President George W. Bush unveiled a $3.1 trillion spending package that would increase military funding while protecting tax cuts,Bush Unveils $3.1 Trillion Spending Planand Wal-Mart announced an economic “stimulus plan” that offers steep discounts on thousands of items, including a five-pound bag of Tyson frozen chicken wings ($8.88) and two Hillshire Farms Cocktail Smokies or Ropes ($5).Wal-Mart &lq;Stimulus&rq; Pkg: Will Doritos Rescue The Economy?Mississippi lawmakers introduced a bill that would make it illegal for restaurants in the state to serve obese people,Mississippi Legislature Introduces Bill that Would Ban Restaurants from Serving the Obeseand an unidentified robber killed five women in …

The Cloaca Maxima, 1872 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hailed by his countrymen as the “Socrates of the Third Millennium” for “disarming other speakers through his sharp reasoning,” gave a speech on Monday in which he claimed that Iran had no homosexuals and disavowed reports of his nuclear ambitions. “Let me tell a joke here,” Ahmadinejad said. “I think the politicians who are after atomic bombs, or testing them, making them, politically they are backward, retarded.” On Tuesday he met with Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, addressed the United Nations (where he announced that he would disregard any resolutions adopted by the …

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 …

Hezbollah declared victory in its 34-day war with Israel. “I guess,” said President George W. Bush, “I would have done the same thing if I were them.” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged that Israel would “do better” in what Defense Minister Amir Peretz referred to as “the next round.” An official said killing Hezbollah leader Sheikh Nasrallah was a top priority.The Daily Telegraph (Australia)Dan Halutz, chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, was under fire for selling all of his stocks in the hours before the war began.The Wall Street JournalThe New York TimesThe Daily Telegraph (UK)The New York …

Caught in the Web, 1860. The Iraqi Defense Ministry announced that on average one person per hour was being killed in Basra.The Register-GuardIn Baghdad, 19 people were killed in attacks, including four U.S. soldiers, and a tae kwon do team was kidnapped.BBC NewsGayIraqis were fleeing the country to avoid being killed by militias.Times OnlineAmerican troops were using lasers to “dazzle” Iraqi drivers who do not stop at checkpoints; if used properly, said a Pentagon spokesman, the laser light will not blind its target.Local6.comThe Nepal House of Representatives declared the King of Nepal to be powerless,The Washington Timesand King Abdullah of …

A Christian martyr. A car bomb killed 10 people at a Shiite shrine in Najaf, Iraq, and a suicide bombing killed 85 people at a Shiite mosque in Baghdad. BBC NewsThe U.S. military announced that 1,313 Iraqi civilians had been killed in the sectarian violence of March. “Civil war,” said Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, “has almost started among Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, and those who are coming from Asia.”BBC NewsChron.comThe case against Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein, an Iraqi cameraman for CBS who was arrested in April 2005 after filming the wreckage of a car bomb, was finally dismissed for lack of …

Runaway Raft on the Tigris. In Iraqa suicide bomber killed 50 people and a car bomb killed 10 people. At least 15 U.S. troops were also killed. Hostage Jill Carroll was freed.CNN.comCNN.comU.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited England but cancelled a visit to a mosque there in order to avoid protesters. Rice and British foreign minister Jack Straw then visited Iraq, where they told the Iraqi leadership that it must form a unified government immediately.BBC NewsThe New York TimesIt was reported that Al Qaeda member Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was forced to step down as the leader of a coalition …

Cookie Monster in the Green Room (White House photo). Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr. was sentenced to ten years in military prison for his role in torturing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison.USA TodayGraner threatened to rape prisoners and made them eat pork, and made one prisoner eat from a toilet.New York TimesimesHe insisted that he was only following orders. “There’s a war on,” he said. “Bad things happen.”USA TodayMore reports surfaced detailing torture in Iraq, this time with Navy SEALs and the CIA as the instigators, andSacramento Beethe Pentagon was considering whether to fund special, El Salvador-style Iraqi death …

Caught in the Web. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice testified publicly and under oath before the commission investigating September 11; Rice acknowledged that President Bush had received a classified CIA briefing on August 6, 2001, entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States,” though she characterized the report as “historical information based on old reporting.” She also acknowledged that the report mentioned the existence of Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States but “there was no recommendation that we do something about this.” Rice also admitted that Richard Clarke, whose book on the Bush Administration’s antiterrorism failures …

Israel assassinated Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas; Sheikh Yassin, an elderly, partially blind quadriplegic, was hit in his wheelchair with a missile as he left a mosque in Gaza City.New York TimesThe Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade apologized for murdering a Palestinian college student who was jogging in East Jerusalem; the killers thought he was a Jew.New York TimesThe Pentagon dropped charges against Capt. James Yee, a former chaplain at Guant�namo Bay, Cuba, who was accused of being a Muslim spy.Straights TimesThe British government was fighting in court for the right to charge people who have …

More than 60 prominent scientists, including 20 Nobel prize winners and 19 winners of the National Medal of Science, denounced the Bush Administration for its systematic distortion of scientific facts for political gain; John H. Marburger III, the administration’s head of science and technology policy, dismissed the report and said that it was politically motivated.Chemical and Environmental NewsPresident Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors decided to move the official start date of the last recession from the generally accepted March 2001 to the fourth quarter of 2000, when Bill Clinton was still president.Business WeekHealth and Human Services officials admitted that a …

David Kay, the outgoing head of the Iraq Survey Group, said that Iraq got rid of its illegal weapons programs years before the United States invaded. New York TimesKay made it clear that the United Nations weapons-inspection process had succeeded in disarming Iraq and said the Iraqis had been reduced to experimenting with ricin, a primitive but deadly poison easily made from fermented castor beans; Kay also said that the CIA had completely misread the situation in Iraq, largely because the agency had no on-the-ground spies after the U.N. inspectors were removed.New York TimesMore than 100,000 Iraqis filled the streets …

President George W. Bush signed a $400 billion Medicare bill that will provide a prescription-drug benefit to elderly Americans; the bill permits private insurance companies to compete with Medicare, which many think will destroy the program, but bans policies that would cover gaps in the drug benefit on the theory that people with good prescription coverage take too many pills and drive up medical costs.Associated Press, New York TimesThomas Scully, the federal official who runs Medicare, was preparing to take a job in the private sector, probably with a company that will directly benefit from the new bill, which he …

Governor George Ryan of Illinois commuted the sentences of the state’s 156 death-row inmates and pardoned four men who were tortured by police into confessing to murders they did not commit. Ryan, whose last day in office was Monday, said that “the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious�??and therefore immoral.” A federal appeals court ruled that President George W. Bush may at his sole discretion strip Yasser Esam Hamdi, a United States citizen raised in Saudi Arabia and captured in Afghanistan, of his constitutional protections because of the need to fight the war on terrorism. Administration officials then …

The Vatican proclaimed, not for the first time, that the Roman Catholic Church was the one true Church of Christ and that worshippers of false gods were in a “gravely deficient situation” with respect to their eternal souls.A group of Jewish scholars and rabbis called on Jews to let go of their ancient fear of Christians.A Canadianpolice ship successfully navigated the Northwest Passage in about one month.President Bill Clinton shook hands with Fidel Castro at a luncheon in New York; it was the first time Castro had shaken hands with a sitting American president.The judge in the Wen Ho Lee …