News of Note
Operation Iraqi Freedom
U.S., Iraqi Forces Nab Al-Sadr Aide
Al-Sadr to Italian Newspaper: I Think I'm Being Targeted
VIDEO: Senators Propose Bill Condemn Iraq Troop Surge
Bush on Iraq plan: "I believe it will work"
Iraqi forces need more guns so U.S. can exit: PM - Video
Iraq rebel army expressing siege mentality
Soldier to Plead Guilty in Iraq Rape

Homeland Security / War on Terror / Hamas-Hezbollah Happenings
Detainee Trial Plan Sets High Bar for Defense
Pentagon sets rules for terrorism suspect trials
Gonzales defends Bush's revised domestic spying
Gaza violence scares away foreign aid, media
Hezbollah image suffers in south Lebanon village

Other Military News
Israeli Court Allows Woman to be Inseminated With Dead Soldier's Sperm Without His Written Consent (Is it just me, or does anyone else have a problem with this headline?)
Pentagon Recants 'Canadian' Spy Coin Report
China Successfully Tests Anti-Satellite Missile

Religion of Peace??
Australian Muslim Cleric Sparks Outrage

Worldwide Wackos
North Korea Claims 'Agreement' Reached in Nuke Talks
How Kim Jong Il Bilks U.N. - Aid agency concealed scamming since 1999
North Korea Claims Progress in Nuke Talks
Gates: Iranians 'overplaying their hand'
Iran takes tough stand over nuclear row

Homegrown Moonbats
ACLU Sues Bar for Ban on Dreadlocks

Politics / Government
Who Needs '100 Hours'?
'We have delivered on the promise,' Pelosi says
House seeks more oil royalties, kills tax breaks
U.S. tells China concerned by satellite-killer test
Senate passes Democrats' ethics bill
Rocker's inaugural act creates stir

Immigration / Border Control
Bush Mulls Pardon for Border Agents
Convicted Border Agents Start Serving Federal Prison Sentences
Driver Gets Life for Human Smuggling Deaths

In the Courts / Crime and Punishment
Subway Restaurant Worker Charged With Murder of Kansas College Student
Missouri Kidnap Suspect Pleads Not Guilty to Abducting Ownby; Other Parents Assume Abuse
Cops: Mom Sold Daughter, 8, to Man for Sex
Missouri Kidnap Suspect Pleads Not Guilty; Prosecutor Says Devlin Confessed - VIDEO
'Live Tax-Free or Die'
Kidnapped teen was abused-parents tell Oprah

U.N. News
Somalia has best chance for peace in years: UN
Sanctions could escalate Iran standoff: ElBaradei
UN weighs peacekeepers across border from Darfur

Media in the Media / Bloggers in the News / Watching the Web
Families Allege Sex Assaults in MySpace Suits
Fox News offers audio feed on cell phones
Colbert, O'Reilly face off on both shows

Science / Nature
1918 Flu That Killed Millions Hijacked Victims' Immune Systems
Icy Storms Kill 66 Across 9 States - PHOTOS
NASA spacecraft nears close encounter with Jupiter
Global biotech crop acres grow as debate persists
At least 21 killed as storms lash N.Europe - Video
Ice-glazed Texas and Oklahoma shiver

Oddities
Authorities Investigate Case of Woman Dying After Water-Drinking Contest
Family sues radio station after woman dies
9-Year-Old Steals Car, Catches Plane
'Half-Animal' Woman Is Discovered After Spending 19 Years Alone in Cambodian Jungle
Double Dragon: Fossil of Prehistoric Reptile With Two Heads Discovered in China
Pregnant Teens Stage Frying Pan Attack
Police catch sneaker peeker
Mirror, mirror on the wall, is this dress for me?

Other News of Note
Holocaust survivors owed as much as $175 bln: study
Report: China palace Starbucks may close

Fox News
MLB Owners Warned: Play Ball in 'Roid Probe
Prosecutors in HP Spy Case Offer Plea Deal
Washington Runaway, 9, Steals Car, Sneaks Onto Flight to Texas
Hugh Hefner May Want More Kids ... With Playboy Playmate and 'Girl Next Door' Holly Madison
Britney Spears 'Fed-Up' With K-Fed. Or Not
Kentucky Plane Crash Transcripts Show Pilots Violated Cockpit Rules Against Nonessential Chatter

