In The News

Today's Papers

Israeli tanks and mechanized infantry rolled into northern Gaza while armed drones buzzed over bombed homes and Palestinians buried their dead wrapped in Fatah and Hamas flags. A sniper shot an Israeli soldier in the head. Several dozen Palestinians were killed or wounded throughout Gaza, a fifth of them boys under the age of 17. Militants carrying Klashnikovs and RPGs set roadside bombs and patrolled streetcorners while the Interior Minister, a member of Hamas, called on all Palestinians to "defend our people." Fourteen Qassam missiles were launched into Israel, though all but three landed on open ground.*

It was announced that a professor of computer studies was arrested in Beruit for planning over the Internet to bomb the Lincoln Tunnel and flood Lower Manhattan, and that Los Angeles street gangs like the Crips and Bloods had discovered blogging. A U.S. soldier, who had what his brother called "mental problems" after his service in Iraq, charged a cockpit door on an airplane en route to Tampa and was tackled by passengers who thought he was a terrorist.

Health experts argued about when it was appropriate to call children obese, and a study linked obesity with depression and other mood disorders. A group of scientists found that factors besides diet and exercise might play a role in America's obesity epidemic, including inadequate sleep, air conditioned workplaces, aging mothers and decreases in cigarette smoking.

A Memphis preacher's wife shot her husband at the Church of Christ after losing $17,500 to a Nigerian check scam, and a father was charged with poisoning his children's soup in a scheme to sue Campbell for damages. A survey found that daughters in West African towns commonly have their breasts bound and burned with hot stones in order to make them less attractive and protect them from rape.* Scientists designed a 50-yard wide folding plastic shade that would open up over a space telescope to block out distracting starlight, and expressed hope that this would allow them to find life on Earth-like planets trillions of miles away.

At a red carpet ceremony in the Himalayas amidst frozen drizzle at fourteen thousand feet, China and India agreed to reopen the Silk Road, closed for 44 years after a brutal series of border wars. A media leak gave away the Canadian prime minister's 60th birthday gift to President Bush before he could unwrap it.