News of Note
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Bush: It Would Be a Terrible Mistake to Leave Iraq
Video of Four Hostages Airs on Al-Jazeera
Observers: Pressure Threatens Saddam Trial
Training Iraqi Police Remains Hard Task

Operaton Enduring Freedom
Goss: CIA Knows More Than We Say About Bin Laden

Supreme Court
Precedent at Stake in Supreme Ct. Abortion Case

Hurricane Season
Katrina Aid May Lead to Spike in U.S. Drug Trafficking
26th Tropical Storm Forms- Disastrous Season Ending

Oddities
Did Ronald MacDonald rob Wendy's?

Fox News
Chinese Rescuers Say 33 Miners Missing After Blast
1000th Execution Halted
Astronomers Say Possible Mini Solar System Found
Minn. Teen Pleads Guilty in School Shooting Case
Group: Cannibalism in Video Games Is Too Violent
Rallying the Troops - Bush begins string of speeches
Bush Tries to Help GOP Candidates Build Campaign War Chests
Lieberman Expresses Confidence in Iraq After Thanksgiving Visit

Reuters: Top News
Iraq likely to face violence for years: White House
Vatican edict on gays divides U.S. Catholics
Indonesia says woman dies of bird flu
New climate change deal to take years: U.N. chief
Egyptian Islamists blame America for poll abuses (Oh, give me a break!)
New US envoy to Seoul not encouraged by N.Korea tactics
Army aims to coax back former troops
Bush to unveil new Iraq plan as violence continues
Bush says congressman taking bribes 'outrageous'
Workers in booming UAE struggle to get paid

AP World News
8 Reported Dead in Pakistani Quake Zone
Officials: 33 Chinese Miners Still Missing
Peres Signals Plans to Leave Labor Party
Sudan Gov't, Darfur Rebels Open New Talks
Venezuela's Chavez Vows Clean Elections
Canadian PM Holds Slim Lead in Polls
Blair Says Britain Considering Nuke Power
Milosevic Argues Against Speeding Up Trial (Can't imagine why he wants to delay his trial for War Crimes...)
Deal Nears for Peres to Quit Labor Party
Mexican Court Overturns Extradition Ban
Official: U.N. Could Face Budget Crisis
Gabon President Omar Bongo Re-Elected
U.S. Asks Security Council to Eye Myanmar
U.S. Environmental Stance Draws Heat
France Tightens Controls on Immigration
Mexican Presidential Race Tightens Up
Polish Archive Outlines Soviet Attack Plan

The Seattle Times
Bush's speech seen as gamble
Rumsfeld pushes new description for Iraqi "insurgents" (gasp - we're going to call them 'enemies'? Oh, nooo....his term is at least more fit for public use than the one I usually use.)
Fewer auditors, Pentagon secrecy hinder oversight
Payback time for D.C. politicos?
Bush touts plan for border control
Inmate spared, delaying 1,000th execution
Don't bank on big raise next year
Highest-wage states are on East Coast
Clerk at vandalized liquor store kidnapped
Housing helps plug generation gap
First snowstorm on Plains hits hard
Baby panda tumbles into the public view
Toxic spill could linger for years in China river
U.S. blasts gay arrests in Emirates
Panel blames Russian authorities for botching rescue attempt during militants' school siege
Stan Berenstain co-wrote classics

Chicago Sun-Times
Groups here slam guest worker plan
Israel court: Drug trafficker can be sent to U.S.
Legislator guilty of using fake address to win election
Hastert: Call 'Holiday Tree' a Christmas tree
Boy, 9, who took bullet for little brother honored
Report: Distracted U.S. faces coke problem
FCC chairman: Cable TV must protect kids or feds will
U.S. relaxes ban on poultry imports
Kansas prof apologizes for e-mail mocking religious right
U.S. troops fly rescued cubs to Ethiopian capital
Iraq fails to deliver results of torture probe
Sen. Clinton defends her vote for Iraq war

Boston Globe: World
Rice: US will respond to inquiry about CIA prisons
N. Ireland police arrest four in fatal 1972 car-bomb attacks
Brazil public may give up on reform
Pan-European high-speed train line draws fire from environmentalists
Abbas suspends Fatah party primaries
3 parties withdraw from Venezuela vote
Swedish pastor acquitted in antigay case
Terror leader Zarqawi disowned by hundreds of his clan members
Former US official meets Hussein

