1/ 1/04 Thursday
North Korea agreed to allow a U.S. delegation to visit its main
nuclear complex next week. Palestinian leaders expressed concern
about Israel's threat to draw a West Bank border unilaterally if
peace talks break down. Authorities concerned about terrorism
canceled or delayed four flights in 24 hours between London and
Washington Dulles International Airport, tightening the security
net over U.S. airspace. A severe earthquake shook Indonesia's
tourist islands of Bali and Lombok, injuring 29 people and damaging
dozens of buildings. Genetic tests on a suspected SARS case in
southern China show that the patient "may possibly" have the
disease, as Hong Kong scientists joined the international effort to
solve the mystery of whether the man is infected.
1/ 2/04 Friday
A third farm has been quarantined after authorities located a cow
from the same Canadian herd as a Holstein stricken with mad cow
disease, and - with dozens of cattle from the herd still missing -
more farms may be isolated in days to come. Insurgents shot down a
U.S. helicopter west of Baghdad, killing one soldier, and U.S.
forces said they came under fire with assault rifles and
rocket-propelled grenades as they guarded the burning aircraft. An
Egyptian charter airliner with 141 people aboard - mostly French
tourists - crashed into the Red Sea shortly after takeoff from the
resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, headed to Cairo; no survivors were
reported.
1/ 3/04 Saturday
A NASA rover plunged through the atmosphere of Mars and bounced
down upon its rocky surface, beginning a mission to roam the Red
Planet in search of evidence that it was once suitable for life;
signals from the Spirit rover indicated it had survived the
landing; within hours it began sending back photos. On a surprise
trip to Iraq, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that nations
that develop weapons of mass destruction are a "huge liability for
the whole security of the world." Blair arrived in the southern
city of Basra to thank British troops for their part in the war.
Afghanistan's constitutional convention agreed on a historic new
charter, overcoming weeks of division to reach a compromise meant
to bind together this war-ravaged nation's mosaic of ethnic groups.
Just a day after warning the summit was heading to humiliating
failure, council chairman Sibghatullah Mujaddedi told the
502-delegates meeting under a giant tent in the Afghan capital that
last-ditch diplomacy secured a comprehensive deal.
1/ 4/04 Sunday
Bush is defending his "No Child Left Behind" initiative against
Democrats who argue that the law is too rigid and is being
shortchanged by the administration. China confirmed its first SARS
case since an outbreak of the disease was contained in July.
Popstar Britney Spears and a childhood friend apparently "took a
joke too far" by tying the knot at a wedding chapel after a long
night of partying - and then quickly arranged an annulment.
Starting this week, foreigners entering U.S. airports and seaports
from all but 28 nations will have their fingerprints scanned and
their photographs taken as part of a new program to tighten border
security.
1/ 5/04 Monday
A bicycle bomb exploded on a street in the southern Afghan city of
Kandahar, killing at least 10 people, and shattering cars and
windows in the area. North Korea offered to refrain from producing
nuclear weapons as a "bold concession" to rekindle talks over its
arms programs. North Korea has said before it is willing to freeze
its "nuclear activities" in exchange for U.S. aid and being
delisted from Washington's roster of terrorism states. Combining
21st-century rocket science and 1950s B-movie technology, NASA
released a 3-D, black-and-white panoramic picture of the bleak
surface of Mars snapped by the newly landed rover Spirit.
1/ 6/04 Tuesday
Just days into its three-month mission, Spirit transmitted its
first color picture to NASA scientists from Mars ground zero - and
promised even bigger, better photos showing more of the
rust-colored landscape strewn with rocks surrounding the rover.
A design consisting of two reflecting pools and a large grove of
trees was chosen for the World Trade Center memorial after an
eight-month competition that drew more than 5,000 entries from
around the world, officials announced. Conn. Gov. John G. Rowland,
beset by corruption allegations within his administration, received
a federal subpoena for all documents relating to improvements at
his summer cottage, personal investments, tax returns, & all gifts.
1/ 7/04 Wednesday
Promoting a plan that could brighten his election-year prospects
with Hispanic voters, President Bush proposed legal status - at
least temporarily - for millions of illegal immigrants working in
the United States. Anti-American insurgents fired mortar rounds at
a military camp, killing one American soldier and wounding 34
others; six mortar rounds exploded about 6:45 p.m. at Logistical
Base Seitz west of Baghdad, in the so-called Sunni Muslim triangle.
Fears of a new airborne terrorist attack have brought heightened
tensions, grounded flights - and created turbulence for
U.S.-European relations; some European nations have balked at the
United States' tough new aviation security measures; airlines, hit
by rising security demands, want governments to handle part of the
cost. Rain continued to fall in the Northwest, bringing no relief
to a region already tried by two days of snow and rain that
complicated travel, knocked out power and closed schools.