Reuters: Top News
Oil prices soft above $50 on high U.S. crude stocks
Desk of the future will charge electronic devices
Solar power eliminates utility bills in U.S. home
Caffeine may ease post-workout pain: study
Texas study suggests link between pollution, cancer
DiCaprio says Scorsese deserves an Oscar
Chip, energy stocks drag markets lower
IBM shares drop
Oil prices soft above $50 on high U.S. crude stocks
Supply angst pushes nickel to new record high
Dollar near 4-year high vs yen
Yen talk unlikely to spark rally
Perfectly organized
IBM profit rises 11 percent but shares drop
GE to buy Abbott diagnostics units for $8.13 billion
Toyota to recall 533,000 Sequoias, Tundras in U.S.
Schneider Electric Q4 sales beat forecasts
Bernanke: Budget action needed before "storm"
Hilton plans Waldorf-Astoria in Beverly Hills

AP World News
Killer indicted in Idaho abductions
Couples betting 7/7/07 is lucky for love
Serena's improbable run continues
Smith, Dungy eye Super Bowl history
Rite Aid shareholders OK Eckerd deal
Interest rates, Apple lead to sell-off
Inflation moderates in 2006, wages up
Oil briefly falls below $50 per barrel
5 finalists named for Grammy contest
Millions in Katrina aid still available

Military.com
Op-ed: Buy American or French?
Blog: Whiny Women vs. Real Women
Advisors: Hometown Deprivation Syndrome
Military Money Questions? Ask June!
Podcast: Playboy and the Nude Airman

CENTCOM: News Releases
COALITION FORCES REQUEST ACCESS, ENTER SUDANESE EMBASSY
12 SUSPECTS SEIZED IN EAST BAGHDAD
IRAQI ARMY PATROL TURNS THE TABLES ON AMBUSH

USJFCOM
Training comes to a close in exercise for Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa - podcast
Liveblogging: Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa Mission Rehearsal Exercise 07-1
USJFCOM hosts first-responder focused modeling and simulation demonstration event

Department of Defense
Stability & Security in Iraq Report (pdf)
For Top News Visit DefenseLink

ON THE GROUND
U.S. Official Talks Economics with Iraqi Leaders - Story
Troops Overseas Celebrate King’s Birthday - Story
Iraqi Army Boot Camp Trains New Recruits - Story
Iraqi Army Patrol Turns the Tables on Ambush - Story

IN IRAQ
Iraqi City Rebuilds Police Force After Uprising
Soldiers Surprise Iraqi Troops With Goodwill Visit
Security Operations Continue in Al-Doura
Iraqi Neighborhood Chosen for Renovation
Number of Iraqi Police Recruits Skyrocket
Undersecretary Tours Iraqi Fertilizer Plant
Iraqi Cops Take Lead With a Little Help
Four-Legged “Troops” Sniff Out Explosives

IN AFGHANISTAN
Volunteers Spark Warmth at Burn Center
U.S. Air Assets Support Strike in Afghanistan
U.S. Air Force Engineer Helps Afghans Rebuild
Afghans Graduate From Agricultural Course

BACKGROUND
IRAQ
Renewal In Iraq
Iraq: Security, Stability
Fact Sheet: Progress and Work Ahead
Report: Strategy for Victory in Iraq
Iraq Daily Update
This Week in Iraq
Multinational Force Iraq
State Dept. Weekly Iraq Report (PDF)
'Boots on the Ground' Audio Archive
Weekly Reconstruction Report (PDF)
Iraq Reconstruction
Maps

AFGHANISTAN
Afghanistan Update
Maps

WAR ON TERRORISM
Fact Sheet: Budget Request
Fact Sheet: War on Terror
Fact Sheet: Terror Plots Disrupted
Waging and Winning the War on Terror
Terrorism Timeline
Terrorism Knowledge Base

Weather
Afghanistan
Bost/Laskar Ghurian Herat Kabul Qandahar

Germany
Ansbach Aschaffenburg Berlin Berlin-Tempelhof Berlin/Schonefeld Bremerhaven
Darmstadt Frankfurt Frankfurt/Main Freiburg/Breisgau Garmisch
Garmisch-Partenkirchen Geilenkirchen Gelnhausen Giessen Kitzingen
Hanau Am Main Heidelberg Mainz Mannheim Nurnberg Stuttgart Trier
Wiesbaden Wurzburg

Gitmo

Guam
Agana Agana Heights Agat Andersen AFB Asan Barrigada

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

Japan
Kadena Air Base Okinawa Tokyo Yokohama

Philippines
Baler Radar Site Catanduanes Radar Site Manila

South Korea
Cheju Upper/Radar Chonju Chunchon Inch'on Kunsan Masan Mokp'o
Osan Pusan Seoul Suwon Taegu Taejon Tonghae Radar Site Ulsan Yosu

