10/ 1/05 Saturday
Suicide bombers targeted the Indonesian resort of Bali with
coordinated attacks that devastated three crowded restaurants,
killing at least 25 people. Two men linked to even deadlier blasts
at the same resort in 2002 were suspected of masterminding the
strikes, a top anti-terrorism official said. Maj. Gen. Ansyaad
Mbai said the three attackers went into the packed restaurants this
evening wearing explosive vests. The remains of their bodies were
found at the scenes, he said.
The Army Corps of Engineers pumped much of the remaining floodwater
out of the city today as tens of thousands of residents continued
returning to dry neighborhoods to check on houses and reopen
businesses. Water was still being pumped out of the heavily
flooded lower Ninth Ward. Officials expected the pumping to be
completed by midweek, said Mitch Frazier, spokesman for the Army
Corps of Engineers.
Paris Hilton said she ended her five-month engagement to a Greek
shipping heir because "she's not ready for marriage" and didn't
want it to end up in divorce. The 24-year-old celebutante- turned-
model broke off wedding plans with Paris Latsis, 22, because she
didn't want to rush into marriage too quickly.
10/ 2/05 Sunday
A seemingly ideal day of sailing along a calm but busy mountain
lake turned abruptly tragic today when a tour boat carrying a group
of senior citizens overturned, killing 21 people and injuring
dozens more. The glass-enclosed Ethan Allen was carrying tourists
from Michigan on a fall foliage tour when it capsized shortly
before 3 p.m. The accident on Lake George may have occurred when
the boat was hit by the wake of a larger vessel, Warren County
Sheriff Larry Cleveland said.
U.S. troops battled insurgents holed up in houses and driving
explosives-laden vehicles in a second town near the Syrian border
today, killing 28 in an expansion of their two-day-old offensive
chasing al-Qaida fighters along the Euphrates River valley, the
military said. Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed to have taken two Marines
captive during the fighting and threatened to kill them within 24
hours unless all female Sunni detainees are released from U.S. and
Iraqi prisons in the country. The U.S. military said the claim
appeared false.
A defiant Tom DeLay, removed as House majority leader because of a
criminal indictment, said today he can do his job even without the
title and pledged to continue his close partnership with House
Speaker Dennis Hastert in pushing the GOP's agenda. The Texas
Republican known for keeping colleagues in line and raising
prodigious amounts of cash to help elect GOP candidates said he is
only guilty of working to defeat Democrats. "But that's not
illegal," he said.
10/ 3/05 Monday
President Bush named White House counsel Harriet Miers to a Supreme
Court in transition today, turning to a longtime loyalist with no
experience as a judge and scant public record on abortion to
succeed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Miers "will strictly
interpret our Constitution and laws. She will not legislate from
the bench," the president said as the 60-year-old former private
attorney and keeper of campaign secrets stood nearby in the Oval
Office.
A Texas grand jury today re-indicted Rep. Tom DeLay on charges of
conspiring to launder money and money laundering after the former
majority leader attacked last week's indictment on technical
grounds. The new indictment, handed up by a grand jury seated
today, contained two counts. The money laundering charge carries a
penalty of up to life in prison. The charge of conspiracy to
launder money is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
A tour boat that capsized on a New York lake, killing 20 people,
did not have the required number of crew members aboard, leading
state regulators to suspend licenses for all five vessels belonging
to the company that operated the tour, officials said today. The
Ethan Allen, which overturned Sunday on Lake George while carrying
47 elderly tourists, was required by state boating regulations to
have two crew members, said Wendy Gibson, spokeswoman for the state
Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.
The search for Hurricane Katrina victims has ended in Louisiana
with a death toll at 964, but more searches will be conducted if
someone reports seeing a body, a state official said today. State
and federal agencies have finished their sweeps through the city,
but Kenyon International Emergency Services, the private company
hired by the state to remove the bodies, is on call if any other
body is found, said Bob Johannessen, a spokesman with the state
Department of Health and Hospitals.
10/ 4/05 Tuesday
Mayor Ray Nagin said today the city is laying off as many as 3,000
employees - or about half its workforce - because of the financial
damage inflicted on New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. Nagin
announced with "great sadness" that he had been unable to find the
money to keep the workers on the payroll.
U.S. troops pushed through streets sown with bombs today in their
biggest operation this year in western Iraq, seeking to retake
three Euphrates River towns from al-Qaida insurgents. At least
five U.S. service members have been killed in the fighting.
Operation River Gate - launched at the start of the holy month of
Ramadan - was the second U.S. offensive in a week in Anbar
province, near the Syrian border. Al-Qaida in Iraq called for
intensified attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces during the Muslim
period of fasting, which started today for the nation's Sunnis.
President Bush pushed back against suggestions by some skeptical
Republicans that Harriet Miers was not conservative enough,
insisting that his nominee to the Supreme Court shares his strict-
constructionist views. "I know her heart," Bush told a Rose Garden
news conference. "Her philosophy won't change."