1/ 8/04 Thursday
More than a decade after most use of silicone gel implants was
banned, the Food and Drug Administration said it still has serious
questions about how often the devices break apart in women's bodies
and what damage the leaking silicone can do, and is keeping the ban
in effect. U.S. forces in Tikrit detained 30 Iraqis, including a
dozen suspected insurgents, in one of the biggest raids since the
end of the American-led war to oust Saddam Hussein. The operation
came hours after a Black Hawk medevac helicopter crashed near
Fallujah, killing all nine soldiers aboard, and a C-5 transport
plane limped safely back to the Baghdad airport after being struck
by insurgent fire. The number of American troops who have died in
Iraq since the war began last March is nearing 500, more than U.S.
losses in many regional conflicts of the past several decades: the
Gulf War, Lebanon, Somalia, Panama, Grenada, Kosovo and
Afghanistan; so far the Iraq conflict has cost the lives of 494
American service members.
1/ 9/04 Friday
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced that the nation's
threat level had been lowered, but "critical resources and locales"
will remain on heightened alert. Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin endorsed
Howard Dean for president, calling him "the best person to beat
George W. Bush" and giving a key boost to the embattled
front-runner 10 days before the state's kick-off caucuses. Saddam
Hussein has been a prisoner of war since his capture last month,
Pentagon lawyers have determined; but Secretary of State Colin
Powell said he knows of no formal declaration that the deposed
Iraqi dictator is a POW. A medical aid group said that American
news media last year provided too little coverage of some world
trouble spots, including the conflicts in Colombia, Chechnya and
Congo. In its annual list of "underreported humanitarian stories,"
Medecins Sans Frontieres also cited a lack of media attention to
the high death toll worldwide from malaria, the crises in North
Korea and Somalia and the limited access of poor people to
anti-AIDS medicines.
1/10/04 Saturday
Another suspected case of SARS emerged in southern China as
international medical investigators scoured an apartment block to
determine if it played any role in the infection of a man who lived
there - the season's only confirmed case of the virus so far.
Temperatures dropped well below zero Saturday across the Northeast,
making it the coldest day in a decade for some cities; St.
Johnsbury, Vt., led the list of records Saturday with a low of 27
below zero. Hundreds of Iraqis demanding jobs resumed protests in
the southeastern town of Amarah, a day after a clash with British
soldiers and Iraqi police in which six demonstrators were killed
and at least 11 wounded.
1/11/04 Sunday
The American military has begun using an air base in southern
Turkey for a massive rotation of troops in and out of Iraq, in a
sign of improved U.S.-Turkish relations. More than 100,000
settlers and their backers protested plans by Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon to evacuate settlements in a peace agreement with the
Palestinians or even in unilateral moves. Iraq's top Shiite Muslim
cleric demanded the next legislature be elected, denying the United
States crucial backing for its plan to let regional caucuses select
a provisional assembly. A U.S.-backed Iraqi politician said an
ongoing purge of members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party had pushed
28,000 Iraqis from their jobs, with a similar number expected to
follow.
1/12/04 Monday
President Bush told leaders from across the Americas that free
trade is the best road to prosperity in the hemisphere, but several
Latin American nations remained unconvinced. Although they still
have broad disagreements, leaders at the 34-nation Summit of the
Americas worked hard to show that relations were improving,
pledging to strengthen democracy and fight terrorism in the region.
A second Shiite Muslim city, Kut, 90 miles southeast of Baghdad,
was rocked by job riots in a sign of growing frustration in a
region of Iraq considered friendly to Americans. An Army
helicopter went down near the western town of Habbaniyah in Iraq -
the third helicopter downed in the region in less than two weeks;
no injuries were reported.
1/13/04 Tuesday
The United States reached out to its neighbors on free trade and
battling corruption, smoothing tense relations with Latin American
leaders as the 34-nation Summit of the Americas ended; Canada and
Mexico won the biggest prizes from the United States; President
Bush told Canada it will be eligible for a second round of
U.S.-financed reconstruction contracts in Iraq that the
administration valued at about $4.5 billion. Democratic
presidential candidates Howard Dean and Al Sharpton were in a close
race in the District of Columbia's nonbinding presidential primary.
U.S. forces moved a step closer in their hunt for the most wanted
man in Saddam Hussein's former regime, detaining his four nephews
in a pre-dawn raid in the central city of Samarra. Hours later, a
car bomb exploded in front of a police station in the central Iraqi
city of Baqouba killing at least three people, and injuring nearly
30 others.