* If you're deployed, and want to see your location's weather listed here, please email me! *

Today in History
0379 - Theodosius installed as co-emperor of East Roman Empire
0973 - Pope Benedictus VI elected
1419 - French city of Rouen surrenders to Henry V in Hundred Years War
1493 - France cedes Roussillon & Cerdágne to Spain by treaty of Barcelona
1668 - King Louis XIV & Emperor Leopold I sign treaty dividing Spain
1746 - Bonnie Prince Charlie's troops occupy Stirling
1770 - Battle of Golden Hill (Lower Manhattan)
1793 - French King Louis XVI sentenced to death
1795 - Democratic revolution in Amsterdam ends oligarchy
1806 - Britain occupies the Cape of Good Hope
1808 - Louis Napoleon signs 1st Dutch aviation law
1825 - Ezra Daggett & nephew Thomas Kensett patent food storage in tin cans
1833 - Charles Darwin reaches Straits Ponsonby, Fireland
1839 - Aden conquered by British East India Company
1840 - Antarctica discovered, Charles Wilkes expedition (US claim)
1853 - Napoleon III marries Eugénie de Montijo
1861 - Georgia becomes 5th state to secede; MS troops take Fort Massachusetts an Ship Island
1862 - Battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky (Fishing Creek, Logan's Crossroads)
1863 - General Mieroslawski appointed dictator of Poland
1865 - Union occupies Fort Anderson NC
1885 - Battle at Abu Klea Sudan 800-1000 killed
1899 - Anglo-Egyptian Sudan forms
1903 - 1st regular transatlantic radio broadcast between US & England
1910 - Germany & Bolivia ends commerce/friendship treaty; National Institute of Arts & Letters incorporated by Congress
1913 - Raymond Poincaré installed as President of France
1915 - 1st German Zeppelin attack over Great Britain, 4 die; Neon Tube sign patented by George Claude
1917 - Silvertown Essex's ammunition factory explodes; 300 die
1918 - Soviets disallows a Constitution Assembly
1920 - Alexandre Millerand forms French government; US Senate votes against membership in League of Nations
1921 - Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras & El Salvador sign Pact of Union
1922 - Geological survey says US oil supply would be depleted in 20 years
1927 - British government decides to send troops to China
1929 - Acadia National Park, Maine established
1937 - Millionaire Howard Hughes sets transcontinental air record (7h28m25s)
1938 - GM began mass production of diesel engines
1939 - Ernest Hausen of Wisconsin sets chicken-plucking record-4.4 seconds
1941 - British offensive in Eritrea; British troops occupy Kassalaf Sudan
1942 - Japanese forces invade Burma; Titus Brandsma (Carmelite priest) arrested by German occupiers for speaking out against Nazism as a "lie" and "pagan"
1943 - Joint Chiefs of Staff decide on invasion in Sicily
1947 - SS Himera runs aground at Athens, kills 392
1950 - Maiden flight by Canada's Avro Canada CF-100 military plane
1952 - PGA approves allowing black participants
1955 - 1st Presidential news conference filmed for TV (Eisenhower); "Scrabble" debuts on board game market
1960 - Eisenhower & Premier Kishi sign US-Japanese Security pact
1966 - Indira Gandhi elected India's 3rd prime minister
1970 - Nixon nominates G Harrold Carswell to Supreme Court (fails)
1972 - Sandy Koufax, Yogi Berra, & Early Wynn elected to Hall of Fame
1974 - Belgium government of Leburton falls
1975 - 4 mail truck assault on El Al B-747 in Paris, escape to Iraq
1977 - President Ford pardons Iva Toguri D'Aquino (Tokyo Rose); World's largest crowd-12.7 million-for Indian religious festival
1978 - Judge William H. Webster appointed head of FBI
1979 - John N. Mitchell (former AG) released on parole from federal prison
1981 - Muhammad Ali talks a despondent 21 year old out of committing suicide; US & Iran sign agreement to release 52 American hostages
1982 - Heater explodes at Star Elementary School-Oklahoma, kills 6 kids & teacher
1983 - Klaus Barbie, SS chief of Lyon in Nazi-France, arrested in Bolivia
1984 - California Supreme Court refuses to allow quadriplegic Elizabeth Bouvia to starve herself to death in a public hospital, she appeals and is later granted the right to die
1986 - Israeli premier Simon Peres visits Netherlands; Spain recognizes Israel
1987 - Guy Hunt becomes Alabama's 1st Republican governor since 1874
1988 - "48 Hours" premieres on CBS-TV
1989 - President Reagan pardons George Steinbrenner for illegal funds for Nixon
1993 - Israel recognizes PLO as no longer criminal; Robert M. Gates ends term as 15th director of CIA; STS-54 (Endeavour) lands

