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 …

Executive power was transferred to Vice President Dick Cheney for two hours and five minutes while President George W. Bush underwent a routine colonoscopy. Spokesman Scott Stanzel announced that five small polyps had been removed, but “none appeared worrisome,” and the president was soon able to ride his bike.MSNBCAFP via Taipei TimesPrior to the procedure, Bush issued an order requiring the CIA to stop torturing its prisoners and to comply with the Geneva Conventions as the president interprets them, and also made clear that he would, by invoking executive privilege, refuse to allow the Justice Department to pursue any contempt …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Thirty beheaded corpses were found in Baquba, Iraq, and 10 more bodies were found in Baghdad, where the homicide rate had reached 33 per day. Shiites were abducting Sunnis in bright daylight on crowded streets. “If the Americans leave,” said one Sunni man (whose brother had recently been executed after being tortured with power tools), “we are finished. We may be finished already.”The New York TimesThe New York TimesIn Miqdadiya, near Baquba, militants attacked a prison, killed 20 people, and freed 30 prisoners.BBC NewsA doctor in Baghdad admitted to killing 35 policemen and soldiers who were being treated at his …

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 …

Amnesty International released a report calling the prison camp at Guant�namo Bay “the gulag of our time.” General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the prison camp was “a model facility” and pointed out that 1,300 Korans had been handed out at the prison in the last four years.BBC NewsBrigadier General Jay Hood, the camp’s commander, said that an investigation at Guant�namo Bay had uncovered five incidents of Koran abuse, but none involved toilets; protesters rallied against Koran abuse in Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, Malaysia, and in Lebanon, where they chanted “America is the biggest Satan.”BBC NewsMecca …

A papyrologist at Oxford University announced that new techniques in spectral imaging, which make it possible to decipher previously illegible ink on papyrus fragments, have yielded parts of a lost tragedy by Sophocles, a novel by Lucian, and an epic poem by Archilochos; researchers also applied the technique to third- and fourth-century manuscripts of the Revelation of Saint John and discovered that the number of the beast, contrary to popular belief, is 616, the area code of Grand Rapids, Michigan.National PostA Washington woman found a snake with legs,Tri-City Heraldlocusts plagued Bangladesh,NZHeraldand Zimbabwe was at risk of famine.ABC News OnlineMore than …

A Christian martyr. The U.S. Senate subpoenaed Terri Schiavo, a woman who has been in a persistent vegetative state since 1991, to testify before the Health, Education, and Labor Committee. The subpoena was intended to make it impossible for Schiavo to be taken off the feeding tube that allows her to survive; the order, however, was defied by a Florida judge, and the feeding tube was removed. Schiavo then began to die of dehydration. The House and Senate held emergency sessions in order to pass a bill that would transfer the case from state court to federal court. The bill …

Caught in the Web. Car bombers, suicide attackers, and kidnappers in Iraq were exceptionally busy, killing dozens to protest the country’s impending election,New York Timesand a video showed two Iraqis being beheaded for delivering food and supplies to an American base in Ramadi.CNNThe interim government announced that to minimize insurgent attacks, curfews would be extended, traffic restricted, national borders sealed for three days, and the locations of polling stations would be kept secret until the night before the vote.BBCThe Iraqi government arrested an ally of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who was responsible for more than thirty car bombs since the invasion.BBCAl-Zarqawi …

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 …

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 …

United States officials met in China with their North Korean counterparts and warned them that talks would cease if they did not stop issuing “bellicose” statements. The North Koreans admitted they already have nuclear weapons and may test, export, or use them depending on U.S. actions; Donald Rumsfeld thought this might present an opportunity for another “regime change.” The U.S. warned Iran not to meddle in Iraq’s political affairs and accused the country of sending agents into the south to promote an Iranian model of government; to counter the damage, troops and intelligence officers were asking Iraqi clerics to please …

Chaos ruled Baghdad for a second week; much of the city, already without water, food, electricity, a stable currency, or a governing body, was on fire, though the rampant looting that defined the country’s first days of liberation abated when there was nothing left to loot. Iraqis exercised their newfound freedom to complain, with tens of thousands publicly protesting their conditions and the possibility of a long-term American occupation. U.S. officials insisted they were not interested in occupying Iraq, but expected to retain four military bases there to be used for future crises. The White House was said to regard …

The Bush Administration found it necessary to deny that torture will be used against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the Al Qaeda leader captured in Pakistan last week, but confirmed that “routine techniques” such as sleep and light deprivation and withholding food and water and medical attention might be used. Officials confirmed that during the questioning of Abu Zubaydah, an Al Qaeda leader who was shot several times when he was captured, American interrogators withheld pain killers; and they confirmed that terrorism suspects are routinely forced to stand or kneel in “uncomfortable positions” for long periods wearing black hoods in the extreme …

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that President Bush had not yet decided whether to invade Iraq and that it was important for Americans to “engage in a somewhat elevated, thoughtful discussion about what free people ought to do given the circumstances of the 21st century.” Secretary Rumsfeld compared President Bush to Winston Churchill and said that Saddam Hussein was acting like Adolf Hitler. British historians begged to differ. “Churchill is the only Englishman any of them has ever heard of, with the possible exception of Shakespeare if they were hard-working at school,” said Ben Pimlott, warden of Goldsmiths College, London. …

President Bush sent an envoy to Israel with the aim of restarting peace talks with the Palestinian Authority. Hamas proved that it still has the power to prevent such negotiations by sending a wave of suicide bombers into Israel, which culminated in a double bombing on a crowded Jerusalem street that left at least 10 people dead. Body parts littered the neighborhood. Yasir Arafat declared a state of emergency and arrested 110 suspected Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants. Israel retaliated by bombing Gaza City with cruise missiles. Prime Minister Sharon “declared war on terror.” A paper in the scientific journal …

America and Britain fired cruise missiles and dropped bombs on targets in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden taunted the United States in a televised statement and said, “America will not live in peace before peace reigns in Palestine, and before all the army of infidels depart the land of Mohammad, peace be upon him.” A suicidetruck bomb killed 26 people at the Legislative Assembly of Kashmir. Islamic radicals in Indonesia were roaming around looking for Americans to kill. Islamic rebels in the Philippines attacked the capital city of the island of Basilan. Philippine military officials said they had found the decapitated …

As President Bush continued to ponder the political expediencies of permitting or banning federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, science was marching on, aided and comforted by medical ethicists. One company was using donated eggs and sperm to create human embryos from which stem cells could be harvested, a procedure that destroys the embryos. Another company, called Advance Cell Technology, was preparing to create human embryo clones, using a technique similar to that used to clone Dolly the sheep, in order to extract their stem cells. A French court upheld a “right not to be born” and awarded damages …