4/ 1/04 Thursday
Taiwan's feuding political parties met with High Court judges but
failed to agree on how to proceed with a recount for the disputed
presidential election. Lawyers for the rival campaigns could not
agree who would pay for the re-tally for the March 20 vote.
President Bush spent twice as much as Democrats in just four weeks
on the air, pouring about $40 million into television and radio
commercials that championed his record and assailed John Kerry's.
Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, spent about
$6 million on ads during the same period. But his campaign has
been helped by liberal, outside groups that have spent another $14
million on commercials.
In Iraq, a senior Islamic cleric said preachers in mosques across
the defiant Muslim city of Fallujah would use weekly prayers to
condemn the mutilation of four slain American contractors, but he
did say if that would include their deaths. U.S. officials,
meanwhile, promised to hunt down those responsible but said clashes
could be avoided if city officials act promptly against the
insurgents.
A composite sketch issued by police gave the first glimpse of the
man a University of Wisconsin student says abducted her at
knifepoint and held her before she was found unharmed in a marsh
four days later. Police interviewed Audrey Seiler for clues to her
mysterious disappearance, and they insisted that the hunt was still
on for a suspect in the case.
Gateway announced that it will close all of its 188 stores next
week. The move will eliminate 2,500 jobs, or nearly 40 percent of
Gateway's work force.
4/ 2/04 Friday
Prosecutors said they would quickly seek a retrial for two former
Tyco executives accused of looting the company of $600 million,
after a judge declared a mistrial. Judge Michael Obus ended the
six-month trial, citing intense pressure on one juror who
apparently received an intimidating letter and phone call for
supposedly siding with the defense.
Greg Hull, security chief for the American Public Transportation
Association, said the transit systems are at "code yellow-plus"
following the bulletin about a possible terror plot from the FBI
and the Homeland Security Department.
Police accused a college student of faking her own disappearance,
saying she planted a knife in the marsh where she was found to make
it appear she had been kidnapped. "We don't think an abduction
occurred at all," Madison police spokesman Larry Kamholz said.
University of Wisconsin sophomore Audrey Seiler, 20, was found cold
and dehydrated but otherwise unharmed Wednesday in a marsh, four
days after she disappeared.
Secretary of State Colin Powell conceded that evidence he presented
to the United Nations that two trailers in Iraq were used for
weapons of mass destruction may have been wrong. Powell said he
had been given solid information about the trailers that he told
the Security Council in February 2003 were designed for making
biological weapons.
After months of dismal job growth, the nation's employers dusted
off their help-wanted signs in March and added workers at the
quickest pace in four years, swelling payrolls by 308,000. Even
so, the unemployment rate inched up a tenth of a point to 5.7
percent as more people were encouraged to start looking for work
again but failed to find jobs, the Labor Department said.
4/ 3/04 Saturday
The ringleader of the Madrid terror attack was among four suicide
bombers who died in a police raid, Interior Minister of Spain Angel
Acebes said. Acebes said the four included a Tunisian named
Sarhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, described by Spanish authorities as
the leader of the group suspected of carrying out the March 11
attacks that killed 191 people.
In Iraq, at least four Iraqis, including two soldiers, were killed
and 30 people were injured during a protest outside a Spanish
military garrison in the southern holy city of Najaf. Two U.S.
Marines and three members of the Iraqi security forces were killed
in violence elsewhere.
President Bush sought to squeeze more political mileage out of news
that American employers added the most workers in four years, while
Democratic rival John Kerry chose to highlight the still-flat
manufacturing sector and blame it on Bush. The incumbent president
running for re-election and the Massachusetts senator who wants to
replace him went head-to-head on the jobs issue, each via the
traditional weekly radio address for their parties.
4/ 4/04 Sunday
The top U.S. administrator in Iraq declared a radical Shiite cleric
an "outlaw" after his supporters rioted in Baghdad and four other
cities in fighting that killed at least 52 Iraqis, eight U.S.
troops and a Salvadoran soldier. The fiercest battle took place in
the streets of Sadr City, Baghdad's largest Shiite neighborhood,
where black-garbed Shiite militiamen fired from rooftops and behind
buildings at U.S. troops, killing the eight Americans.
An Islamic group that claims responsibility for the Madrid bombings
says it will turn Spain "into an inferno" unless the country halts
its support for the United States and withdraws its troops from
Iraq and Afghanistan. The threat came in a letter faxed to the
Spanish daily newspaper ABC over the weekend. ABC said the letter
was handwritten in Arabic and signed "Abu Dujana Al Afgani, Ansar
Group, al-Qaida in Europe."
Very young children who watch television face an increased risk of
attention deficit problems by school age, a study has found,
suggesting that TV might overstimulate and permanently "rewire" the
developing brain. For every hour of television watched daily, two
groups of children - aged 1 and 3 - faced a 10 percent increased
risk of having attention problems at age 7.