President Bush, stirring debate on the worrisome possibility of a
bird flu pandemic, suggested dispatching American troops to enforce
quarantines in any areas with outbreaks of the killer virus. Bush
asserted aggressive action could be needed to prevent a potentially
crippling U.S. outbreak of a bird flu strain that is sweeping
through Asian poultry and causing experts to fear it could become
the next deadly pandemic. Citing concern that state and local
authorities might be unable to contain and deal with such an
outbreak, Bush asked Congress to give him the authority to call in
the military.
10/ 5/05 Wednesday
New Chief Justice John Roberts stepped forward today as an
aggressive defender of federal authority to block doctor-assisted
suicide, as the Supreme Court clashed over an Oregon law that lets
doctors help terminally ill patients end their lives. The justices
will decide if the federal government, not states, has the final
say on the life-or-death issue.
The FBI is investigating whether a former Marine took classified
information from the White House when he worked in the vice
president's office and passed it to Filipino officials, U.S.
government officials said today. Leandro Aragoncillo, 46, a 21-
year Marine veteran who became an FBI intelligence analyst last
year, already has been charged in New Jersey with passing
classified information about Filipino leaders to current and former
officials of that nation.
Tom DeLay deliberately raised more money than he needed to throw
parties at the 2000 presidential convention, then diverted some of
the excess to longtime ally Roy Blunt through a series of donations
that benefited both men's causes. When the financial carousel
stopped, DeLay's private charity, the consulting firm that employed
DeLay's wife and the Missouri campaign of Blunt's son all ended up
with money, according to campaign documents reviewed by The AP.
Heavy rains pounded Central America for a fourth day today, pushing
rivers over their banks, flooding communities and unleashing at
least two deadly mudslides as the region's death toll increased to
more than 150 people. Hurricane Stan, which had helped spawn
rainstorms in Central America, weakened to a depression over the
southern state of Oaxaca today, a day after making landfall along
Mexico's Gulf coast. But punishing rains continued in parts of
Central America and southern Mexico.
Portions of Montana, the Dakotas and Wyoming were hit by a slow-
moving snowstorm that knocked out power, closed roads and dumped up
to 2 feet by this evening. Thousands of power outages were
reported and some schools were closed by the storm, which began
Tuesday. Drifting snow contributed to road closings, and the
National Guard was called out in North Dakota to aid the Highway
Patrol in rescuing stranded motorists.
10/ 6/05 Thursday
Authorities stepped up security today after receiving what city
officials called a credible threat that the New York subway could
be the target of a terrorist attack in coming days. But Homeland
Security officials in Washington downplayed the threat, saying it
was of "doubtful credibility." The threat involved the possibility
terrorists would pack a baby stroller with explosives, among other
potential subway bombing methods, a law enforcement official said,
speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is
ongoing.
Presidential confidant Karl Rove will testify for a fourth time
before the federal grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA
officer's identity even though prosecutors have warned they can no
longer guarantee he will escape indictment, lawyers said today.
Rove's offer was accepted by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald
in the last week as the grand jury's wraps up its work and decides
whether Rove, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff I. Lewis
"Scooter" Libby or any other presidential aides should face
criminal charges.
President Bush said today the United States and its allies had
foiled at least 10 serious plots by the al-Qaida terror network in
the last four years, including plans for Sept. 11-like attacks on
both U.S. coasts. In a speech designed to revive flagging public
support for the war in Iraq, the president also said the U.S. and
its partners have stopped at least five more efforts by al-Qaida to
case targets or infiltrate operatives in the United States.
10/ 7/05 Friday
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his police chief insisted today they
did the right thing by going public with a terrorist threat to bomb
the New York subway, brushing aside suggestions from Washington
that they overreacted to information of dubious credibility. While
the mayor and federal officials weighed the threat's severity, the
investigation into the alleged plot advanced as a third suspect was
arrested and authorities looked into whether a fourth person took
part in the scheme.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told President Bush and
others that he never engaged in an effort to disclose a CIA
operative's identity to discredit her husband's criticism of the
administration's Iraq policy, according to people with knowledge of
Rove's account in the investigation. They said Rove's denial to
Bush occurred during a brief conversation in the fall of 2003, a
few months after media reports revealed that former Ambassador
Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked as a covert CIA
operative.
Evangelicals, Republican women, Southerners and other critical
groups in President Bush's political coalition are worried about
the direction the nation is headed and disappointed with his
performance, an AP-Ipsos poll found. That unease could be a
troubling sign for a White House already struggling to keep the
Republican Party base from slipping over Supreme Court nominee
Harriet Miers, Gulf Coast spending projects, immigration and other
issues.
Bomb blasts killed six Marines as the U.S. military announced today
it had completed a major sweep in western Iraq aimed at suppressing
al-Qaida militants before next week's vote on Iraq's constitution.
The military said 50 insurgents were killed in the six-day
offensive, launched Oct. 1 in towns near the Syrian border. The
operation was the first in a series of major offensives in the past
week in the heartland of the Sunni-led insurgency.
10/ 8/05 Saturday
An earthquake shook Afghanistan, Pakistan, India; some 19,000 are
said to be killed; many are from mountain villiages, now cut off
due to rock slides across roads. Most of the damage was done in
northern Pakistan.
