News of Note
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Bombs kill at least 78 people in Baghdad
Iraqi PM Drops Anti-American Bodyguards
Five U.S. Troops Killed; Iraqi Officials Say Gunmen in Karbala Attack Impersonated Americans
Christians, Muslims flee Baghdad

Operation Enduring Freedom
Taliban to Open Schools in Afghanistan
Afghan women step into commerce

Homeland Security / War on Terror / Hamas-Hezbollah Happenings
Suicide car bomber kills 3 Pakistani troops
Troops fire on Mogadishu protest, kill 3: witness

Other Military News
Hanoi agrees U.S. ships join search for servicemen (FINALLY! This is good news)
Israel chooses new army chief: reports
Anti-missile shield not aimed at Russia - U.S.
McCain casts doubt on Gen. Casey as U.S. Army head

Religion of Peace??
Video shows Egypt prisoner's humiliation

Worldwide Wackos
Chavez to U.S.: 'Go to Hell!' - Venezuelan president slams American officials (You first, Hugo)
Iran to Test-Fire Missiles in Military Exercises
MP says Iran bars 38 atomic inspectors: agency - Video
U.S. sees "basis for progress" in N.Korea talks

Politics / Government
Clinton Leads Pack on First Day as Candidate
Clinton confident in her 2008 prospects
Senators seek support for Iraq resolution
New Mexico Gov. Richardson to Run in '08
Bush to Push Energy Fixes in Address
Poll: Most think country on wrong track

In the Courts / Crime and Punishment
Police, Feds Scour Chicago For Abducted Kids, Mom and Kidnapper
Report: Devlin Too Ashamed to Call Parents
Report: Devlin Too Ashamed to Call His Parents
NY Post: Hornbeck's Biological Father Was a Convicted Sex Offender
Prison Inmates Outliving People on Outside
Questions in Jungle Gal's Return - PHOTOS
L.A. Vows Gang Crackdown After 2 Kids Die
Brits ID Suspected Killer of Ex-Spy

Science / Nature
Snowstorms Kill 11 in 3 States - PHOTOS
Pollution said destroying pre-Aztec Mexican ruins
Rare snow storm surprises Arizona

Oddities
Michigan Man Builds His Own Flying Saucer
Jaywalking historian causes stir

Other News of Note
Colts, Bears Set for Super Bowl - STORY
Co-Pilot Lands Plane After Pilot Dies in Midair

Fox News
Grounded U.K. Ship Losing Cargo - VIDEO

Reuters: Top News
EU's Solana urges fast government talks in Serbia - Video
EU undeterred by Serb hardliners' poll lead - Video
Australian PM coy on reshuffle in election year
Are you a giver? Brain scan finds the truth
IBM renews Microsoft rivalry with new Web software
Microsoft could launch Zune in Europe by end 2007
Users fuel news at Germany's Bild
News confirms suspicions of breast cancer survivor
Ancient medicine all the buzz in modern China
"Heroes" grows Web power
Guy Ritchie lined up for ABC "Suspects"
Oil climbs toward $53
Futures inch higher; earnings on tap
InterContinental shares rise on bid talk
Yen hits fresh lows as carry trades rule
Nikkei hits 9-month high as Olympus, brokers rise
Themes for 2007 and beyond
On the radar: Boomer stocks
Pfizer profit jumps on sale of consumer unit
Sun to tap Intel as additional chip supplier
Citigroup to buy ABN AMRO Mortgage Group
IBM renews Microsoft rivalry with new Web software
U.S. probe hammers online gaming shares
Philips profits rise, ups dividend to match peers

AP World News
No party emerging to govern Serbia
Source: Sun to use chips from Intel
Whitaker describes struggles as an actor
DiCaprio: I'm no 'piece of cute meat'
More students shun cafeteria junk food
Can Beckham appeal to L.A. Hispanics?
Parents turn against birthdays gone wild
Mexico: No U.S. pressure in extraditions
Report: NYC may lose top financial spot
Man kills self, wife in parking lot
Obituaries in the news
Embry-Riddle battered, but flying again
Princeton plans no tuition hike
Unique Cobra brings $5.5M at car auction

