Weighing the soul, 1875. A suicide bomber set off a bomb at a mess tent on a U.S. base in Mosul, killing 22 and wounding 69. Among the dead were 13 American soldiers and four employees and subcontractors of Halliburton. A spokeswoman for Halliburton called for a full investigation into the attack. South of Kirkuk, insurgents set an oil well on fire,AP and south of Baghdad, an explosives-rigged gas tanker blew up, killing at least eight.AP Families returned to the bombed-out city of Falluja and found little clean water.APAPDonald Rumsfeld made a surprise trip to Mosul on Christmas Eve.New York …

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 …

Congress approved a major Medicare bill that permits the elderly to buy prescription drug coverage; few citizens were able to understand the plan, though the health-care industry appeared to be well pleased by it. The legislation was endorsed by AARP, which nowadays makes a great deal of money selling health-care products to its members, and consumer advocates denounced it as “a classic election-year giveaway.” Some experts predicted a revolt among the elderly once the plan takes effect in 2006 and the true costs of reform become clear.New York TimesGovernor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California proposed cutbacks in therapy for the mentally …

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 …

President George W. Bush and British prime minister Tony Blair got together at Camp David to talk about Iraq; at a news conference both men cited a satellite photo showing recent construction activity at an old Iraqi nuclear site as evidence that they must invade Iraq now. President Bush compared Saddam Hussein to a crawfish and said he was “stiffing the world.” Bush and Blair also mentioned a 1998 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency and said that Iraq could be six months away from developing nuclear weapons. “I don’t know what more evidence we need,” Bush said. But …

Judge Gladys Kessler of Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., ruled that the Bush Administration has no right to withhold the identities of people it has detained as part of the September 11 investigation, and she gave the government 15 days to release the names. “The first priority of the judicial branch,” she said, “must be to ensure that our government always operates within the statutory and constitutional constraints which distinguish a democracy from a dictatorship,” and such oversight in this case is currently impossible. “Secret arrests are a concept odious to a democratic society,” she added, and “as of …

Israel used an American-made F-16 to drop a one-ton laser-guided bomb on a densely populated residential area in Gaza City, killing a prominent Hamas leader and 14 others, nine of them children. President George W. Bush, who is currently preparing for his month-long vacation, described the move as “heavy-handed.” A human-rights group reported that at least 800 Afghan civilians have been killed so far by U.S. air strikes. A British company was offering vacation packages to war zones in Afghanistan. County officials in Philadelphia launched a “homeland security summer camp” where at-risk teens are paid minimum wage for participating in …

The House Appropriations Committee passed a measure authorizing the President to use force to free any American detained by the new International Criminal Court, which Tom DeLay, the majority whip from Texas, called a “rump” and a “rogue” court. After noticing that some members of the committee seemed ignorant of the court’s location, David Obey, a Democrat from Wisconsin, pointed out that “we would be sending troops to invade the Netherlands.” The measure also bans military aid to countries that ratify the treaty creating the court (which President Bush “unsigned” last week) but specifically exempts NATO countries and other major …

Israel continued its reoccupation of the West Bank. President Bush told Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to withdraw his troops “without delay,” and he dispatched Secretary of State Colin Powell to stop the violence. “Progress is impossible when nations emphasize their grievances and ignore their opportunities,” the President said. “The storms of violence cannot go on.” Secretary Powell noted that “there should be a time dimension to how long” the Israelis stay in the West Bank. Prime Minister Sharon said that Israel was “at the point of no return.” Asked what he would do if Sharon didn’t do what he was …

The United States Department of Justice appointed a special criminal task force to investigate the collapse of Enron, the Texas oil company. Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the investigation, as did the entire United States Attorney’s office in Houston, because of conflicts of interest. Kenneth L. Lay, Enron’s chairman, who called two different cabinet secretaries last fall before the company imploded, apparently fishing for a government bailout, has given more money to President Bush than anyone else �?? more than $550,000 to his political campaigns plus $100,000 for his inaugural committee. In the months before Enron’s stock dropped …