The Iraq government urged Iraqis to vote in next week's
constitutional referendum, condemning insurgent groups for
demanding a boycott and for killing hundreds of civilians to wreck
the ballot. The U.S. military also announced the death of another
Marine during one of two offensives currently occuring in western
Iraq aimed at rooting out insurgents from ahead of next Saturday's
vote. The Marine was killed by a roadside bomb in Ramadi, where
about 500 U.S. and 400 Iraqi troops were conducting Operation
Mountaineer, the military said.
10/ 9/05 Sunday
Villagers desperate to find survivors dug with bare hands today
through the debris of a collapsed school where children had been
heard crying beneath the rubble after a massive earthquake..
Pakistani officials said the death toll ranged between nearly
20,000 and 30,000. Pakistan's president called Saturday's
magnitude-7.7 earthquake the country's worst on record and appealed
for urgent help, particularly cargo helicopters to reach remote
areas. Rival India, which reported more than 465 dead, offered
assistance.
Hurt and hungry, families huddled under makeshift tents while
waiting for relief supplies after Pakistan's worst-ever earthquake
wiped out entire villages and buried roads in rubble. The death
toll was expected to rise. In the devastated Himalayan city of
Muzaffarabad, wounded covered by shawls lay in the street, and
villagers used sledgehammers to break through the rubble of
flattened schools and homes seeking survivors.
Angry villagers blocked roads in earthquake-ravaged regions of
Indian- controlled Kashmir today, complaining the government was
too slow in getting rescue and aid efforts to them. Hundreds were
known dead from the 7.7-magnitude earthquake that rocked South Asia
on Saturday and rescue workers and soldiers were still pulling
bodies from wreckage in the frontier Tangdar region, 65 miles north
of Srinagar, summer capital of Jammu-Kashmir state.
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said today he plans
to vigorously question Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers about
her qualifications because she has not proved to him she can handle
the weighty issues that come before the high court. Sen. Arlen
Specter, R-Pa., said he has questions about Miers' grasp of privacy
and abortion law. Miers, a corporate lawyer from Texas, is now
White House counsel and has never served as a judge.
Dozens of foreign tourists fled devastated lakeside Mayan towns on
foot and by helicopter today as Guatemalan officials said they
would abandon communities buried by landslides and declare them
mass graveyards. Villagers who had swarmed over the vast mudslides
with shovels and axes digging for hundreds of missing gave up the
effort, five days after Hurricane Stan made landfall on the Gulf of
Mexico coast, bringing torrential rains before weakening to a
tropical depression.
A reported plot to bomb city subways with remote-controlled
explosives has not been corroborated after days of investigation,
law-enforcement officials said today amid an easing sense of
concern. Interrogations of suspects captured in Iraq last week
after an informant's tip about bomb-laden suitcases and baby
carriages have yet to yield evidence that the plot was real,
officials said.
10/10/05 Monday
Desperate Pakistanis huddled against the cold and some looted food
stores today because aid still had not reached remote areas of
Kashmir, where a devastating earthquake flattened villages, cut off
power and water, and killed tens of thousands. Officials predict
the death toll, now estimated at between 20,000 and 30,000, will
climb because of exposure and disease. With winter just six weeks
away, the United Nations has said 2.5 million people near the
Pakistan-India border need shelter.
A retired elementary teacher who was repeatedly punched in the head
by police in an incident caught on videotape said today he was not
drunk, put up no resistance and was baffled by what happened.
Robert Davis said he had returned to New Orleans to check on
property his family owns in the storm-ravaged city, and was out
looking to buy cigarettes when he was beaten and arrested Saturday
night in the French Quarter.
The National Guard and Reserves are suffering a strikingly higher
share of U.S. casualties in Iraq, their portion of total American
military deaths nearly doubling since last year. Reservists have
accounted for one-quarter of all U.S. deaths since the Iraq war
began, but the proportion has grown over time. It was 10 percent
for the five weeks it took to topple Baghdad in the spring of 2003,
and 20 percent for 2004 as a whole.
10/11/05 Tuesday
In Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, heavy rain and hail grounded helicopters
and stopped trucks loaded with relief supplies today, imposing more
misery on hungry, shivering earthquake survivors as the United
Nations warned of potentially lethal outbreaks of measles, cholera
and diarrhea. Dazed, desperate villagers fought over food packages
and looted trucks as the first aid reached this devastated city in
the mountains of Kashmir. The Himalayan region was hardest-hit by
Saturday's magnitude-7.6 quake.
Iraqi negotiators reached a breakthrough deal on the constitution
today, and at least one Sunni Arab party said it would now urge its
followers to approve the charter in this weekend's referendum.
Suicide bombings and other attacks killed more than 50 people in
the insurgent campaign aimed at intimidating voters. Under the
deal, the two sides agreed on a mechanism to consider amending the
constitution after it is approved in Saturday's referendum. The
next parliament, to be formed in December, will set up a commission
to consider amendments, which would later have to be approved by
parliament and submitted to another referendum.
Heating bills are headed through the roof, expected to average 50
percent higher this winter for homes that use natural gas. People
in parts of the Midwest are likely to pay even more - as much as
$1,600 for the winter months if the weather is especially bad.
