WikiLeaks released 391,832 U.S. ArmyIraq War field reports. The documents revealed the rampant burning, lashing, and execution of detainees by Iraqi army and police officers; U.S. suspicions that Shiite Iraqi militants were being trained by Iran; the increasing reliance on private contractors to augment the dwindling ranks of soldiers; and approximately 15,000 previously unreported civilian casualties. “This is all classified secret information never designed to be exposed to the public,” said Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell. “Now you will have virtually half a million classified secret documents in the public domain which our enemies clearly intend to use against us.” WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assangeâ??who was denied Swedish residency for undisclosed reasonsâ??rejected that claim. “[The Pentagon] cannot find a single person that has been harmed” as a result of the leaking last July of classified documents relating to U.S. operations in Afghanistan, he said. NYTCNNNYTNYTNYTBBCGunmen interrupted a party in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and killed thirteen people, all of whom were under 25, and the Juarez Valley town of Práxedis Guadalupe Guerrero, where eight residents were murdered in the past two weeks, swore in its new police chief, 20-year-old college student Marisol Valles Garcia, who was the only candidate willing to accept the job. “Weâ??re all afraid in Mexico now,” she said. “We canâ??t let fear beat us.”LATNYPAn unemployed security worker won Spainâ??s first siesta championship.BBC
Despite the efforts of over a million protesters (who caused the cancellation of thousands of trains, hundreds of flights, and two Lady Gaga concerts), the French Senate voted in favor of a pension-reform measure that would raise the age of retirement from 60 to 62. CNNBoston GlobeBusiness WeekThe European Commission declined to take France to court over its recent expulsion of 8,000 Roma but threatened to impose sanctions on Italy if the country fails to remove piles of trash accumulating in the streets of Naples.EuronewsAP / Google Irish police were investigating the alleged death of a wallaby from alcohol and ecstasy poisoning while at a birthday party, and the Exmoor Emperor, the largest known wild animal in Britain, was shot dead in the West Country.SkyGuardianInvestigators determined that a plane crash last August in Congo was caused by the escape of a crocodile that had been smuggled aboard and had then frightened passengers, who stampeded toward the cockpit, resulting in the deaths of nineteen people, but not the crocodile.News AUAOL NewsScientists concluded that elephants are ecological engineers and that tigers face extinction within twelve years.BBCCBC
Google and the Israel Antiquities Authority declared their intention to digitize the Dead Sea Scrolls.CNN“Rent Is Too Damn High” gubernatorial candidate Jimmy McMillan was revealed not to pay rent, Senator Harry Reid indicated that he has never had to prove his manhood, and New Jersey Republican congressional nominee Jon Runyan, asked to name a recent Supreme Court decision he finds disagreeable, chose Dred Scott.NBCLVRJTPMFollowing their arrest in Vancouver on the charge of squatting in the guest house of a home they once owned, actor Randy Quaid and his wife, Evi, sought Canadian refugee status. “We feel our lives are in danger,” said Evi Quaid, pointing to the suspicious deaths of her husbandâ??s friends David Carradine and Heath Ledger. CTVAPPEgypt banned police from university campuses, and the international Zombie Walk celebrated its ninth year. BBCBrisbane TimesBlogtoRaleigh TechnicianA German chapter of the Mongols Motorcycle Club prepared for war with the Hells Angels.SpiegelHaiti was found to be at risk of yet another big earthquake, and its hospitals were overwhelmed after an outbreak of cholera, forcing hundreds of patients to be treated in parking lots.Miami HeraldBBCSherpa Chhewang Nima, who has climbed Mount Everest nineteen times, went missing after an avalanche, and the Dalai Lama guest edited the “Toronto Star.”BBCToronto StarBob Guccione, the founder of “Penthouse,” died, as did Johnny Sheffield, the actor who played Tarzan’s son on the 1930s movies, several hours after he fell while pruning a palm tree. TelegraphNYTEleven people jumped from a third-floor window in France after a naked African man was mistaken for Satan. “I had to defend myself,” said one man who jumped with a 2-year-old in his arms. SMHIn Syria, a 5-year-old and a 3-year-old got engaged.NYP