4/ 5/04 Monday
U.S. troops battled Iraqi guerrillas on the edges of Fallujah,
which hundreds of Marines and Iraqi troops have surrounded in a
major operation to pacify one of Iraq's most violent cities. The
military reported four Marines killed in the area.
A seven-month investigation into the nation's worst blackout is
putting new pressure on Congress to boost the reliability of power
grids - but legislation addressing the problem remains in limbo.
Nearly eight months after all or parts of eight states and sections
of Canada went dark, a U.S.-Canadian task force called for urgent
approval of mandatory reliability rules to govern the electric
transmission industry.
China made a major ruling on how Hong Kong chooses its leaders,
saying the territory must submit proposed political reforms to
Beijing for approval. Hong Kong activists immediately decried the
decision. The Chinese government's National People's Congress
issued the ruling in an interpretation of the Basic Law, Hong
Kong's mini-constitution.
4/ 6/04 Tuesday
An Amtrak passenger train derailed and toppled on its side in rural
central Mississippi, killing a passenger and injuring at least 65
others. The nine-car train, traveling from New Orleans to Chicago,
derailed about 25 miles north of Jackson, leaving in its wake
twisted and heavily damaged track.
Insurgents and rebellious Shiites mounted a string of attacks
across Iraq's Shiite south and U.S. Marines launched a major
assault on the turbulent Sunni city of Fallujah. Up to a dozen
Marines, two more coalition soldiers and at least 66 Iraqis were
reported killed. Troops were battling in a half-dozen cities on
two fronts in some of the most extensive fighting since President
Bush declared major combat over on May 1.
If violence in Iraq gets worse, U.S. military commanders will get
the troops they need to deal with it, Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld said. Coalition forces fought on two fronts, battling a
Shiite-inspired uprising in southern Iraq and Sunni insurgents in
the city of Fallujah in clashes that have killed dozens of American
troops and at least 100 Iraqis since the weekend. Commanders are
studying ways they might increase troops in Iraq if violence should
escalate.
4/ 7/04 Wednesday
More than 280 Iraqis have been killed and 400 wounded this week in
the U.S. Marines' siege of insurgents in Fallujah, west of Baghdad.
U.S. Marines battled insurgents for control of the Sunni Muslim
stronghold, calling in airstrikes against a mosque compound where
witnesses said dozens were killed in six hours of fighting. An
anti-U.S. uprising led by a radical Shiite cleric raged for the
fourth day in southern cities. The Abdel-Aziz al-Samarrai mosque
was hit by U.S. aircraft that launched a Hellfire missile at its
minaret and dropped a 500-pound bomb on a wall surrounding the
compound.
Fighting this week has left 35 Americans and at least 459 Iraqis
dead. This includes more the Iraqis killed since the Marines'
siege against insurgents in Fallujah.
More U.S. troops could be sent to Iraq and other U.S. forces could
stay longer than planned to deal with the latest surge in violence,
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said. While Rumsfeld insisted
that the fighting was not spinning out of control, his remarks were
the clearest signal yet that U.S. officials were likely to increase
the overall number of troops in Iraq nearly a year after President
Bush declared major combat in the country completed.
4/ 8/04 Thursday
U.S.-led coalition forces have retaken control of the southern
Iraqi city of Kut, which had been overrun by a militia led by
radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo
Sanchez, the top U.S. general in Iraq, had vowed that coalition
forces would move "imminently" to break al-Sadr's hold over Kut, 95
miles southeast of Baghdad.
Condoleezza Rice emphatically assigned blame for the pre-Sept. 11
failures on "frustratingly vague" U.S. intelligence, setting the
stage for the top men at the CIA and FBI to explain next week what
went wrong and what's been done to fix it. In a long-anticipated
public appearance, President Bush's national security adviser
repeatedly cited flaws in U.S. intelligence agencies for hampering
the administration's ability to foresee or stop the deadly suicide
hijackings.
Iraqi insurgents fought U.S. troops at two mosques in Fallujah and
held sway over all or part of three southern cities in the worst
chaos and violence since Baghdad fell a year ago. In an ominous
turn, kidnappers seized 13 foreign hostages and threatened to burn
three Japanese captives alive if Tokyo did not withdraw its troops.
A Marine died in Fallujah, the Sunni stronghold west of Baghdad.
That brought to U.S. death toll across Iraq this week to 40.
4/ 9/04 Friday
In Iraq, a U.S. general called on Sunni militants in the Fallujah
to join in a bilateral cease-fire to allow further negotiations
between Iraqi leaders and representatives of the besieged city.