Utility officials said today they expect to have plenty of natural
gas despite disruptions from two hurricanes. But the utilities
have been paying substantially more for the fuel they have been
putting in storage, and are likely to face even higher costs this
winter.
10/12/05 Wednesday
As rescue efforts gave way to aid relief, a strong aftershock shook
Pakistan early Thursday morning, five days after an earthquake
killed tens of thousands and left millions homeless. Still,
miracles emerged amid the misery: a Russian team rescued a 5-year-
old girl trapped for nearly 100 hours under the rubble of her
family home. It was not immediately clear if the 5.6-magnitude
aftershock caused any damage. The U.S. Geological Survey said the
aftershock was centered about 85 miles northeast of Islamabad.
Iraqi lawmakers approved a set of last-minute amendments to the
constitution without a vote today, sealing a compromise designed to
win Sunni support and boost chances for the charter's approval in a
referendum just three days away. The deal, brokered with intense
U.S. mediation, came as insurgents pressed their campaign to wreck
Saturday's referendum. A suicide bomber killed 30 Iraqis at an
army recruitment center in a northern town where another bomber had
struck just a day earlier.
The White House tried today to patch a growing fissure in the
Republican Party over Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers by
pointing to her conservative religious beliefs. "Part of Harriet
Miers' life is her religion," President Bush said. Bush defended
his nomination, saying Miers was highly qualified, a trailblazer in
the law in Texas and someone who would strictly interpret the
Constitution - something his conservative supporters want evidence
to support. He said his advisers' comments about Miers'
churchgoing were meant to give people a better understanding of his
little-known nominee.
More than 9,000 mobile homes and campers meant for the victims of
Hurricane Katrina are sitting unused at government staging areas
while displaced families continue to live out of tents and
shelters. The Federal Emergency Management Agency says the backlog
was inevitable: the temporary housing is easier to acquire than
distribute because of the limited number of accessible roads,
cleared lots and trucks to haul housing to the storm-ravaged
region.
10/13/05 Thursday
Hundreds of Iraqi police and army troops fanned out across Baghdad
today, setting up checkpoints and fortifying polling stations with
barbed wire and blast barriers two days ahead of a historic
constitutional referendum. From the city's Shiite stronghold of
Kazimiyah to its southern approaches in the notorious "Triangle of
Death," the capital's usually chaotic traffic was down to a tiny
fraction. Many stores didn't bother to open and others shuttered
early ahead of a 10 p.m. curfew.
It was billed as a conversation with U.S. troops, but the questions
President Bush asked on a teleconference call today were
choreographed to match his goals for the war in Iraq and Saturday's
vote on a new Iraqi constitution. "This is an important time,"
Allison Barber, deputy assistant defense secretary, said, coaching
the soldiers before Bush arrived. "The president is looking
forward to having just a conversation with you."
Militants attacked police and government buildings in Russia's
volatile Caucasus region today, taking hostages and turning a
provincial capital into a war zone wracked by gunfire and
explosions that left at least 85 people dead, mostly insurgents.
Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for the offensive in Nalchik,
the capital of the mostly Muslim republic of Kabardino- Balkariya,
as a new front opened in the Kremlin's decade-old battle against
Islamic insurgents.
A seventh straight day of rain across much of the soggy Northeast
trapped motorists, delayed airline flights and sent streams surging
over their banks today. Flood warnings covered parts of
Connecticut, New York and New Jersey, and residents in some New
Jersey communities were urged to evacuate their homes.
10/14/05 Friday
Iraqis voted Saturday to give a "yes" or "no" to a constitution
that would define democracy in Iraq, a country once ruled by Saddam
Hussein and now sharply divided among its Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish
communities. The polls opened at 7 a.m., just hours after
insurgents sabotaged power lines in the northern part of the
country, plunging the Iraqi capital into darkness and cutting off
water supplies.
Social Security checks for nearly 50 million Americans are going up
next year an average of $39 a month, the biggest boost in 15 years,
although rising energy bills and higher Medicare premiums will
erase a big chunk of the gain for many. The 4.1 percent cost of
living adjustment announced today by the Social Security
Administration is the biggest increase since a 5.4 percent gain in
1991. Last year's increase was 2.7 percent.
Rescue workers abandoned the search today for survivors trapped in
the rubble of last week's Asian earthquake, though individual
efforts continued, with an 18-month-old girl pulled out alive from
the ruins of her home. A top U.N. official warned that
reconstruction of the devastated region will cost billions of
dollars and take up to a decade, and the United Nations increased
its appeal for quake aid to $312 million. Weather forecasters said
rains that began at dawn Saturday could worsen and disrupt efforts
to provide food and shelter to an estimated 2 million people ahead
of the harsh Himalayan winter.
10/15/05 Saturday
Sunni Arabs voted in surprisingly high numbers on Iraq's new
constitution today, many of them hoping to defeat it in an intense
competition with Shiites and Kurds over the shape of the nation's
young democracy after decades of dictatorship. With little
violence, turnout was more than 66 percent in the three most
crucial provinces. The constitution still seemed likely to pass,
as expected. But the large Sunni turnout made it possible that the
vote would be close or even go the other way, and late today it
appeared at least two of a required three provinces might reject it
by a wide margin.