1/14/04 Wednesday
Israel shut down the Gaza Strip after a female Palestinian bomber
killed four Israelis at a Gaza crossing - the first time the
Islamic militant group Hamas sent a woman on a suicide mission.
Carol Moseley Braun plans to end her White House bid Thursday,
leaving an all-male field for the presidency and giving her support
to Democratic front-runner Howard Dean. NASA commanded its Spirit
rover to move off its lander and onto the surface of Mars for the
first time since the six-wheeled robot bounced down on the Red
Planet nearly two weeks ago. Saying "the desire to explore and
understand is part of our character," President Bush unveiled an
ambitious plan to return Americans to the moon by 2020 and use the
mission as a steppingstone for future manne d trips to Mars and
beyond.
1/15/04 Thursday
Looking for election-year support from black voters in the South,
President Bush was greeted at Martin Luther King's grave by noisy
demonstrators who chanted "Go home, Bush!" after receiving a warmer
reception at a run-down church in New Orleans. As Bush placed a
wreath on King's crypt, a low chorus of boos could be heard from
across the street where 700 to 800 protesters beat drums and waved
signs bearing slogans such as "War is not the answer" and "It's not
a photo-op, George. Tens of thousands of Shiite Muslims rallied in
Basra to protest a U.S.-backed formula for choosing Iraq's new
legislature. A blustery snowstorm combined with painfully cold
arctic air descended on the Northeast, trapping New York-bound
ferries in the ice, grounding hundreds of flights and prompting
warnings to bundle up from Maine to Pennsylvania.
1/16/04 Friday
Two suspected SARS patients in southern China have been confirmed
to have the disease, the government said, bringing the total to
three. A prominent Shiite cleric's aide denounced a U.S. plan to
transfer power to Iraqis as a "hasty agreement" to boost President
Bush's re-election campaign. The bloodshed also persisted in
Baghdad, as a roadside bomb missed American troops but killed one
Iraqi boy and wounded three others as they played soccer along a
busy street. And a roadside bomb detonated north of Baghdad,
killing three U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi civil defense troopers.
The deaths bring to 500 the number of American service members who
have died since the Iraq war began; two Americans also were wounded
in the attack.
1/17/04 Saturday
A suicide driver detonated a car bomb outside the main gate to the
headquarters compound of the U.S.-led coalition, killing 18 people,
including two U.S. Defense Department workers; at least 28 people,
including six Americans, were wounded by the blast, which occurred
near the "Assassin's Gate" to Saddam Hussein's former Republican
Palace complex, now used by the U.S.-led occupation authority for
headquarters. Democrats swapped last-minute charges of smear
tactics as polls pointed to the closest Iowa caucus finish since
the event gained presidential campaign prominence in the 1970s.
"I'm in full combat mode," said Howard Dean, delivering a
self-appraisal that applied no less to Dick Gephardt, John Kerry
and John Edwards as they charged across the state on the race's
final weekend.
1/18/04 Sunday
An Associated Press poll found concerns over health care and
unemployment have edged higher in the public's consciousness over
the last year as worries about the overall economy eased. Three
U.S. soldiers were wounded in an attack on a southern Afghanistan
base. "I wanted to come today, I wanted to say thank you to Iowa
and to support my husband for president, Howard Dean," said
campaign-shy wife Judy Dean in a five-sentence speech - her first
of the nearly year long campaign. The suicide truck bombing at a
gate to the headquarters compound of the U.S.-led coalition killed
24 people and wounded about 120, Iraq's health minister said. This
casualty count from the attack is significantly higher than the
U.S. reported toll of "about 20" dead and 63 injured.
1/19/04 Monday
Lottery fans dreaming of riches waited patiently until after
midnight to try their luck as Tennessee became the last state in
the Southeast to offer legal gambling. Former Iraqi U.N. envoy
Mohammed al-Douri denounced a U.S. plan to create an appointed
legislative body in Iraq and demanded free, direct elections
instead. John Kerry, a Massachusetts senator and decorated Vietnam
War veteran, and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards buried Howard
Dean in third place in the Iowa presidential caucuses and brought a
probable end to the political career of two-time presidential
candidate Dick Gephardt. Tens of thousands of Shiite Muslims
marched in Baghdad to demand early elections, the biggest public
display of Shiite political power here since the collapse of Saddam
Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime.