"Today what we are seeking is a bilateral cease-fire on the
battlefield so we can allow for discussions," Brig. Gen. Mark
Kimmitt said.
President Bush's August 2001 briefing on terror threats included
information that federal agents were investigating reports three
months earlier about a possible plot on U.S. soil. And, it said,
al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's desire to strike inside America
surfaced as long as four years before Bush took office, according
to several people who have seen the memo. The document has emerged
as a key point of interest to the commission investigating the
Sept. 11, 2001 terrorism incidents.
A U.S. AC-130 gunship raked insurgents Friday night after hundreds
of women and children fled the besieged city of Fallujah during a
U.S.-declared pause in the Marine offensive. On the anniversary of
the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, Baghdad and parts of central
Iraq were chaotic. At a square in the capital where Saddam's
statue was toppled a year ago, soldiers took down a disturbing new
icon: pictures of the radical Shiite cleric whose followers have
risen up.
Braving the chill of a rainy night, Pope John Paul II led prayers
at the traditional Good Friday procession at the Colosseum, holding
in his trembling hands a cross passed to him by a young woman from
Madrid in a sign of solidarity with those pained by that city's
losses in the March 11 bombings.
4/10/04 Saturday
President Bush was told more than a month before the Sept. 11
attacks that al-Qaida had reached America's shores, had a support
system in place for its operatives and that the FBI had detected
suspicious activity that might involve a hijacking plot. Since
1998, the FBI had observed "patterns of suspicious activity in this
country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types
of attacks," according to a memo prepared for Bush and
declassified.
Arab TV stations reported that Sunni militants have agreed to a
U.S. offer of a cease-fire. There were few sounds of clashes in the
city and a Marine commander in the south said the rebels hadn't
attacked them for several hours. Earlier, insurgents who kidnapped
a U.S. civilian threatened to kill and mutilate him unless U.S.
forces withdraw from the city of Fallujah. Meanwhile, insurgents
holding three Japanese hostage said they would be freed in 24
hours. The captors had threatened to burn the civilians alive
unless Japan pulled its troops out of Iraq, a demand Japan refused.
4/11/04 Sunday
Now that it is public, a pre-Sept. 11 briefing memo on al-Qaida has
President Bush and his critics giving opposing versions of whether
he should have acted more aggressively to avert the terrorist
attacks. Released late Saturday under pressure, the intelligence
memo from Aug. 6, 2001, showed that Bush received reports from as
recent as May 2001 and that most of the current information focused
on possible plots in the United States.
A fragile cease-fire held between Sunni insurgents and U.S. Marines
in the besieged city of Fallujah, where doctors said more than 600
Iraqis, including civilians, were killed in the past week. Near
Baghdad, gunmen shot down a U.S. attack helicopter, killing two
crewmembers. Also, the military suggested it is open to a
negotiated solution in its showdown with a radical Shiite cleric in
the south.
Japan waited anxiously for the release of three Japanese civilians
taken hostage in Iraq, as the government struggled to determine
whether they were safe and if armed captors planned to set them
free as promised.
Many Christians made "The Passion of the Christ" a part of their
Easter weekend, lifting the crucifixion saga back to the top
box-office spot with $17.1 million. Mel Gibson's bloody retelling
of Christ's final hours raised its domestic total since opening on
Ash Wednesday to $354.8 million.
4/12/04 Monday
In Iraq, as a tenuous cease-fire held in the Sunni city of
Fallujah, a radical Shiite cleric was on the retreat, pulling his
militiamen out of parts of the holy city of Najaf in hopes of
averting a U.S. assault. Still, a U.S. commander said the American
mission remained to "kill or capture" the cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr.
With quiet on both fronts, the scale was that of Iraq's worst
fighting since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Two U.S. troops and seven contractors were confirmed missing
following an attack on a convoy west of Baghdad, amid a wave of
abductions of foreigners in Iraq. More than 40 foreigners from at
least 12 countries - including a Mississippi man whose fate also
was unclear - have reportedly been kidnapped in recent days by
insurgents. Seven Chinese men abducted by gunmen in the city of
Fallujah, west of Baghdad, were freed.
Disney may want to forget "The Alamo." The much-hyped historical
film, which cost as much as $140 million to make and market, met
box office disaster during its opening weekend, pulling in only
$9.1 million and leading some analysts to trim second-quarter
earnings estimates for The Walt Disney Co.
4/13/04 Tuesday
Vice President Dick Cheney presented new evidence to Chinese
leaders on North Korea's nuclear program, suggesting it increased
the urgency to restart six-nation talks on Pyongyang's nuclear
ambitions.
Under tough questioning, top intelligence officials blamed their
failed efforts to locate key al-Qaida operatives before the Sept.