The death toll from Pakistan's earthquake rose sharply to nearly
40,000 today, with the president warning the numbers could jump
still higher as relief teams reach more villages in the endless
folds of the Himalayan mountains. One relief helicopter crashed
late today in stormy weather near Bagh, killing all six people
aboard, a senior army official said. Throughout the region,
homeless survivors searched desperately for blankets and tents to
brace against temperatures that dropped to 44 degrees and the
torrential rains.
10/16/05 Sunday
Iraq's landmark constitution seemed assured of passage today after
initial results showed minority Sunni Arabs had fallen short in an
effort to veto it at the polls. The apparent acceptance was a
major step in the attempt to establish a democratic government that
could lead to the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Opponents failed to
secure the necessary two-thirds "no" vote in any three of Iraqi's
18 provinces, according to counts that local officials provided to
the AP. In the crucial central provinces with mixed ethnic and
religious populations, enough Shiites and Kurds voted to stymie the
Sunni bid to reject the constitution.
Near Osseo, Wis. a bus carrying high school students home from a
band competition crashed into a tractor-trailer that had jackknifed
on the interstate early today, killing five people, including the
band director and his 11-year-old granddaughter, officials said.
Twenty-nine others were injured, some seriously, troopers said.
A tropical storm warning was in effect today for the Cayman Islands
as a tropical depression moved through the Atlantic on a path that
could threaten the U.S. Gulf Coast later this week as a hurricane,
forecasters said. The system was expected to become Tropical Storm
Wilma by Monday, which would make it the 21st named storm of the
season, tying the record for the most storms in an Atlantic season,
the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
Two astronauts on China's second manned space flight landed before
dawn Monday, shown live on state television as they emerged from
their capsule smiling and waving at the end of a five-day mission
meant to burnish China's global standing and rouse public support
for its communist leaders. Astronauts Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng
were "in good health" after the Shenzhou 6 capsule touched down by
parachute at 4:32 a.m. local time in China's northern grasslands,
just a half-mile from its target, the official Xinhua News Agency
said. They were met by crews who rushed to the site in helicopters
and off-road vehicles.
10/17/05 Monday
Iraq's election commission announced today that officials were
investigating "unusually high" numbers of "yes" votes in about a
dozen provinces during Iraq's landmark referendum on a new
constitution, raising questions about irregularities in the
balloting. Word of the review came as Sunni Arab leaders repeated
accusations of fraud after initial reports from the provinces
suggested the constitution had passed. Among the Sunni allegations
are that police took ballot boxes from heavily "no" districts, and
that some "yes" areas had more votes than registered voters.
The nation's murder rate declined last year for the first time in
four years, dropping to the lowest level in 40 years. Experts said
local rather than national trends were mostly responsible. The
rates for all seven major crimes were down and the overall violent
crime rate reached a 30-year low, according to the FBI's annual
compilation of crimes reported to the police.
Wilma, the record-tying 21st tropical storm of the season, formed
in the Caribbean today, and forecasters warned it could become a
powerful hurricane and hit somewhere along the U.S. Gulf Coast as
early as the weekend. "I think the message is that the season is
certainly not over. People in the Gulf Coast are going to have to
watch Wilma," said National Hurricane Center Director Max
Mayfield. The Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to Nov. 30.
10/18/05 Tuesday
Nearly two years after his capture, Saddam Hussein is finally
facing trial for alleged crimes against fellow Iraqis. In some
ways, Iraq also will be on trial, with the world watching to see
whether its new ruling class can rise above politics and prejudice
and give the former dictator a fair hearing. Saddam's lawyer said
today he would ask for a three-month adjournment at his client's
trial for a 1982 massacre, and challenge the court's competence to
hear the case. The trial was to begin on Wednesday.
Hurricane Wilma whirled into the record books as the 12th such
storm of the season, strengthening early Wednesday into a Category
4 storm and setting a course to sideswipe Central America or
Mexico. Forecasters warned of a "significant threat" to Florida by
the weekend. Forecasters said early Wednesday that Wilma had
became a dangerous Category 4 hurricane with winds reaching 150
mph. Earlier, its winds were 80 mph.
Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers pledged unflagging opposition
to abortion as a candidate for the Dallas City Council in 1989,
according to documents released today. She backed a constitutional
amendment to ban the procedure in most cases and promised to appear
at "pro-life rallies and special events." Asked in a Texans United
for Life questionnaire whether she would support legislation
restricting abortions if the Supreme Court allowed it, Miers
indicated she would. Her reply was the same when asked, "Will you
oppose the use of city funds or facilities" to promote abortions?
10/19/05 Wednesday
Hurricane Wilma rapidly strengthened into one of the Americas' most
intense storms ever and lashed Caribbean coastlines today, forcing
tourists to flee as it threatened to slam into Cancun and southern
Florida. Wilma briefly grew into a monstrous Category 5 storm
before weakening to a Category 4 tonight. The storm forced
thousands of people to evacuate low-lying areas in a 600-mile swath
covering Cuba, Belize, Honduras, Jamaica, Haiti and the Cayman
Islands, officials said.
