In Iraq, a car bomb in Basra killed at least 33 people, CNNa mortar attack in southern Baghdad killed 9 people,Yahoo! Newsand 8 U.S. soldiers died.icasualties.orgPolice found 22 bodies with bullet wounds and signs of torture in Baghdad;Reutersnorthwest of the city, at an improvised checkpoint, 19 civilians were dragged from their cars and shot.Kuwait News AgencyTwenty-one Kurds and Shiites, many of them high school students, were ordered off a bus and executed in Ain Laila.Belleville News DemocratIn Baquba 7 policemen were killed,BBCand the heads of 8 Sunni men were found in Dole banana boxes.Indian ExpressReutersSix more policemen were killed in …

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. …

Runaway Raft on the Tigris. In Baghdad at least 28 people were killed when two suicide bombers attacked the Interior Ministry.BBC NewsWalter Cronkite called for the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq,CBC.comand Iraq’selectoral commission ruled that 99 percent of ballots cast on December 15, 2005, were valid.Forbes.comU.S. troops continued to be plagued by improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. “They blow up,” said a Marine corporal, “and you can’t find the triggerman. You’re mad, and you just want to kill someone, and you can’t find them.”The Wall Street Journal/A1The United States bombed Pakistan. The missiles were intended to kill Al Qaeda leader …

More than 170 people died in attacks in Iraq. They were: blown up at a Shiite shrine in Karbala; killed at a police recruiting center in Ramadi; and attacked with mortar, automatic weapons, and finally by a suicide bomber at a funeral near Baquba.BBC NewsBBC NewsTwelve U.S. soldiers were believed to have been killed when an Army helicopter crashed in northern Iraq,The New York Timesand a U.S. airstrike north of Baghdad, intended to destroy a shelter for insurgents, killed a civilian family of 12.Washington PostThe FAA took steps to lower the risk of spaceterrorism.BBC NewsA suicide bombing in Afghanistan killed …

In Amman, Jordan, 57 people were killed in explosions at three different hotels. “We thought it was fireworks for the wedding,” said Ahmed at the Radisson. An Iraqi woman named Sajida Rishawi later described how she, her husband, and two other Iraqis had entered Jordan on forged passports intending to blow up the hotels; while the other three suicide bombers succeeded, she explained, her exploding belt malfunctioned, so she ran.BBC NewsThe Los Angeles TimesKuwait�??s largest oil field began to run out of oil,AMEInfo.comand Saudi Arabia was told it could now join the World Trade Organization.BBC NewsAustralian authorities arrested 17 men …

Lost Souls in Hell, 1875. Pat Robertson called for the United States to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez; Robertson then lied about calling for the assassination (“‘take him out’,” he said, “can be a number of things”), and finally apologized. Chavez said that Venezuela would take legal action against Robertson.The New York TimesBBC NewsA man was arrested in Tallahassee, Florida, after threatening to blow up Governor Jeb Bush.The Tampa TribuneA New York man was recognized as having the world’s longest eyebrow hair at 3.78 inches,MyWayand a judge in Missouri decided a new statewide ban on semi-nude lap dances was unconstitutional.APScientists …

Martin Luther controlled by the Devil, 1875. The interim Iraqi government officially notified the International Atomic Energy Agency that 380 tons of extremely powerful HMX and RDX explosives that American forces simply failed to secure have disappeared from a former military facility called Al Qaqaa. The explosives can be used to destroy buildings, arm missile warheads, and detonate nuclear devices, and it was generally conceded that the Al Qaqaa cache, which was under seal by the IAEA prior to the U.S. invasion, is the most likely source of the explosives used in the extremely effective roadside and suicide bombs that …

An American cattleman. In response to the mad-cow crisis, the United States Department of Agriculture banned the human consumption of cow brains, skulls, spinal cords, vertebral columns, eyes, and nerve tissue from cows older than 30 months. Downer cows may no longer be eaten by humans, though they will be boiled down and fed to chickens and pigs, and younger cow brains may still be eaten.Forbes, New York TimesThe American Meat Institutecriticized the new rules, andNew York Timestrade officials were trying to persuade about 30 countries that have banned American beef that there’s nothing to worry about.Associated PressUSDA officials said …

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 …

CIA director George Tenet testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee and again took responsibility for President Bush’s false claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger, but he admitted that he didn’t know the claim, which he successfully removed from at least one of the president’s previous speeches, would be included in the State of the Union address.Tenet said that his staff should have told him about it.Washington PostIt later emerged that the White House and the CIA had negotiated over the line, which “the CIA knew to be incredible.” The White House, one senator said, wanted to know …

The Taliban surrendered Kandahar, the last Afghan city under its control, to a loose confederation of warlords, who immediately began fighting among themselves and looting stores. Afghan refugees, particularly children, were dying in great numbers; Uzbekistan finally agreed to allow humanitarian aid to cross its border at the “Friendship Bridge.” The CIA asked Pakistan for help in finding Osama bin Laden, whose mother told a Saudi newspaper that she was disappointed in her son. Mullah Omar was still at large. The White House issued a holiday terror-strike warning. Attorney General John Ashcroft testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which had …

The pharmaceutical industry dropped its suit against the South African government over a law that will permit the importation of inexpensive anti-AIDSdrugs; the drug companies agreed to pay the government’s legal costs and admitted that the law in question does in fact abide by international trade agreements. Dr. Tshabalala-Msimang, South Africa’s health minister, was asked what the government planned to do next, having won this important victory; she replied that actually there was no real need to use such drugs in a country with the highest rate of AIDS infection on earth. Scientists sequenced the genomes of two strains of …

American newspapers and other content providers were still ignoring growing evidence, reported in the British press, of George W. Bush’s electoral coup, including new evidence that thousands of black Floridians were improperly removed from the list of approved voters. Bill Clinton’s corrupt pardons continued to dominate the news; Senator Hillary Clinton chastised her portly brother for exercising “terrible misjudgment” when he accepted $400,000 to help a coke dealer and another felon obtain pardons from his brother-in-law. Federal authorities in New York were investigating whether the pardon of four Hasidic Jews convicted of fraud was granted in exchange for votes. Roger …