11 attacks on poor communication and limited staffing. "We are
profoundly sorry. We did all we could," J. Cofer Black, former
director of the CIA's counterterrorism center, told the independent
commission reviewing the 2001 hijackings. "The shortage of money
and people seriously hurt our operations and analysis," Black said
at the hearing.
In Iraq, a 2,500-strong U.S. force, backed by tanks and artillery,
massed on the outskirts of Najaf for a showdown with a radical
cleric, raising fears of an assault on the holiest Shiite city. In
besieged Fallujah, two intense battles killed a Marine, forced down
a U.S. helicopter and severely strained a truce. Meanwhile, a
State Department official said four bodies have been found. The
bodies may be those of private contractors missing since an assault
on their convoy.
Giving no ground despite rising casualties, in a pm news
conference, President Bush said more American troops may be heading
for Iraq with authority to use decisive force in a mission that
"may become more difficult before it is finished." Bush said
America's will was being tested by violence that has turned April
into the deadliest month in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad a year
ago.
4/14/04 Wednesday
In a historic policy shift, President Bush endorsed Israel's plan
to hold on to part of the West Bank in any final peace settlement
with the Palestinians. Bush also ruled out Palestinian refugees
returning to Israel, bringing strong criticism from the
Palestinians. An elated Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said
his plan to pull back from parts of the West Bank and Gaza, hailed
by Bush, would create "a new and better reality for the state of
Israel."
The CIA intelligence-gathering flaws exposed by the Sept. 11
attacks will take five years to correct, agency Director George
Tenet said. The chairman of the commission investigating the 2001
hijackings called the time frame frightening. The panel released
statements harshly criticizing the CIA for failing to fully
appreciate the threat posed by al-Qaida before Sept. 11 and
questioning the progress of what commissioners say are the FBI's
badly needed reorganization.
U.S. warplanes strafed gunmen in Fallujah, and more than 100
guerrillas with rocket-propelled grenades pounded a lone Marine
armored vehicle lost in the streets - a sign of heavy battles ahead
if Marines resume a full assault on this besieged city. With a
truce crumbling and President Bush calling for a key U.N. role to
keep the country's political transition moving amid the violence, a
top U.N. envoy proposed an Iraqi caretaker government.
In a recording broadcast on Arab satellite networks, a man who
identified himself as Osama bin Laden offered a "truce" to European
countries that do not attack Muslims, saying it would begin when
their soldiers leave Islamic nations. The tape, which ran in full
at more than seven minutes, also vowed revenge against America for
the Israeli assassination of a militant Palestinian leader and
denounced the United States as using the Iraq war for corporate
profiteering.
For about 21,000 American soldiers, the Army's promise to limit
tours of duty in Iraq to no more than 12 months has fallen victim
to the surge in anti-occupation violence. Approximately 18,000
soldiers of the 1st Armored Division, which is based in Germany,
and about 2,800 of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment from Fort Polk,
La., have been told that they will remain in Iraq for another three
months instead of coming home this month.
4/15/04 Thursday
The National Rifle Association is creating a news corporation,
starting an Internet talk show and preparing to buy a radio station
to speak about candidates and gun rights at election time despite
new political ad limits. The 4 million-member gun lobby, looking
for the same legal recognition as mainstream news organizations,
says it has already hired its first reporter. NRANews.com is to
start online broadcasts Friday.
Taxpayers queued up outside post offices from Boston to Baltimore,
from Little Rock to Los Angeles, as postal officials in cities
nationwide braced for the final frenzied hours of filing on Tax Day
2004. Close to 30 million people typically file their taxes in the
final week.
Gunmen assassinated an Iranian diplomat in Baghdad just as Iran,
with tacit U.S. approval, attempted to mediate with a radical
Shiite cleric defying American forces in the southern Iraqi city of
Najaf. Meanwhile, three Japanese were freed by their captors, a
day after other kidnappers executed an Italian - the first known
killing of a hostage in Iraq's wave of kidnappings. The freed
Japanese hostages - two aid workers and a journalist - were handed
over to Islamic clerics.
Key European nations emphatically dismissed a truce offer
purportedly from Osama bin Laden, refusing to negotiate with his
al-Qaida terror network and rejecting what many called a blatant
attempt to divide the United States and its allies. France and
Germany, staunch opponents of the Iraq war, denounced the tape, as
did Britain, Spain and Italy.
4/16/04 Friday
Two remaining Japanese hostages in Iraq have been released, two
days after three other Japanese were freed. The two Japanese
civilians, apparently kidnapped Wednesday, were handed over at a
Baghdad mosque to Islamic clerics and Japanese officials.
California lawmakers passed legislation aimed at reforming the
nation's most expensive workers' compensation program, a move that
businesses applauded but critics derided as a sellout to insurance
companies. In a big, and overwhelming, win for Republican Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, the overhaul passed 77-3 in the Assembly and
33-3 in the Senate.
