At 20 points along the Gaza Strip’s southern border, Hamas operatives detonated explosives to topple an Israeli-built fence, allowing as many as 200,000 Palestinians�??13 percent of the territory’s population�??to cross into Egypt and shop. The Gazans purchased camels, candy, cement, chairs, cheese, cigarettes, computers, cows, doughnuts, gasoline, generators, goats, mattresses, medicine, motorcycles, pistols, potato chips, sheep, snack cakes, soap, and televisions. Supplies at Egyptian shops dwindled, prices spiked, and fistfights ensued. Several Gazan women married Egyptians, and the Israel Defense Force patrolled its southern border for would-be suicide bombers and hostage takers.New York TimesJerusalem PostAFPDublin IndependentSeif al-Islam Qaddafi, the 36-year-old …

The Cloaca Maxima, 1872 Iraqis took to the streets after the national soccer team beat Saudi Arabia 1?0 in the Asian Cup championship. At least four people were killed by “happy fire” in the midst of what were reported to be the largest spontaneous celebrations in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein. “Sport brings us together while the heads of everything in Baghdad can’t bring us together for five years,” said one reveler. “If the Iraqi football team ruled us, peace would spread in our home.” Each member of the Lions of the Two Rivers will receive $10,000 from …

Runaway Raft on the Tigris. Thousands of U.S. Marine reserves were involuntarily recalled to active duty to offset a lack of volunteers for the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.CNNPresident George W. Bush admitted that the Iraq war was “straining the psyche of our country,”Washington Postand Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refused to categorize the fighting in Iraq as a civil war, citing instead “sectarian differences.”Washington PostThree Kurdish women testified against Saddam Hussein in his chemical-weapons genocide trial, describing a “sweet, mysterious smell” that blinded them, killed their relatives, and forced them to hide in caves.New York TimesA senior U.S. general …

After an Israeli bombing raid killed 54 people, including 37 children, in the Lebanese village of Qana, Beirut residents set fire to a U.N. headquarters.Daily Star (Lebanon)Israel agreed to suspend some bombing operations for 48 hours in order to investigate the deaths, though Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ruled out a ceasefire.BBCIsraeli bombs struck a U.N. post in southern Lebanon, killing four peacekeepers. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said the targeting was “apparently deliberate,” and Olmert called Annan’s comments “premature and erroneous.”BBCAl JazeeraThe United Nations began relief operations.ReutersHezbollah guerillas fired several hundred rockets into towns in northern Israel, hitting a …

Runaway Raft on the Tigris. Palestinian militants conducted a raid in Israel and abducted an Israeli soldier, whom they carried to Gaza via a secret tunnel. Israel retaliated by bombing Gaza’s main power plant, two bridges, the offices of Palestine’s prime minister and interior minister, and a soccer field, and by arresting as many as 64 Palestinian officials. Palestinian militants demanded that Israel release all Palestinian prisoners who are women or under the age of 18. A number of Israeli and Palestinian officials speculated that Israel’s actions were intended to weaken or topple Palestine’s Hamas government.VOA NewsIn Iraq, where 14 …

President George W. Bush defended his executive order authorizing the National Security Agency to spy on Americans without a warrant; Bush said that he “absolutely” had the right to authorize the program, and that whoever leaked news of the program’s existence had committed a “shameful act.”The New York TimesDick Cheney visited Iraq and informed American soldiers that he was not Jessica Simpson. He also watched as Iraqi soldiers holding imaginary guns practiced a vehicle sweep.SFGate.comThe Iraqi military announced that they had captured Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, but accidentally released him,BBC Newsand 24 top officials …

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 …

Visiting Scotland for the G8 summit, President George W. Bush fell off his bicycle after running into a policeman. Bush was hurt, but not badly. The policeman hurt his ankle. “I should act my age,” said Bush.APIOL.co.zaTerrorists set off bombs on three trains and a bus in London, killing fifty-two people, despite the fact that in 2003 Dick Cheney said that “our military is confronting the terrorists, along with our allies, in Iraq and Afghanistan so that innocent civilians will not have to confront terrorist violence in Washington or London or anywhere else in the world.”The ScotsmanThe White HousePresident Bush …

Two suicide car bombs blew up in central Baghdad, killing fifteen and injuring thirty.BBC NewsA bomb in Kirkuk killed twelve Iraqi guards,Al Jazeeraan American contractor was kidnapped north of Baghdad,BBC Newsand Marla Ruzicka, an activist from California who made it her mission to count the number of civilian casualties in Iraq, was killed in Baghdad by a suicide bomber.GuardianThe Iraqi army intervened to end a widely publicized hostage crisis in al-Madain, south of Baghdad, but found no hostages.ReutersIn the United States, Eric Rudolph, a Christianterrorist, pleaded guilty to several bombings, including those at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, an abortion-clinic …

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 …

Caricature of Louis IV, by Thackeray. 1875. China announced that Hong Kong will not be allowed to elect its next leader in 2007, contrary to the city’s Basic Law, which was enacted when Britain turned over the territory in 1997; China’s Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress said that an election would create social and economic instability. Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong’s current chief executive, called on the people to remain “calm and rational.”BBCThe Bush Administration continued to insist that sovereignty will be turned over to an Iraqi government on June 30 but revealed for the first time that the …

Senator James M. Jeffords of Vermont defected from the Republican Party, handing control of the Senate to the Democrats, who promptly voted to confirm Theodore B. Olson as solicitor general, suggesting that the White House cabal had little to fear after all. Jack Kemp was exasperated with criticism that President Bush was governing from the far right, noting that Colin Powell was off in darkest Africa talking about AIDS. “What more do they want from this president?” Charles, the Prince of Wales, was said to be miffed with his father Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, because a senior courtier …

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 …