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…
An American cattleman. In response to the mad-cow crisis, the United States Department of Agriculture banned the human consumption of cow brains, skulls, spinal cords, vertebral columns, eyes, and nerve…
U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz decreed that Canada, Germany, France, Russia, and other nations that opposed the conquest of Iraq will be ineligible for $18.6 billion in reconstruction contracts.…
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…
Lawyers at the Environmental Protection Agency announced that they were dropping lawsuits against 50 power plants for violating the Clean Air Act, because newly weakened enforcement rules have undermined the…
The World Health Organization warned travelers to avoid Hong Kong and the Guangdong province in China because of the SARS outbreak; it was the first such travel alert in the…
United Nations weapons inspectors began their work in Iraq; among the first installations to be inspected were Al Dawrah and Al Nasr, two factories that Tony Blair and George W.…
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…
President George W. Bush announced a “new doctrine” according to which the United States will permit itself to launch preemptive attacks on countries and organizations that have or might have…
President Bush made his first visit to Germany, where he gave a speech at the Reichstag in Berlin, compared terrorists to Nazis, and enjoyed apple strudel and ice cream with…
President George W. Bush announced that the United States and Russia will sign a new arms-control treaty that will reduce both countries’ nuclear arsenals by two thirds. The weapons will…