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 …

Advanced Cell Technology Inc. of Worcester, Massachusetts, announced that it had cloned a human embryo in order to mine it for stem cells; the company said that it had taken “extreme measures” to prevent the embryo from being placed in a womb. Independent experts dismissed the cloning experiment as a failure. Mad cow disease continued to spread in Japan. Scientists at Oxford University said up to 1,500 Britishsheep could have been infected with the disease. A new study confirmed that abuse of stimulants used to treat attention-deficit disorder, such as Ritalin, was rampant among children and teens. “People don’t realize …

President George W. Bush declared that all the nations of the earth must choose sides in the coming crusade against terrorism, and he promised to attack Afghanistan if its leaders refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, the famous terrorist, whom the President has described as “Wanted: Dead or Alive.” Secretary of DefenseDonald Rumsfeld told reporters that the preliminary brand-name of the American military campaign, Operation Infinite Justice, would probably be changed, because it was offensive to Muslims, for whom infinite justice is a divine attribute. Some Christians also found the name offensive. The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted a …

Bush Administration officials contradicted previous statements that they would let China build up its nuclear arsenal if Beijing would simply drop its objections to the missile-defense boondoggle. Russia was beginning to approach the subject with a certain irony. “If they have the money to build the most excessive response to the least probable threat situation, that’s okay,” said Vladimir Lukin, deputy speaker of parliament. A Palestiniansuicide bomber disguised as an ultra-Orthodox Jew smiled out of the corner of his mouth and blew himself up on the Street of the Prophets in Jerusalem, wounding 20 people. It was the fifth bomb …

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, …

Serbia‘s prime minister gave Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague to be tried for war crimes even though doing so was technically illegal; the prime minister of Yugoslavia resigned in protest. The International Court of Justice rebuked the United States for executing two German brothers in 1999 without following established international law, which required the German consulate to be notified of the men’s arrest and conviction. American and British warplanes bombed Iraq again, killing three people. Dissidents from the Ivory Coast filed suit against President Laurent Gbagbo in Belgium, whose courts, oddly enough, have universal jurisdiction in crimes against humanity. Ethnic …

Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal reportedly shot and killed most of the royal family, including his mother, Queen Aiswarya, and his father, King Birendra Bir Birkram Shah Dev (who as king was thought to be an incarnation of Vishnu, the Hindu god). Prince Dipendra then shot himself through the temple; he was crowned king as he lay unconscious in a hospital, and promptly died. Prince Gyanendra, his uncle, ascended to the throne and claimed that the royal deaths were the result of the “accidental firing of an automatic weapon.” Riots ensued. Indonesia continued to disintegrate; parliament voted 365-4 to begin …

The U.S. House of Representatives voted to withhold $244 million in United Nations dues if American did not regain its seat on the Human Rights Commission. “This is an affront,” sputtered Dick Armey, the House majority leader, “more to the whole notion of international human rights than it is to us as a nation.” Argentina recalled its ambassador to Cuba after Fidel Castro denounced the current Argentine government as “bootlickers of the Yankees.” Attorney General John Ashcroft delayed the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh after it was discovered that the F.B.I had failed to turn over 3,000 pages …

President George W. Bush said that the United States would do “whatever it took” to defend Taiwan if it were attacked by China. Missouri’s House of Representatives passed a bill making it a crime for a politician to lie in a campaign advertisement. Al Gore, angry that Bill Clinton was selected to deliver the commencement address at Columbia University, tried to organize a petition drive among his students there to protest the decision. President Bush was apparently trying to kill the government’s lawsuit against the tobacco industry by underfunding the Justice Department’s tobacco litigation team. Former senator Bob Kerry admitted …

Moscow warned the United States about its new Cold War rhetoric; the Russians were upset over remarks by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who said that “Russia is an active proliferator” of dangerous weaponstechnology which “seems to be willing to sell anything to anyone for money.” The United States expelled 50 Russian diplomats, four of whom were thought to have been working with Robert Philip Hanssen, the FBI agent recently arrested for spying; Russia in turn said it would expel the 50 diplomats most precious to America. Fighting with Albanian rebels continued in Macedonia; the Bush Administration and NATO were refusing …