Birthdays
0570 - Mohammed Islamic, prophet (Koran)
1200 - Dogen Kigen, Zen teacher, 1st patriarch of the Japanese Soto
1544 - Francis II de Valois-Angoulême, King of France (1559-60)
1736 - James Watt, inventor (steam engine); Laurens P. van de Spiegel, Dutch regent/secretary of State 1787-95
1749 - Isaiah Thomas, US printer/editor/publisher/historian
1802 - (Jean) Silvain van de Weyer, 1st Belgian minister of Foreign affairs (1831)
1807 - Robert Edward Lee Stratford VA, Confederate General-in-Chief
1809 - Edgar Allan Poe, author (Pit & the Pendulum)
1813 - Sir Henry Bessemer, engineer/inventor (Bessemer engine)
1816 - Henry Gray, Confederate Brigadier General
1820 - John Haskell King, Union Brevet Major General
1830 - George Blake Cosby, Confederate Brigadier General
1863 - Werner Sombart German fascist (Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben)
1869 - Alfred R. Zimmerman, mayor (Rotterdam 1906-22)/Director (League of Nations)
1892 - Olafur Thors, Icelandic PM (6 times, 1942-63)
1904 - James Winston Watts developer (Frontal Lobotomy)
1905 - Oveta Culp Hobby, government official/newspaper publisher/CEO (Houston Post)
1912 - Leonid V. Kantorovich, economist (Nobel); Francis David Charteris Earl of Wemyss & March/Scottish landowner; Jean G.H. "Sjeng" Tans, Dutch socialist democratic chairman (1965-69)
1920 - Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, 5th Secretary-General of UN (1982-91)
1924 - 7th Earl of Carnarvon, English large landowner
1931 - Robert MacNeil, news anchor (NBC Weekend News 1965-67); Ron Packard (Representative-CA)
1938 - Denny Smith (Representative-OR)
1940 - Barend J. du Plessis South African minister of Finance
1944 - Dan Reeves, NFL Coach (New York Giants, Denver Broncos, Atlanta Falcons)
1946 - Alexandr Vladimirovich Shchukin, Russian cosmonaut; Dolly Rebecca Parton, country singer (Dolly, 9 to 5)
1947 - Ann Compton, news reporter (ABC TV)

Passings
0639 - Dagobert I, King of Austrasia/Soissons/Burgundy/Neustrië
1479 - Johan II, King of Aragón/Navarra, dies at 81
1547 - Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, army commander/poet, beheaded at 29
1549 - Barthout van Assendelft, 1st land advocate of Holland
1629 - Abbas I, Shah of Persia (1588-1629), dies at 57
1927 - Charlotte, princess of Belgium/Empress of Mexico (1864-67), dies at 86
1980 - William O. Douglas, Supreme Court Justice (1939-75), dies at 81
1982 - Leopold Trepper Polish/Israeli spy (WWII), dies at 77
1990 - Herbert Wehner German ex-communist/chairman (1958-73), dies at 83
1993 - Reginald Lewis CEO (Beatrice), dies of brain cancer at 50

Reported Missing in Action
1967
Ashby, Donald R., Sr., USN (VA); F4B shot down and crashed in water, KIA, body not recovered

Brady, Allen C., USN (VA); A6A shot down, released by DRV March, 1973 - retired as a Captain - alive and well as of 1998

Ehrlch, Dennis Michael, USN (NJ); F4B shot down over water, KIA, body not recovered

Jayroe, Julius S., USAF (SC); F4C shot down (w/Kramer), released by DRV March, 1973 - retired as a Colonel - alive and well as of 1998

Kramer, Galand D., USAF (OK); F4C shot down, released by DRV February, 1973 - retired as a Lt. Colonel - alive as of 1998

Yarbrough, William P., Jr., USN (TX); A6A shot down (w/Brady) - remains returned August, 1985

1968
Johnson, William D., US Army (NC); disappeared during ambush

Murray, Patrick Peter, USMC (MN); A6A shot down (w/Wallace), remains returned April, 1986

Wallace, Hobart McKinle, Jr., USMC (WV); A6A shot down (w/Murray)

1974
Kosh, Gerald E.; released January, 1974