1/20/04 Tuesday
The Japanese government has ordered meat wholesalers not to sell
more than 800 tons of American T-bone steaks and other beef
products considered at risk of carrying mad cow disease. South
Korea cautiously welcomed President Bush's warning to "the world's
most dangerous regimes" in the state of the union speech, calling
it a signal for North Korea to resume talks on its nuclear weapons
programs. Other nations applauded the president's pledge to
confront "the regimes that harbor and support terrorists." Laying
out campaign themes, President Bush is hailing progress fighting
terrorism, recharging the economy and helping Americans afford
health care. But Democrats say his election-year state of union
address underscores how paltry his achievements have been. The
surprise top-two finishes by John Kerry and John Edwards in Iowa
are already paying off: each took in tens of thousands of dollars
in campaign contributions over their Web sites within hours of the
Iowa caucuses.
1/21/04 Wednesday
An Israeli court charged a real-estate developer with paying more
than a half-million dollars in bribes to Ariel Sharon - a case that
could force the prime minister to step aside. Two U.S. soldiers
were killed in a mortar barrage against a camp in central Iraq, and
the security chief of Spanish troops was seriously wounded during a
raid south of the capital. Elsewhere, gunmen ambushed a vehicle
carrying Iraqi women to work at a U.S. military base, killing three
of them. President Bush, on a two-day mission to take top campaign
themes directly to voters in states important to his re-election,
wants Americans to get this message: his leadership is winning the
war on terror and should be trusted to ensure continued successes.
Bush closed out an overnight, post-State of the Union sales trip
with a speech in Roswell, N.M., focusing on both the progress and
ongoing efforts in the global war against al-Qaida and other
terrorist networks.
1/22/04 Thursday
U.S. troops have detained a father and son suspected of carrying
out an attack on a forward base that killed two American soldiers;
the two were arrested without incident at their home in Hadid, a
village close to Baqouba in central Iraq. Bill Janklow, who
dominated South Dakota politics for three decades as governor and
then congressman, was sentenced to 100 days in jail for a car crash
that killed a motorcyclist and ended Janklow's career in disgrace.
Anxious NASA engineers were trying to diagnose and possibly patch
up their ailing robotic patient after the Spirit rover stopped
transmitting data from Mars. NASA hoped communication with the
six-wheeled rover would resume Friday morning after two days
without receiving any significant data - a potentially calamitous
turn that project manager Pete Theisinger called "a very serious
anomaly."
1/23/04 Friday
Halliburton's problems deepened as Vice President Dick Cheney's
former company fired two workers and pledged to repay the Pentagon
$6.3 million for possible kickbacks involving its work in Iraq. A
former U.N. weapons inspection official will lead the U.S. hunt for
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; "My goal is to find out what
happened on the ground. What was the status of the Iraqi weapons
program? What was their game plan? What were the goals of the
regime? To find out what is the ground truth," said Charles
Duelfer, named to replace David Kay as head of the U.S. weapons
inspection team in Iraq. David Kay has said new information has
been uncovered about Iraq's programs -- particularly its efforts to
build missiles -- he has since concluded there are no weapons
stockpiles to be found.
1/24/04 Saturday
U.S. congressmen flew into Tripoli, Libya, aboard a U.S. Navy plane
they said was the first plane flying an American flag to land in
Tripoli since Col. Moammar Gadhafi took power in 1969. NASA's
Opportunity rover successfully landed on Mars, arriving at the Red
Planet exactly three weeks after its identical twin set down. U.S.
soldiers arrested nearly 50 people and confiscated weapons in
several raids in Iraq's volatile Sunni Triangle after a series of
bombings that killed six U.S. soldiers. Secretary of State Colin
Powell held out the possibility that prewar Iraq may not have
possessed weapons of mass destruction. Powell was asked about
comments last week by David Kay, the outgoing leader of a U.S.
weapons search team in Iraq, that he did not believe Iraq had large
quantities of chemical or biological weapons. Powell responded,
"The answer to that question is, we don't know yet," adding, "We
had questions that needed to be answered. What was it? One hundred
tons, 500 tons or zero tons? Was it so many liters of anthrax, 10
times that amount or nothing?"
1/25/04 Sunday
Winter storms dumped freezing rain, sleet and snow from the Plains
to the East Coast, making traveling treacherous along ice-slicked
roads. At least 16 people died in weather-related car wrecks.
NASA's Opportunity rover zipped its first pictures of Mars to
Earth, delighting and puzzling scientists just hours after the
spacecraft bounced to a landing. U.S. intelligence agencies need
to explain why their research indicated Iraq possessed banned
weapons before the American-led invasion, says the outgoing top
U.S. inspector, who now believes Saddam Hussein had no such arms.