Through next week, President Bush, Democratic rival John Kerry and
liberal interest groups will have spent at least $90 million to air
television ads since early March - a whopping total for an election
that's still about six months away. Campaign commercials started
early and spending already has reached levels that typically aren't
seen until after Labor Day.
President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, standing
united on two turbulent fronts, endorsed giving the United Nations
broad control over Iraq's political future and said a
much-criticized Israeli settlement withdrawal plan is a solid move
toward Mideast peace. Blair seconded Bush's comment about going
through a hard time in Iraq, where violence is spreading and
casualties are climbing. "It was never going to be easy and it
isn't now," said the British leader, a strong supporter of Bush's
strategies in Iraq, the Middle East and elsewhere despite harsh
criticism and even ridicule at home.
An American soldier missing for a week was shown unhurt but clearly
frightened in video footage aired on Arab TV, surrounded by masked
gunmen who offered to exchange him for imprisoned Iraqi fighters
and claimed they had more hostages. There was no sign of what
happened to a soldier who disappeared with 20-year-old Pfc. Keith
Maupin after their convoy was attacked April 9 outside Baghdad
during a wave of kidnappings blamed on anti-U.S. insurgents.
4/17/04 Saturday
The body of University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin was
found, revealed by the spring thaw in an area volunteers had
searched several times during the five months she had been missing.
Sheriff Mark LeTexier sobbed as he told volunteers, "Dru is home."
The U.S. military closed down two major highways into Baghdad in
the latest disruption caused by intensified attacks by anti-U.S.
insurgents. U.S. and Iraqi negotiators reported progress in talks
aimed at easing the fighting in Fallujah, while the besieged city
saw its quietest day yet. Elsewhere, U.S. Marines fought pitched
battles against about 150 gunmen in Qaim, near the Syrian border.
Five Marines and scores of insurgents were killed in the 14-hour
battle.
Gay republicans are stung by President Bush's support for a ban on
same-sex marriages and are divided over where to turn in November,
with many weighing party loyalty against outrage. "I'm going to
have a hard time going with Bush. In my good conscience, I don't
know how I can support him," said Shawn Gardner, one of several
hundred party members attending this weekend's annual convention of
the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP organization that backed Bush
in 2000.
4/18/04 Sunday
Iraqi security forces will not be ready to protect the country
against insurgents by the June 30 handover of power, the top U.S.
administrator said - an assessment aimed at defending the continued
heavy presence of U.S. troops here even after an Iraqi government
takes over. The unusually blunt comments from L. Paul Bremer came
amid a weekend of new fighting that pushed the death toll for U.S.
troops in April to 99, already the record for a single-month in
Iraq.
Spain's prime minister ordered Spanish troops pulled out of Iraq as
soon as possible, fulfilling a campaign pledge to a nation
recovering from terrorist bombings that al-Qaida militants said
were reprisal for Spain's support of the war. Jose Luis Rodriguez
Zapatero issued the abrupt recall just hours after his government
was sworn in, saying there was no sign the United States would meet
his demand for United Nations control of the postwar occupation -
his ultimatum for keeping troops there.
A Russian rocket roared into space carrying an American, a Russian
and a Dutch man to the international space station on the third
manned mission since the halt of the U.S. shuttle program. American
Michael Fincke, Russian Gennady Padalka and Andre Kuipers of the
Netherlands, representing the European Space Agency, were to spend
two days en route to the ISS aboard the Soyuz TMA-4 spacecraft.
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice forcefully disputed an
assertion that President Bush decided in early January 2003 to
invade Iraq, three months before official accounts say the decision
was made. The statement, in Washington Post reporter Bob
Woodward's new book about the run-up to war, is "simply not, not
right," Rice said.
4/19/04 Monday
Direct talks between the United States and leaders of the besieged
city of Fallujah produced their first concrete results: an appeal
for insurgents to turn in their mortars, surface-to-air missiles,
rocket-propelled grenades and other heavy weapons. In return, the
U.S. military said it does not intend to resume its offensive in
the Sunni Muslim stronghold so long as militants are disarming.
The king of Jordan, one of America's closest allies in the Middle
East, postponed a White House meeting with President Bush this
week, questioning the U.S. commitment to ending the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The snub from King Abdullah II comes
amid Arab anger at Bush for endorsing an Israeli proposal to
withdraw unilaterally from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West
Bank but keep Jewish settlements on other West Bank land claimed by
the Palestinians.
Iraq's multinational peacekeeping force scrambled to regroup after
Spain's announcement that it would pull out its 1,300 troops, with
Albania pledging more soldiers but U.S. officials bracing for
further withdrawals. Honduras followed suit with President Ricardo
Maduro announcing the pullout of his troops "in the shortest time
possible," confirming U.S. fears.
