmericaABC NewsIt was reported that the United States was analyzing phone call records of reporters from ABC News, the New York Times, and the Washington Post to determine the identities of CIA employees who …

Eighty-six corpses–most shot, some strangled–were found around Baghdad over a 30-hour period. CNN“We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more,” said Iyad Allawi, the former interim prime minister of Iraq. “If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is.”BBC NewsDonald Rumsfeld denied that Iraq was in a civil war.CNNThe United States launched Operation Swarmer against the Iraqi insurgency. While the operation was described as the largest air assault since the beginning of the Iraq war, there were no airstrikes and no leading insurgents were captured.TimeA videotape …

The U.S. State Department issued a report criticizing human rights abuses in China, North Korea, Iran, and Cuba. It also criticized the rights records of Jordan and Egypt, two countries where the United States has sent detainees to be interrogated. The report noted that the United States’ “own journey towards liberty and justice for all has been long and difficult,” and is “far from complete.”The New York TimesThe IndependentA bombing at a Shiite market in Sadr City, Iraq, killed at least 50 people; Shiite vigilantes responded by abducting four men, beating and executing them, and hanging them from lampposts.The New …

Saddam Hussein refused to appear in court to defend himself against war crimes, complaining of a lack of clean underwear. “Go to hell, all you agents of America,” he said.CNN.comAt least 66 people were killed in suicide bombings in Iraq,PakTribuneand 625 prisoners were found packed in a small space in Baghdad.The New York TimesIraq’s Victorious Army Group was holding a contest to see who could design the best website to promote their message of jihad. The contest winner will receive Allah’s blessings and be allowed to fire three rockets at an American military base.The New York TimesThe probe into the …

Hurricane Rita, the third-most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic basin, struck Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, killing 36 people and causing flooding, tornadoes, and storm surges, and re-flooding parts of New Orleans. Hurricane evacuations caused miles of traffic jams in Texas, and a bus filled with elderly people exploded when an oxygen tank caught fire, incinerating at least 24 passengers.WikipediaHouston ChronicleIn the wake of Hurricane Rita, which damaged a number of oil refineries, President George W. Bush called on Americans to conserve gas. “I mean,” he said, “people just need to recognize that the storms have caused …

It was Lent.The Arizona RepublicDeep Throat was dying,Miami Heraldand the creator of Dolly the sheep was granted a license to clone humans.ReutersA NASA study found that 2004 was the fourth-warmest year on record, andThe New York Timesa report showed that, between April and September 2001, the Federal Aviation Administration received fifty-two reports about Al Qaeda’s plans to hijack airplanes.Washington PostScientists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service told of being forced to cover up their findings regarding risks to endangered species. Forty-two percent said they feared retaliation if they told the truth.Union of Concerned ScientistsKarl Rove was promoted.AZ CentralCondoleezza Rice …

Israel raided the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip and left 1,240 Palestinians homeless after demolishing up to 120 houses; Israeli officials said they had destroyed three tunnels used to smuggle weapons from Egypt. Eight Palestinians were killed in the operation, including two children.Associated PressAhmed Qurei, the new Palestinian prime minister, threatened to resign after Yasir Arafat refused to give him control over the Palestinian security forces.New York TimesTensions were beginning to surface publicly between Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, over the creation of Rice’s Iraq Stability Group, which will oversee the chaos …

The Supreme Court of the United States decided that it was no longer okay to execute retarded people, because a “national consensus” has emerged that such judicial killings are cruel and unusual punishment and are thus, in light of “evolving standards of decency,” prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. The Court offered little guidance for determining what constitutes “retarded.” After a series of Palestinian suicide attacks, including an attack on a home in Itamar, a Jewish settlement near Nablus, in which a mother and her three children were murdered, Israel’s security cabinet voted to seize the entire West …

Two hundred couples were selected by an Italian embryologist to take part in a human cloning project; the human clones will be made using a technique similar to that which produced Dolly the sheep. The United States House of Representatives voted to ban human cloning for both reproduction and medical research; the measure also prohibits the sale of treatments derived from such procedures. Some British and Indianscientists claimed that they had positively identified alien bacteria entering Earth’s upper atmosphere from space, which would tend, they said, to confirm the Panspermia theory of life’s origin. Hundreds of pounds of such bacteria, …

Governor Rick Perry of Texas vetoed legislation banning the execution of retarded people just a few days after President Bush declared that retards should never be put to death; Bush and Perry both have claimed that Texas has never done so, though six inmates with IQs below 70 have been put down since 1980. Minneapolis, hoping to boost tourism, was preparing to install a bronze statue of Mary Tyler Moore throwing her hat in the air at the corner of Seventh Street and Nicollet Avenue, just like on TV. “Tossing the hat inspired so many women,” Mayor Sharon Sayles-Belton told …

The United States Commission on Civil Rights released its report on the Floridaelection, concluding that blacks were widely disenfranchised by the actions of state officials and calling for an investigation by the Justice Department. After the National Academy of Sciences, in a report requested by President Bush, confirmed that global warming is in fact real, the White House was forced to disappoint its stockholders in the petroleum industry and acknowledge that climate change is an “issue that nations do need to deal with�??all nations, industrialized nations, the United States, developing nations, as well.” President Bush went off to Europe, where …

Senator James M. Jeffords of Vermont defected from the Republican Party, handing control of the Senate to the Democrats, who promptly voted to confirm Theodore B. Olson as solicitor general, suggesting that the White House cabal had little to fear after all. Jack Kemp was exasperated with criticism that President Bush was governing from the far right, noting that Colin Powell was off in darkest Africa talking about AIDS. “What more do they want from this president?” Charles, the Prince of Wales, was said to be miffed with his father Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, because a senior courtier …

Scientists in New Jersey announced that they had produced the first genetically modified humans. Up to thirty such children have been bred using a fertility treatment that accidentally resulted in babies with three genetic parents. Canada prepared to ban human cloning. An Albanian woman, formerly penniless, sold her newborn two-headed calf to an anonymous American group for $25,000. Colorado’s governor signed a law banning bullying in the schools; a similar measure was being blocked in the Washington State legislature because conservative Christians were concerned that the anti-bullying law would prevent children from persecuting homosexuals. Ralph Reed, formerly of the Christian …

The United States withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol on global climate change; Christie Whitman, the administrator of the EPA, announced that “we have no interest in implementing that treaty.” President Bush told German chancellor Gerhard Schr�der that “We will not do anything that harms our economy, because first things first are the people who live in America.” North Korea’s dear leader Kim Jong Il sent a large floral wreath to the funeral of Chung Ju Yung, the founder of the Hyundai group, in a further display of goodwill toward the south by the ruler of the Hermit Kingdom. Israeli prime …

A fifteen-year-old boy smiled as he murdered two classmates and wounded over a dozen others in Santee, California. A fourteen-year-old girl, who was said to be a victim of teasing, shot up her school in Pennsylvania, hitting one girl, a cheerleader and possibly one of her tormentors, in the shoulder. A seventeen-year-old boy beat his father to death with a baseball bat because he didn’t want to turn off two radios and a television that he was listening to simultaneously; the boy told police that he then went bowling, tried to slash his wrists, and deliberately crashed his dead father’s …