Caught in the Web, 1860. Senator Barack Obama beat Senator Hillary Clinton by huge margins in primaries in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, and Senator John McCain beat former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. The close Democratic race worried party superdelegates, who will play a decisive role in choosing a candidate. Nancy Larson, a lobbyist and superdelegate from Minnesota, characterized superdelegates in general as “big schmucks.” Alaskan superdelegate Cindi Spanyers received a call from former president Bill Clinton, who recalled his wife’s work on a fish cannery slime line there, and Obama was endorsed by the fishing village of …

Charges of a rigged presidential election triggered violence along tribal lines in Kenya, leading to more than 700 deaths and the displacement of 250,000 Kenyans. Opposition leader Raila Odinga, who lost the election to incumbent Mwai Kibaki, said that his first cousin Barack Obama had called him twice to express his concern, “despite being in the middle of the very busy New Hampshire primary.”AFP.comTelegraph.co.ukObama and Mike Huckabee were the surprise winners of the Iowacaucuses. “None of this worries me,” said Rudy Giuliani, who came in sixth place in the Republican caucus. “September 11, there were times I was worried.”NYDailyNews.comJohn McCain …

“Into the palace parlor they stepped; her hand in his paw the old bruin kept,” 1875 The U.S. military announced that July was the least deadly of the past eight months for American troops in Iraq, with only 75 soldiers killed. AP via BreitbartSeventy-six U.S. senators had visited Iraq, and 3 percent of Americans approved of how Congress was handling the war, which was costing the United States and Great Britain more than $4,000 each second.The HillZogbyDaily MailIt was estimated that 90 percent of Iraq’s artists had fled the country or been killed,Washington Postand Iraq’sgays were being targeted for murder, …

A Christian martyr. In Minnesota, an overweight loner Chippewa neo-Nazi goth teenager shot and killed his grandfather and his grandfather’s girlfriend, then went to his high school and shot and killed a security guard, five students, a teacher, and himself.BBC NewsThe National Rifle Association suggested that such rampages could be stopped if teachers armed themselves.NewsdayFoghat’s guitarist died,APand Florida lawmakers were considering an Academic Freedom Bill of Rights, intended to stamp out “leftist totalitarianism,” that would allow students to sue teachers who insist that evolution is factual.Alligator.orgSeveral IMAX theaters in the American South decided not to show a film about volcanoes …

The Bush Administration warned foreign diplomats that their countries could lose all military aid unless they pledge never to turn over American soldiers to the International Criminal Court. A spokesman for Representative Tom DeLay, who wrote the provision of the antiterrorism law that authorizes such threats, said that “this is just an effective tool, and we have said numerous times that we have to do whatever it takes to protect our service members from this rogue court.” Vice President Dick Cheney told Iraqi opposition leaders that the United States was committed to overthrowing Saddam Hussein and installing a democratic replacement, …

Three days after Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan blamed “infectious greed” for the faltering of the stock market but declared the economy essentially sound, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 400 points, completing a two-week period during which it lost 15 percent of its value. President George W. Bush worried that Americans were getting too caught up in the recent spate of corporate scandals; he opined that since September 11 “I believe people have taken a step back and asked, ‘What’s important in life?’ You know, the bottom line and this corporate America stuff, is that important? Or is …

More than 100 soldiers in the Israeli army reserve signed a petition declaring their refusal to serve in the Occupied Territories. “The price of occupation is the army’s loss of its human image and the corruption of all Israeli society.” The soldiers said they had in the past received orders to commit crimes such as firing automatic weapons into neighborhoods and shooting at boys throwing stones. Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon said he wished he had “liquidated” Yasir Arafat in the 1980s when he had the chance. A state department official said “remarks like these can be unhelpful.” President Bush, …

Chile’s former dictator General Augusto Pinochet was arrested, in Chile.The terms of the amnesty he negotiated upon his abdication included murder but not kidnapping, and the bodies of nineteen people who were abducted by the “Caravan of death,” a helicopter-borne death squad led by one of Pinochet’s close aides, were never found, world-historical ruthlessness giving rise to world-historical ironyâ�?�?which then devolved into farce when an appeals court suspended the arrest order.Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, his government about to fall, called for an early election.Mary Robinson, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, recommended sending international monitors to the …

Peru’s dictator Alberto Fujimori stopped in Japan on his way to an economic summit, decided he liked it there, and quit his job, via fax; Peruvians were generally pleased with the development, and within days Fujimori was named in a corruption investigation.Slobodan Milosevic was reelected president of the Socialist Party of Serbia.Madeleine Albright asked to meet with Serbia’s new president, Vojislav Kostunica, at a meeting in Vienna; she was snubbed.Jean-Bertrand Aristide (promising “Peace in the Head. Peace in the Belly.”) was reelected president of Haiti in an election boycotted by major opposition parties, who said it was rigged.The United Stateselection …