4/20/04 Tuesday
A Russian spacecraft carrying a Russian-American-Dutch crew docked
smoothly with the international space station, as U.S. and Russian
space officials on the ground squabbled over the conditions for
future missions. The Soyuz TMA-4, working on autopilot, docked
three minutes ahead of schedule at 9:01 local time, approximately
two days after blasting off on a rocket from Russia's Baikonur
cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
In Littleton, Colo., hundreds of survivors, friends and family
gathered at sunset Tuesday to pay an emotional tribute to the 13
people slain at Columbine High five years ago in the worst school
shooting in U.S. history. Participants bowed their heads as four
F-16 fighter jets soared over the grassy amphitheater in Clement
Park, a few hundred yards and just out of sight from the suburban
school.
A severe storm spawning tornadoes cut a swath through north central
Illinois, tearing the roof off an elementary school, collapsing
dozens of buildings and killing at least four people.
A series of explosions ripped through three police stations and a
police academy in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, killing at
least 55 people, including some 10 schoolchildren, and injuring at
least 238. Three near simultaneous blasts targeted police stations
at rush hour in Basra. At about the same time, a fourth explosion
ripped through the police academy in the Basra suburb of Zubair.
An hour later another blast targeted the same police academy.
4/21/04 Wednesday
John Kerry has responded to critics of his service in the Vietnam
War with documents showing high praise from his supervisors, but he
has not released his medical records from his time in the Navy.
Kerry's campaign Web site posted more than 130 pages from his naval
record, documenting his training and experience in combat that
earned a Bronze Star, a Silver Star and three Purple Hearts.
Pop star Michael Jackson was indicted by a Santa Barbara County
grand jury investigating child molestation allegations, according
to news reports. The Santa Barbara News-Press cited county sources
but had no details about the indictments, nor was there any
official confirmation or announcement.
A national group of Christian leaders is sending a scathing letter
to President Bush to coincide with Earth Day, accusing his
administration of chipping away at the Clean Air Act. The National
Council of Churches argued that planned changes to power plant
regulations will allow major polluters to avoid installing
pollution-control equipment when they expand their facilities.
4/22/04 Thursday
In Iraq, U.S. Marines warned guerrillas in the violence-wracked
city of Fallujah that they have only days to hand over their heavy
weapons or face a possible American attack. So far the insurgents
have turned in mainly dud rockets, rusty mortar shells and grenades
labeled "inert." Lt. Gen. James Conway said the battle could be
"costly" if Marines launch a new assault to uproot insurgents from
Fallujah, saying foreign fighters in the city have been reinforcing
their positions.
Two fuel trains collided at a North Korean railroad station near
the Chinese border, igniting a huge explosion that rained debris
for more than 10 miles around and knocked down more than 20 houses.
The number of casualties was unclear. South Korean media reports
said that as many as 3,000 people may have been killed or injured.
A Web site published dozens of photographs of American war dead
arriving at the nation's largest military mortuary, prompting the
Pentagon to order an information clampdown. The photographs were
released last week to First Amendment activist Russ Kick, who had
filed a Freedom of Information Act request to receive the images.
Air Force officials initially denied the request but decided to
release the photos after Kick appealed their decision.
4/23/04 Friday
Pat Tillman, ex-starting safety for the Arizona Cardinals, 27 years
old, died in a firefight in Afghanistan. "Pat represents all that
is good with this country, our society and ultimately the human
condition in general," said Seattle Seahawks general manager Bob
Ferguson.
North Korea said that careless handling of volatile ammonium
nitrate fertilizer contributed to the train blast that killed
hundreds of people, as international aid workers rushed to the site
in response to the North's appeal for help. In its first statement
on Thursday's disaster, North Korea's official news agency said the
blast was touched off by "electrical contact caused by carelessness
during the shunting of wagons loaded with ammonium nitrate
fertilizer."
Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr threatened to unleash suicide
bombers if U.S. troops move against him in Iraq's holiest Shiite
city, and his militiamen attacked a Bulgarian convoy, killing a
soldier. U.S. forces massed on the outskirts of Najaf have said
they have no intention of moving in for the time being to capture
al-Sadr - fully aware that an American entry into the holy city
would spark a wave of outrage among Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority.
Insurgents struck a U.S. military base north of Baghdad with
rockets, killing four soldiers; while an apparent suicide car bomb
exploded near a base in Tikrit, killing at least three Iraqis.
4/24/04 Saturday
Suicide attackers detonated explosive-laden boats near oil
facilities in the Persian Gulf, killing two U.S. Navy sailors in a
new tactic against Iraq's vital oil industry. Elsewhere, violence
across Iraq killed at least 33 Iraqis and four American soldiers.