A defiant Saddam Hussein quarreled with judges and scuffled with
guards at the opening of his long-awaited trial today, rejecting
the tribunal's right to judge him and insisting he is still the
president of Iraq. Sitting inside a white pen with metal bars,
Saddam appeared gaunt and frail and his salt-and-pepper beard was
unkempt as he pleaded innocent to charges of murder, torture,
forced expulsions and illegal detentions. He wore a suit with a
white shirt and no tie.
A state court issued an arrest warrant today for Rep. Tom DeLay,
requiring him to appear in Texas for booking on state conspiracy
and money laundering charges. The court set an initial $10,000
bail as a routine step before the Texas Republican's first court
appearance Friday.
10/20/05 Thursday
Tourists packed Cancun's airport and shuttled from luxury hotels to
spartan emergency shelters today. desperately trying to escape
Hurricane Wilma as its outer bands battered the resort's white-sand
beaches. Cuba evacuated more than 200,000 people. Wilma, a
Category 4 storm with winds of 150 mph, churned toward the Yucatan
peninsula and south Florida after brushing by Haiti and Jamaica,
where its winds and rains killed at least 13 people.
Congress gave the gun lobby its top legislative priority today,
passing a bill protecting the firearms industry from massive crime-
victim lawsuits. President Bush said he will sign it. "Our laws
should punish criminals who use guns to commit crimes, not law-
abiding manufacturers of lawful products.", Bush said in a
statement.
A woman seen dropping her three young sons into San Francisco Bay
from a downtown pier was charged with murder today while anguished
relatives kept vigil and rescuers combed the chilly water for the
bodies of two of the victims. Lashuan T. Harris, 23, was being
held in a hospital jail ward after police saw her pushing an empty
baby stroller away from the pier where a witness reported spotting
a woman drop the children into the water Wednesday night.
10/21/05 Friday
Hurricane Wilma tore into Mexico's resort-studded Caribbean
coastline today with torrential rains and shrieking winds, filling
streets with water, shattered glass and debris as thousands of
tourists hunkered down in hotel ballrooms and emergency shelters.
Packing winds of 140 mph, the storm shattered windows and downed
trees that crushed cars on the island of Cozumel, a popular cruise-
ship stop. Pay phones jutted from floodwaters in the famed hotel
zone.
President Bush today said the U.N. should deal quickly and
seriously with a report implicating Syria in the assassination of
Lebanon's former prime minister, a killing that led to protests and
withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon after nearly 30 years as
overlord. "The report strongly suggests that the politically
motivated assassination could not have taken place without Syrian
involvement," Bush said.
Britain and Croatia confirmed cases of bird flu today as countries
around the world scrambled to put in place measures to prevent the
spread of the virus. In Croatia, the Agriculture Ministry said the
country's first cases of bird flu were confirmed in six swans found
dead in a national park. British officials said a parrot that had
been imported from South America died of bird flu in quarantine.
10/22/05 Saturday
Hurricane Wilma punished Mexico's Caribbean coastline for a second
day today, ripping away storefronts, peeling back roofs and forcing
tourists and residents trapped in hotels and shelters to scramble
to higher floors. At least three people were killed. Waves
slammed into seaside pools and sent water surging over the narrow
strip of sand housing Cancun's luxury hotels and raucous bars,
joining the sea with the alligator-infested lagoon. Downtown,
winds tore banks open, leaving automatic teller machines standing
in knee-deep water.
A hurricane warning was issued late today for Florida's entire
southern peninsula as residents streamed out of the Keys and
coastal communities under mandatory evacuation orders, and state
and federal officials prepared for the worst. The warning -
covering hundreds of miles south of Tampa Bay, as well as the
Florida Keys and the Dry Tortugas - means hurricane conditions
could be expected within 24 hours.
In the latest fallout from the CIA leak investigation, reporter
Judith Miller and The New York Times are engaging in a very public
fight about her seeming lack of candor in the case. In a memo to
the staff, Executive Editor Bill Keller says Miller "seems to have
misled" the newspaper's Washington bureau chief, Phil Taubman, who
said Miller told him in the fall of 2003 that she was not one of
the recipients of a leak about the identity of covert CIA officer
Valerie Plame.
10/23/05 Sunday
Rain pounded Key West early Monday as Hurricane Wilma accelerated
toward storm-weary Florida, threatening residents with 115-mph
winds, tornadoes and a surge of seawater that could flood the Keys
and the state's southwest coast. The Category 3 hurricane was
expected to make landfall around dawn in the state's southwest
corner, likely near Naples and Marco Island, National Hurricane
Center Director Max Mayfield said. He warned that the storm surge
in the area south of Marco Island could reach 17 feet.
Mexicans and stranded tourists, hungry and frustrated after a two-
day beating by Hurricane Wilma, stood in line to buy supplies today
or simply raided grocery or furniture stores, dragging goods from
shops ripped open by the storm. The hurricane's steady march
toward southern Florida meant an end here to two days of howling
winds and torrential rains that shattered windows, peeled away
roofing and sent the ocean crashing into hotel lobbies. The sun
emerged over Mexico's sugar-white Caribbean beaches.