Military.com
Analysts See Bleak Road Ahead
U.S. Acknowledges Secret-Prison Concern

CENTCOM: News Releases
MNDCS COMPLETES PROJECTS IN AD DIWANIYAH
IRAQI, U.S. FORCES CAPTURE 33 TERROR SUSPECTS
IRAQI SOLDIERS AND U.S. MARINES, SAILORS AND SOLDIERS BEGIN OPERATIONS
MUTIPLE CACHES UNCOVERED BY IRAQI AND U.S. FORCES
IRAQI SECURITY FORCES ALONG WITH MULTI-NATIONAL FORCES CONTINUE PARTNERSHIP TO FIND ANTI-IRAQI FORCES

Department of Defense
Victory Needed Before Troops Leave - Story
Rumsfeld: Quitting No Exit Strategy for Iraq - Story Video
Iraqi Security Forces Steadily Improving
War on Terror Strategy is About Ideology
Officials Decry Use of Outdated Gitmo Images - Story Special
Report: Afghan Body Burning Not War Crime - Story

ON THE GROUND
Elite Marine Unit to Train Georgian Soldiers - Story
Afghan Border Police Prepare Airport for Hajj - Story
Paratroopers' Missions Yield Mixed Results - Story

IN IRAQ
84th Engineers Prepare for Iraq Deployment

FACE OF DEFENSE
Scout Chose ‘Road Less Traveled’ - Story

AMERICA SUPPORTS YOU
Care Packager Honored for Support

TOP NEWS
SPECIAL REPORTS
Iraq Transition of Power

IRAQ
Troops Find Car Bombs, Detain Nine
Roadside Bomb Kills Two Soldiers
Elections Will 'Stake Out' Future
Judge Grants Saddam Trial Delay
Patrol Finds Weapons, Bomb Parts
Soldiers Nab 20 Terrorists
Baquba Rebuilds Its Future
Iraq Daily Update
This Week in Iraq (pdf)
Multinational Force Iraq
Eye on Iraq Update (pdf)
State Dept. Weekly Iraq Report (pdf)
'Boots on the Ground' Audio Archive
Iraq Reconstruction
Maps

AFGHANISTAN
Afghanistan Daily Update
Maps

WAR ON TERRORISM
U.S. Helping Fight Narco-Terror
High Troop Morale Key to Success
N.J., Ind. Guard Teams Certified
Conference: Joint Ops, Preparation
Fact Sheet: War on Terror
Fact Sheet: Terror Plots Disrupted
Waging and Winning the War on Terror
Terrorism Timeline
Terrorism Knowledge Base

MILITARY NEWS
National Guard, Reserve Update

Weather
Iraq
Al Azamiyah Al Basrah Al Hillah Al Karkh Al Kazimiyah Al Kut An Nasiriyah Baghdad Baqubah Mosul Najaf Nineveh Tall Kayf