It was the first such maritime attack against oil facilities since
U.S. troops invaded Iraqi more than a year ago. The blasts
resembled attacks in 2000 and 2002 - blamed on al-Qaida - against
the USS Cole and a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen that
killed 17 American sailors and a tanker crewman.
An explosion at a plastics manufacturing plant jolted the central
Illinois town of Illiopolis, killing four workers, critically
injuring two others and forcing the evacuation of the entire
community. Six other workers suffered less serious injuries in the
blast, which demolished 50 to 75 percent of the Formosa Plastics
Plant and rattled the windows and walls of houses well over a mile
away.
President Bush held a conference call with his senior national
security and military advisers to discuss the situation in Iraq,
particularly restive Fallujah, a senior defense official said. The
official said the purpose of the teleconference was mainly for Gen.
John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East, to give
Bush and others an update on the situation inside the city and the
U.S. Marines' readiness to resume offensive operations against
thousands of insurgents hole up there.
4/25/04 Sunday
In Wahington, DC, energized by a turnout of hundreds of thousands
on the National Mall, abortion-rights activists are looking to the
November presidential elections to reverse what they see as the
gradual chipping away of women's reproductive rights. From across
the nation and from nearly 60 countries, women marched with their
daughters, mothers, husbands and others in support of the Supreme
Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that made abortion legal.
In Iraq, the U.S. military extended a cease-fire for Fallujah for
at least two more days, backing down from warnings of an all-out
Marine assault and announcing that American and Iraqi forces would
begin joint patrols in the city. Fallujah officials will announce
in the city that anyone seen carrying a weapon will be considered
hostile.
Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney's top legal counsel told the state's
justices of the peace to resign if they are unwilling to preside
over same-sex marriages beginning next month. Daniel Winslow said
Romney expects the justices to comply with the law, even though the
Republican governor opposes gay marriage and has sought to delay
its court-ordered legalization on May 17.
4/26/04 Monday
U.S. troops fought a gunbattle with insurgents near the holy Shiite
city of Najaf to the south, killing 43 gunmen and destroying an
anti-aircraft system belonging to the insurgents. The battle,
which began around 9:45 p.m. close to Najaf and involved helicopter
gunships, lasted several hours.
Ten companies with billions of dollars in U.S. contracts for Iraq
reconstruction have paid more than $300 million in penalties since
2000 to resolve allegations of bid rigging, fraud, delivery of
faulty military parts and environmental damage. The United States
is paying more than $780 million to one British firm that was
convicted of fraud on three federal construction projects and
banned from U.S. government work during 2002.
In Britain, more than 50 former diplomats have signed a letter to
Prime Minister Tony Blair, harshly criticizing his policy in the
Middle East and calling on Britain to exert more influence over the
United States. In the letter, they say the U.S.-led coalition
failed to plan adequately for the post-war phase in Iraq. The
letter, signed by 52 former diplomats, including ambassadors, high
commissioners and governors, also attacks U.S. President Bush.
The blurring of lines between active-duty U.S. soldiers and
contracted security personnel is causing unease in Congress, as
violence continues to rise in Iraq. Some lawmakers worry that
private security forces operate too far outside U.S. military
control - and laws. And experts wonder what would happen if a
contractor did something tragically wrong, like shoot an Iraqi
child. Thirteen Democrats wrote Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld this month to argue that providing security in a hostile
area is a classic mission for the military.
4/27/04 Tuesday
Gunmen attacked a former United Nations office in a diplomatic
quarter of Damascus in Syria, setting off a battle with police that
pelted nearby buildings with bullets and grenades. The government
said two attackers, a policeman and a civilian were killed. Syria
has not seen such violence since the 1980s, when the government put
down an insurgency by Islamic militants.
U.S. warplanes and artillery attacked Sunni insurgents holed up in
a slum in a thunderous show of force that rocked Fallujah in Iraq,
sending huge plumes of black smoke into the night sky. The assault
came after American troops killed 64 gunmen near the southern city
of Najaf. An American soldier died in Baghdad, raising the U.S.
death toll for April to 115 - the same number killed during the
invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein last year.
Calling it the toughest decision of their lives, two Wisconsin
soldiers whose sister was killed in Iraq have decided against
returning to combat. Rachel and Charity Witmer said they were
following advice from their commanders in Iraq, Gov. Jim Doyle and
the Wisconsin National Guard's Maj. Gen. Al Wilkening in requesting
reassignment after their sister Michelle's death.
