Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, released a video in which he showed his face and claimed that the Bush Administration had lied about its military victories. “America,” said Zarqawi, “will go out of Iraq, humiliated, defeated.”The Washington PostThe United States announced that it would free 141 of the 490 “enemy combatants” at the Guant�namo Bay prison in Cuba because they do not threaten U.S. security after all.The Los Angeles TimesIn Dahab, Egypt, three bombings killed 30 people,The New York Timesand in Baquba, Iraq, about the same number of people died in fighting.BBC NewsPresident George W. …

White House photo. General George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, presented a plan for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.CNN.comSaddam Hussein, on trial with seven other defendants for killing civilians in 1982, complained to a judge about being denied a pen and paper;CNN.comIraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said that human-rights abuses in Iraq are “the same . . . and worse” than they were under Saddam Hussein.Guardian UnlimitedGunmen in Baghdad killed a Sunni Arab chief, his three sons, and his son-in-law,BBC Newsand south of Baghdad thirty people were killed when a …

Lost Souls in Hell, 1875. North Korea needed food.BBC NewsWal-Mart announced that it would export $18 billion worth of Chinese goods,Forbesand researchers in Singapore developed a system that allows people to pet chickens over the Internet.Wired NewsPakistan was working to stop bearbaiting,BBC NewsChina put a halt to the practice of using naked women for plates in sushi restaurants,BBC Newsand Warren Beatty was wondering whether he should run for governor of California.ABC NewsNew York was reviewing a law that allows convicted rapists to obtain Viagra through Medicaid,APand a parachutist died in a fall from the Eiffel Tower.News.telegraphKylie Minogue announced that she …

The British government declined to prosecute Katharine Gun, the linguist who leaked a United States National Security Agency memo asking British intelligence to spy on United Nations diplomats before the invasion of Iraq; there was speculation that the government was trying to avoid another embarrassing debate about the legality of the war.New York TimesClare Short, a Labor member of parliament who resigned from the Blair cabinet over Iraq, charged that British agents had spied on United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan just before the invasion of Iraq, and said that she had seen transcripts of Annan’s conversations.IndependentAnnan was said to …

A federal appeals court ordered President Bush to release Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who was arrested last year in Chicago and has been held since then as an enemy combatant. The court ruled that “the president, acting alone, possesses no inherent constitutional authority to detain American citizens seized within the United States, away from the zone of combat, as enemy combatants.”New York TimesA class-action lawsuit was filed against the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security accusing the agencies of illegally using a national crime database to enforce civil immigration laws.New York TimesFederal investigators found videotapes of guards …

The White House admitted that President Bush’s claim in his last State of the Union address that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger was based on “unsubstantiated” intelligence;CNNGeorge Tenet, the director of central intelligence, took the blame for the president’s discredited claim and said that “these 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president.”BBCTom Daschle, the Senate minority leader, said that this matter “ought to be reviewed very carefully.”CNNHoward Dean, the former governor of Vermont and a Democratic presidential candidate, said that “this government either is inept or simply has not told …

A newspaper review of the ballots cast in Florida’s presidential election found that Al Gore probably received more votes than George W. Bush, who this week signed an executive order that will permit the government to use military courts to try foreigners accused of terrorism. Bush’s action was widely denounced as dictatorial and un-American, and law professors speculated that the administration was afraid that the evidence against Osama bin Laden was too weak to hold up in court. Vice President Dick Cheney said that suspected terrorists “don’t deserve to be treated as a prisoner of war. They don’t deserve the …

President George W. Bush defended his monthlong Texas vacation after a poll showed a majority of Americans disapproved: “I’m working on lots of issues,” he said. “National security matters.” By the time the President returns to Washington, D.C., on Labor Day, he will have spent almost half his presidency at vacation spots. President Bush announced that he would permit federal research on human stem cells, though the restrictions he imposed amounted to a ban. The Day My Bum Went Psycho, a children’s book by Andy Griffiths, was removed from a literacy campaign by Australianeducation officials, who said that the book, …

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 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 …

President George W. Bush asked Congress to impose a moratorium on lawsuits aimed at forcing the federal government to extend endangered-species protection to unlisted plants and animals. Japan’s whaling fleet returned to port with 440 minke whales. Police in Cincinnati, Ohio, shot dead an unarmed black youth who had a number of outstanding traffic tickets; enraged residents ran amok. The League of the South, an organization devoted to Confederate nostalgia, began circulating a petition at gun shows and convenience stores demanding reparations for Southerners whose ancestors’ way of life was destroyed by Yankees in the Civil War. A new poll …

Albert Einstein’s theory that a massive spinning object will twist space-time around it received support from X-rays emanating from three neutron stars detected by the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, a NASAsatellite. President Bill Clinton’s lawyers argued in court that disbarment was too harsh a penalty for lying in a deposition about his sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky; they also repeated the President’s claim that he did not technically lie. The Supreme Court issued an emergency stay preventing California from allowing the medical use of marijuana. President Clinton went to Colombia and met with President Andres Pastrana, who three years ago …

The Motion Picture Association of America succeeded in convincing a federal judge in Manhattan that publishing or linking to a free computer program that allows people to play DVDs on their Linux computers will lead to widespread copying of DVDs; the judge rejected arguments that computer source code, or links pointing to such code, is expressive speech and is thus protected under the First Amendment. Ole Miss won the right to prevent spectators from waving the Confederate battle flag at sporting events. Bill Clinton signed the T-shirt of a woman who then stripped it off and waved it over her …