With the grim milestone of the 2,000th U.S. military death looming
in Iraq, many wonder about the direction of the insurgency that
killed most of them. Experts think the country's increasingly
regional-oriented politics will fuel the insurgency and even spread
it further inside Iraq. Others put forward a simple, disquieting
scenario: so long as U.S. and other foreign troops remain in Iraq,
the insurgency will continue.
Retail gas prices across the nation fell an average of 25 cents in
the past two weeks as refineries in the Gulf Coast steadily resumed
production, according to a survey released today. Still, prices
remained slightly higher than pre-Hurricane Katrina levels.
10/24/05 Monday
Hurricane Wilma knifed through Florida with winds up to 125 mph
today, shattering windows in skyscrapers, peeling away roofs and
knocking out power to 6 million people, with still a month left to
go in the busiest Atlantic storm season on record. At least six
deaths were blamed on the hurricane in Florida, bringing the toll
from the storm's march through the tropics to 25.
Suicide bombers including one in a cement truck packed with
explosives launched a dramatic attack today against the Palestine
Hotel, where many foreign journalists are based, sending up a giant
cloud of smoke and debris over central Baghdad. American troops
and journalists escaped without serious injury but at least a half-
dozen passers-by were killed. The deafening attack triggered
confusion and panic throughout the hotel, and sent cars swerving
wildly on a roundabout to escape the blasts. Inside the 19-story
hotel, the force of the blasts shattered glass, tore pictures off
walls and brought down light fixtures and ceilings.
At least 21 detainees who died while being held in U.S. custody in
Iraq and Afghanistan were killed, many during or after
interrogations, according to an analysis of Defense Department data
by the American Civil Liberties Union. The analysis, released
today, looked at 44 deaths described in records obtained by the
ACLU. Of those, the group characterized 21 as homicides, and said
at least eight resulted from abusive techniques by military or
intelligence officers, such as strangulation or "blunt force
injuries," as noted in the autopsy reports.
Ben Bernanke, a plain-speaking former economics professor, was
chosen today by President Bush to be the next chairman of the
Federal Reserve, the most influential economic policy job in the
world. If approved by the Senate, Bernanke would succeed Alan
Greenspan, who has spent 18 years at the helm and is expected to
step down Jan. 31. Bush called Greenspan a "legend," and Bernanke
promised to continue the chairman's policies.
10/25/05 Tuesday
The American military death toll in the Iraq war reached 2,000
today with the announcements of three more deaths, including an
Army sergeant who died of wounds at a military hospital in Texas
and two Marines killed last week in fighting west of Baghdad. The
2,000 mark was reached amid growing doubts among the American
public about the Iraq conflict, launched in March 2003 to destroy
Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction. None were
ever found.
Repair crews across Florida struggled today to restore electricity
to up to 6 million people, reopen the region's airports and replace
countless windows blown out of downtown high- rises during
Hurricane Wilma's ruinous dash across the state. Officials said it
could take weeks for Florida's most heavily populated region - the
Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach area - to return to
normal.
President Bush tried today to begin reviving U.S. support for the
war in Iraq and reinvigorating his troubled presidency as the U.S.
military death toll topped 2,000. "I know this is a trying time
for our military spouses," Bush said at a Joint Armed Forces
Officer Wives' luncheon at Bolling Air Force Base. "We've lost
some of our nation's finest men and women in the war on terror."
Thousands of haggard tourists, fed up after five days in hot and
dirty emergency shelters, battled for airline and bus seats out of
Mexico's hurricane-battered Caribbean resorts today. Officials
said they still had no solid estimate of the damage caused by
Hurricane Wilma, which lashed the coastline Friday and Saturday and
wiped out the heart of Mexico's $11 billion foreign tourism
industry, even washing away Cancun's famed white beaches.
10/26/05 Wednesday
The Chicago White Sox are World Series champions again at last, and
yet another epic streak of futility is not just wiped away but
swept away. After seven scoreless innings, Jermaine Dye singled
home the only run in the eighth, and the White Sox beat the Houston
Astros 1-0 this evening to win their first title in 88 years.
The prosecutor in the CIA leak probe set the stage today for
possible criminal charges, meeting with the grand jury that heard
months of testimony and then consulting with the chief judge at the
courthouse where the legal drama has unfolded. The White House
braced for at least one indictment by week's end, possibly Vice
President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
It also was worried that President Bush's top political adviser,
Karl Rove, remained in jeopardy of being charged with false
statements.
Gov. Jeb Bush took the blame today for frustrating delays at
centers distributing supplies to victims of Hurricane Wilma, saying
criticism of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was
misdirected. "Don't blame FEMA. This is our responsibility," Bush
said at a news conference in Tallahassee with federal Homeland
Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who oversees the agency.
10/27/05 Thursday
Working against the clock, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald
weighed criminal charges against top presidential aides at the end
of a two-year investigation that put the White House in a state of
high suspense this evening. Fitzgerald raced against a Friday
expiration of the grand jury that has been investigating the
exposure of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity.