Afghanistan
Bost/Laskar Ghurian Herat Kabul Qandahar

Gitmo

National Hurricane Center

Today in History
0306 - Saint Marcellus I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1782 - Britain signs an agreement recognizing U.S. independence.
1803 - Spain cedes her claims on the Louisiana Territory to France.
1804 - The impeachment trial of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase begins.
1864 - Battle of Franklin, Tennessee.
1866 - In Chicago, work begins on the first U.S. underwater highway tunnel.
1886 - In Buffalo, the first commercially successful AC electric power plant opens.
1887 - Chicago is the site of the first indoor softball game.
1907 - In Seattle, Pike Place Market is dedicated.
1924 - The first photo facsimile is transmitted across the Atlantic by radio.
1936 - London's Crystal Palace (built in 1851) is destroyed by fire.
1939 - The U.S.S.R. invades Finland over a border dispute.
1941 - The 101-year-old Nyack-Tarrytown (NY) ferry makes its last run.
1947 - Jewish settlements are attacked, one day after a U.N. decree for Israel.
1948 - Baseball's Negro National League disbands; Soviets set up a separate municipal government in East Berlin.
1949 - Chinese Communists capture Chungking.
1954 - Liz Hodges becomes the first woman known to have been struck by a meteorite (an 8 lb. one in Sylacauga, AL).
1958 - In Bath, Maine, the first guided missile destroyer is launched (USS Dewey).
1961 - The U.S.S.R. vetoes Kuwait's application for U.N. membership.
1962 - U Thant of Burma is unanimously elected to as Secretary-General of the U.N.
1964 - The U.S.S.R. launches Zond-2 towards Mars; no data is returned.
1966 - Barbados gains independence from Britain
1967 - Britain cedes the Kuria Muria islands to Oman; the People's Republic of South Yemen (Aden) gains independence from Britain.
1975 - Dahomey becomes Benin.
1979 - Ted Koppel becomes anchor of the nightly news on the Iran Hostage Crisis (ABC).
1982 - The submarine USS Thomas Edison collides with the USS Leftwich (a destroyer) in the South China Sea; both remain operational.
1983 - Radio Shack announces the Tandy Model 2000 computer (80186 chip).
1988 - A cyclone lashes Bangladesh and Eastern India; 317 are killed; for the first time in 38 years, the Soviets stop jamming Radio Liberty; the U.N. General Assembly (151-2) censures the U.S. for refusing the PLO's Arafat a visa.
1990 - Actor Burt Lancaster suffers a stroke; President George H.W. Bush proposes a U.S.-Iraq meeting to avoid war.
1991 - During a dust storm, 17 die in the pile-up of 93 cars and 11 trucks near San Francisco.

Birthdays
0538 - Saint Gregory of Tours, chronicler/bishop
1466 - Andrea Doria, Genoese statesman/admiral
1554 - Philip Sidney, English poet/statesman/soldier (Arcadia)
1667 - Jonathan Swift, satirist (Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal)
1793 - Johann Lukas Schonlein, helped establish scientific medicine
1810 - Oliver Fisher Winchester, rifle maker
1817 - Theodor Mommsen Germany, historian/writer (Nobel 1902)
1835 - Samuel Clemens [Mark Twain], author (Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn)
1863 - Andres Bonifacio, leader of 1896 Philippine revolt against Spain
1874 - Sir Winston Churchill, British PM (1940-45, 1951-55, Nobel 1953)
1915 - Angier Biddle Duke, U.S. Ambassador (Spain); Henry Taube, chemist (Nobel 1983)
1924 - Shirley Chisholm (Rep-NY), first Black congresswoman/presidential candidate
1928 - Chic Hecht (Sen-NV)
1933 - Linwood C. Ivey (Mayor-Garysburg NC)
1936 - Abbie Hoffman, a.k.a. Free, Yippie/activist/author (Steal this Book)
1937 - Richard Threlkeld, newscaster (ABC-TV)

Passings
30 BC - Cleopatra, Egyptian queen, suicide
1016 - Edmund II Ironsides, King of the Saxons (1016)
1631 - Rabbi Samuel Eliezer ben Judah ha-levi Edels
1694 - Marcello Malpighi, father of microscopic anatomy
1900 - Oscar Wilde, Irish author
1979 - Zeppo Marx, comedian
1987 - Arthur H. Dean, lawyer/advisor to FDR
1990 - Norman Cousins, editor (Saturday Review)
1996 - Tiny Tim, singer with the falsetto warble and ukulele ("Tiptoe Through the Tulips")

Reported Missing in Action
1965
Richardson, Stephen G., USN (WA); F8E crashed, Killed, body not recovered

1967
Kushner, Floyd H., US Army (VA); UH1H crashed, released by PRG March, 1973 - alive and well as of 1998

1968
The following US Army SF personnel lost when the CH34 they were in was shot down:

Bader, Arthur E., Jr. (NJ); remains returned by SFG July, 1989 - ID'd February, 1990

Fitts, Richard A. (MA); remains returned April, 1989

La Bohn, Gary R. (MI); remains returned March, 1989 - ID'd February, 1990 (questionable)

Mein, Michael H. (NY); remains returned March, 1989 - ID'd February, 1990

Scholz, Klaus D. (TX); remains returned March, 1989 - ID'd February, 1990

Stacks, Raymond C. (TN); remains returned March, 1989 - ID'd February, 1990

Toomey, Samuel K. III (MO); remains returend March, 1989 - ID'd February, 1990

1970
Stringer, John C. II, US Army (NY); fell into water crossing a stream