"I don't think they exist," David Kay said, "The fact that we found
so far the weapons do not exist - we've got to deal with that
difference and understand why." A U.S. helicopter crashed in the
Tigris river while searching for a missing soldier, and the
aircraft's two crew members were missing. Barbara Walters, who has
interviewed scores of the famous and infamous in a legendary
television career, said she will step down this fall as host of the
ABC newsmagazine "20/20" after 25 years.
1/26/04 Monday
The White House says it needs more time to determine whether Iraq
possessed weapons of mass destruction, an issue the Bush
administration once was so confident about that it was cited as a
justification for waging war. A federal judge has thrown out a
section of the USA Patriot Act that bars giving expert advice or
assistance to groups designated foreign terrorist organizations.
The second of a pair of storms spread snow, sleet and freezing rain
across the eastern half of the nation, glazing highways with
treacherous ice as far south as Georgia and closing schools and
government offices. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the United
Nations will send a team to Iraq to determine whether elections
should be held once the U.S.-led coalition authority can guarantee
the mission's safety.
1/27/04 Tuesday
John Kerry's New Hampshire primary win added a bigger margin of
victory to his Iowa upset a week earlier, giving him all the
promise - and peril - of wearing the mantle of front-runner. A
storm carrying the threat of heavy snow for the Northeast coated a
wide swath of the East Coast in ice, stopping trains, closing
schools and courts, and knocking out electricity to a
quarter-million people. At least 50 deaths have been blamed on
snow, ice and cold from Kansas to the Carolinas since the weekend.
Testimony started in the Martha Stewart trial, with the government
laying the groundwork for its case that her ex-stockbroker passed
her an inside tip that the two later lied to cover up. In Baghdad,
a car bomb exploded in front of a hotel frequented by Westerners,
killing at least four people; the blast occurred after six U.S.
soldiers were killed in a pair of roadside bombings.
1/28/04 Wednesday
Howard Dean's campaign chairman said Dean must win a presidential
primary in the next two weeks to keep even his most loyal donor
base - those giving modest amounts over the Internet - contributing
enough to make him financially competitive. A roadside bomb
exploded in the central Iraqi city, Nasiriyah, wounding five
Iraqis, after thousands of Shiite Muslims protested in the south to
demand the U.S.-appointed provincial governor's resignation. Under
questioning by Senate Democrats, David Kay acknowledged that he
found no evidence that Iraq had chemical or biological stockpiles -
even small ones. He offered doubts about Bush administration
claims that trailers and aluminum tubes were intended for weapons
of mass destruction. He said U.N. inspections, belittled by the
administration, "achieved quite a bit."
1/29/04 Thursday
The U.S. military is trying to determine whether an explosion at a
weapons cache in Afghanistan that killed seven American soldiers
and wounded three was an accident or caused deliberately. Another
American soldier was missing after the blast on one of the
deadliest days for U.S. forces since they deployed here two years
ago. An Afghan interpreter also was injured. The explosion in the
afternoon, as the soldiers worked around the cache in the village
of Dehe Hendu. Sen. John McCain said he wants an independent
commission to take a sweeping look at recent intelligence failures.
Israeli military vehicles entered Bethlehem in apparent retaliation
for the previous day's suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed 10
and wounded 50, but Israel's leadership was divided over how hard
to hit back.
1/30/04 Friday
An American airstrike in an Afghan village earlier this month
killed 10 civilians, President Hamid Karzai said. The U.S.
military said it was studying results of an Afghan investigation
into the Jan. 17 raid against suspected Taliban leaders in southern
Uruzgan province, but maintained that a warplane fired only on
armed men. Howard Dean, his own campaign jolted by stunning early
losses and sagging polls, stepped up his criticism of John Kerry,
arguing that the Massachusetts senator's public record is lacking
in accomplishments. It was a theme he launched in campaign debate
this week. A roadside homemade bomb killed three American soldiers
when it ripped through their convoy near the oil-rich city of
Kirkuk, while a car bomb outside a police station in Mosul left
nine people dead and 45 others wounded.
1/31/04 Saturday
The White House is considering endorsing the creation of an
independent commission that would investigate whether the United
States used faulty intelligence information when it decided to go
to war in Iraq, government sources said. In Mina, Saudi Arabia,
some pilgrims who slipped and fell during a hajj ritual were
trampled to death in the crush of people throwing pebbles at stone
pillars symbolizing the devil. Two suicide bombers blew themselves
up at the offices of two rival Kurdish parties in the northern
Iraqi city of Irbil, and officials said "dozens" may have been
killed - including senior party leaders. The attacks at the
offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan took place as party leaders were receving hundreds of
visitors to mark the start of the four-day Muslim holiday, Eid
Al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice.
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