Speculation flew across Washington about who would be indicted, or
whether Fitzgerald would even bring criminal charges.
In a striking defeat for President Bush, White House counsel
Harriet Miers today abandoned her bid to become a Supreme Court
justice after three weeks of brutal criticism from fellow
conservatives. The Senate's top Republican predicted a replacement
candidate within days. Miers said she ended her quest for
confirmation because the Senate was demanding documents and
information detailing her private advice to the president. "I am
concerned that the confirmation process presents a burden for the
White House," she wrote in a letter to Bush expressing her wish to
drop the nomination.
Many Floridians struggled another day to find food, water and fuel
after Hurricane Wilma, today, with lines of people and cars forming
around home improvement stores and gas stations. President Bush
arrived in Miami to visit the National Hurricane Center and boarded
a helicopter to get his first look at the damage wrought by Wilma
in Florida, where about 2 million homes and businesses were still
without power.
10/28/05 Friday
Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff resigned today after he
was indicted on charges of obstructing a grand jury investigation
and lying about his actions that blew the CIA cover of an Iraq war
critic's wife. I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby became the first high-
ranking White House official in decades to be criminally charged
while still in office. A second key figure in the two-year CIA
leak investigation, presidential strategist Karl Rove, was spared
from criminal charges for the time being.
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney volunteered glowing
endorsements and expressed no criticism of I. Lewis Libby today as
the senior White House adviser was indicted, resigned and lost his
security clearance. Cheney called Libby "one of the most capable
and talented individuals I have ever known."
Fifty-one members of the New Orleans Police Department - 45
officers and six civilian employees - were fired today for
abandoning their posts before or after Hurricane Katrina. "They
were terminated due to them abandoning the department prior to the
storm," acting superintendent Warren Riley said. "They either left
before the hurricane or 10 to 12 days after the storm and we have
never heard from them."
10/29/05 Saturday
The prosecution's conclusion: Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of
staff zealously pursued information about a critic who said the
Bush administration manipulated intelligence to make the case for
war. The view of the president and vice president: I. Lewis
"Scooter" Libby is a dedicated public servant who has worked
tirelessly on behalf of his country. Is Libby an influential White
House adviser who lied? Or is he a man with a hectic schedule who
happens to remember events differently from the reporters and
administration figures who will eventually be called to testify
against him?
A bomb hidden in a truck loaded with dates exploded this evening in
the center of a Shiite farming village northeast of Baghdad,
killing 26 people and injuring at least 34. Three American
soldiers died in separate bombings in Baghdad and northern Iraq.
In the west of the country, U.S. Marines said they killed 10
extremists today in villages near the Syrian border, where Air
Force jets blasted a suspected militant safe house the day before.
U.S. officials said an al-Qaida official from Saudi Arabia may have
been killed in the airstrike.
George W. Bush hopes to find the path to recovery from a week of
bad news that staggered his presidency in a nuts-and-bolts focus on
governing. The week that was: conservatives in the president's own
party hounded him into withdrawing Harriet Miers' Supreme Court
nomination; the U.S. death toll in Iraq surpassed 2,000; and Vice
President Dick Cheney's chief of staff was indicted by a federal
grand jury.
10/30/05 Sunday
President Bush, members of Congress and ordinary Americans paid
tribute to Rosa Parks under the soaring dome of the Capitol Rotunda
today, honoring the woman whose defiant act on a city bus
challenged segregation in the South and inspired the civil rights
movement. Parks, a former seamstress, became the first woman to
lie in honor in the Rotunda, sharing an honor bestowed upon Abraham
Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and other national leaders. Bush and
congressional leaders paused to lay wreaths by her casket, while
members of a university choir greeted her with "The Battle Hymn of
the Republic."
President Bush is expected to announce a new nominee for the
Supreme Court on Monday, and conservatives close to the White House
said the leading candidates appeared to be federal appeals judges
Samuel Alito and J. Michael Luttig. The expected nomination comes
just four days after the withdrawal of Harriet Miers in the face of
intense conservative opposition.
10/31/05 Monday
President Bush nominated Appeals Court Judge Samuel Alito to the
Supreme Court today, hoping to usher in a historic new era of
judicial conservatism while ending a Republican divide that doomed
an earlier pick. Members of the Senate's Democratic minority
signaled a potentially bruising confirmation battle ahead, with
abortion a key issue. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the party's
leader, asked whether Alito was "too radical for the American
people" and wondered aloud "why those who want to pack the court
with judicial activists are so much more enthusiastic about him"
than Harriet Miers.
Capping the bloodiest month for American troops since January, the
U.S. military reported today that seven more U.S. service members
were killed - all victims of increasingly sophisticated bombs that
have been become the deadliest weapon in the insurgents' arsenal.
Bombs also claimed a toll today among civilians in Basra, Iraq's
second-largest city and the major metropolis of the Shiite-
dominated south, which has witnessed less violence than Sunni
areas. A large car bomb exploded along a bustling street packed
with shops and restaurants as people were enjoying an evening out
after the daily Ramadan fast. At least 20 were killed and about 40
wounded, police Lt. Col. Karim al-Zaidi said.
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