4/28/04 Wednesday
U.S. warplanes pounded Fallujah with 500-pound laser-guided bombs
Wednesday and Marines battled insurgents near a train station and
in neighborhoods that had seemed to be quieting. American forces
decided to delay potentially dangerous patrols into the besieged
city. The violence, carried on live television with images of
fiery destruction, came as the United States was under increasing
international pressure to prevent a revival of the bloodshed seen
in the city. Marines in Fallujah began packing up gear and loading
heavy trucks. saying they had been ordered to leave the southern
industrial zone that they have held for weeks and pull away from
the city. It was not immediately known if the move represented a
withdrawal of Marines from their siege of the city or if other
Marine forces were being rotated in to replace the withdrawing 1st
Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.
The Treasury Department agency entrusted with blocking the
financial resources of terrorists told Congress that at the end of
last year it had just four full-time employees dedicated to
investigating Osama bin Laden's and Saddam Hussein's wealth while
nearly two dozen were working on Cuban embargo violations. In
addition, the Office of Foreign Assets Control said that between
1990 and 2003 it opened just 93 enforcement investigations related
to terrorism terrorism and collected just $9,425 in fines for
terrorism financing violations since 1994.
Al Gore, drawing from his 2000 campaign accounts, said he will
donate more than $6 million to five Democratic Party groups and
help John Kerry fight President Bush's "outrageous and misleading"
re-election bid. The former vice president pledged to donate $4
million to the Democratic National Committee. The party's Senate
and House committees each will get $1 million, and the party from
Gore's home state of Tennessee would receive $250,000.
4/29/04 Thursday
President Bush defended his administration's efforts to stop
terrorist strikes and assessed the nation's potential
vulnerabilities to attack in an extraordinary meeting with the
Sept. 11 commission, setting the stage for the panel to focus on
reform proposals as it finishes its work. The bipartisan
commission met privately with Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney
for more than three hours in the Oval Office in a session
presidential scholars called unprecedented. With few remaining
witness interviews left, commissioners will begin working on
recommendations to meet its July 26 deadline.
In Iraq, U.S. troops began clearing rolls of razor wire from the
main entrance to Fallujah, as U.S. commanders met with local
representatives to work out details of a deal aimed at lifting the
month-long siege of the city. The agreement would lead to the
creation of a local force of some 1,100 members called the Fallujah
Protective Army that would patrol the city under the command of an
Iraqi general from Saddam Hussein's military. U.S. Marines would
pull out of the city.
A pipeline that pumps petroleum from refineries in the San
Francisco Bay area ruptured, gushing diesel fuel into a marsh that
serves as a key nesting ground for migratory birds. The spill,
which began Tuesday, prompted an emergency cleanup effort at Suisun
Marsh, about 30 miles northeast of San Francisco. Several dead
animals, mostly ducks, were found at the scene.
A landing capsule touched down flawlessly in the steppes of
Kazakstan with a Russian, an American and a Dutchman from the
International Space Station aboard, and NASA hailed it as another
sign of American-Russian cooperation more than a year after the
U.S. shuttle program was grounded because of the Columbia disaster.
The Soyuz TMA-3 capsule carried American astronaut Michael Foale
and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri, who spent some six months
on the ISS, and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers of
the Netherlands, who was returning after a nine-day mission on the
station.
4/30/04 Friday
Images of smiling U.S. military police humiliating Iraqi prisoners
appeared in newspapers around the Middle East, angering Arabs who
condemned the United States as a champion of rights only for
Americans. Egypt's Akhbar el-Yom newspaper splashed photographs of
the U.S. soldiers posing by naked, hooded inmates on page one with
the banner headline "The Scandal." Al-Wafd, an opposition paper,
displayed similar photos beneath the headline, "The Shame!".
Led by a former Saddam Hussein general, Iraqi troops replaced U.S.
Marines and raised the Iraqi flag at the entrance to Fallujah under
a plan to end the month-long siege of the city. A suicide car bomb
on the outskirts that killed two Americans and wounded six failed
to disrupt the pullout of Marines from bitterly contested parts of
the city. The two deaths raised the U.S. death toll to 136 for
April, adding to what already was the deadliest month for American
forces since President Bush launched the war in March 2003. More
Iraqis have died - some 1,360 according to a count by The
Associated Press - than any month since Saddam's fall.
President Bush defended his speech a year ago on the deck of an
aircraft carrier proclaiming the end of major combat in Iraq and
said "we're making progress, you bet" in bringing stability to the
war-torn country. Answering reporters' questions in the White
House Rose Garden with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin at his
side, Bush said that when he spoke aboard carrier U.S.S. Abraham
Lincoln he also emphasized that "there was still difficult work
ahead."
Ted Koppel solemnly read aloud the names of 721 U.S. servicemen and
women killed in the Iraq war during an unusual edition of
"Nightline". Koppel's recitation - illustrated with corresponding
photo, military branch, rank and age of each of the fallen since
March 19, 2003 - occupied the expanded 40-minute program.
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