Military.com
DT: China's Test Pollutes Space
Op-ed: Mom Meets President Bush
Blog: Roggio Back in Iraq
One Medic's View of the War
Advisors: Can Drinking Water Kill You?
Military.com's Top "Love and War" Movies

CENTCOM: News Releases
IRAQI ARMY, PARATROOPERS SEARCH MOSQUE NEAR BAHBAHANI
INSURGENT-PLACED BOMB STRIKES MND-B CONVOY
KIDNAPPING VICTIM FREED
LOCAL TIP LEADS POLICE TO CAR BOMB
IRAQI-LED OPERATION NETS 36 DETAINEES
IRAQI POLICE DONATE SCHOOL SUPPLIES TO STUDENTS
AIF ATTACK ARMOR GROUP CONVOY, 29 RESCUED
ROADSIDE BOMB STRIKES PATROL IN NINEWAH PROVINCE
AIRCRAFT WENT DOWN NEAR BAGHDAD
GATES, CASEY VISIT ADDER AS PART OF MIDEAST TOUR
IRAQI POLICE FOIL CAR BOMB ATTACK, DETAIN TWO SUSPECTS AT IZ CHECKPOINT
JOINT OPERATION NETS WEAPON CACHE, DETAINEES
PARATROOPERS DETAIN TWO SUSPECTS IN SOUTH BAGHDAD
POLAR BEARS FIND WEAPONS CACHE ALONG BANKS OF EUPHRATES
2ND BRIGADE, 82ND INFANTRY DIVISION (AIRBORNE) ARRIVES IN THEATER
UPDATE: AIRCRAFT WENT DOWN NEAR BAGHDAD
SHI'A MOSQUE DESTROYED IN EXPLOSION
SOLDIERS TRAINING IRAQI TROOPS PAYS OFF
IED DETONATION KILLS CHILDREN, IRAQI TROOPS, INJURES SEVEN

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
NEWS UPDATES
Eikenberry: U.S. Commitment Will Live On in Afghanistan - Story
Stability & Security in Iraq Report (pdf)
For Top News Visit DefenseLink

ON THE GROUND
Training Teams Teach Iraqis to Run Operations - Story
Married Couple Dedicated to Serving in Iraq - Story
Soldiers Visit Iraqi School-aged Children - Story
Flight Surgeon in Iraq Treats Injured Local Child - Story

IN IRAQ
U.S., Iraqi Medical Experts Meet, Share Ideas
U.S. Official Talks Economics with Iraqi Leaders
Iraqi Army Boot Camp Trains New Recruits
Forces Shut Down Known Terrorist Group

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

IN DJIBOUTI
Marine Trains U.S. Embassy Troops in Djibouti

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
0871 - Battle at Basing - Danish invasion army beats Ethelred of Wessex
1371 - King Robert II Stuart of Scotland crowned
1510 - Jews are expelled from Colmar, Germany
1517 - Turks conquer Cairo
1528 - England & France declare war on Emperor Charles V
1575 - English queen Elizabeth I grants Thomas Tallis & William Byrd music press monopoly
1584 - Parts of Switzerland adopt Gregorian calendar (& parts in 1812)
1588 - Pope Sixtus V decrees "Immense aeterni" (Reformed curia)
1673 - Postal service between New York & Boston inaugurated
1689 - Lord Halifax becomes Speaker of English House of Lords
1689 - Prince Willem III calls English parliament together
1690 - Iroquois tribes renew allegiance to British against French
1758 - Russian troops occupy Königsberg, East Prussia
1760 - Battle at Wandewash, India - British troops beat French
1771 - Spain cedes the Falkland Islands to Britain
1775 - Marshal Oscar von Lubomirski expels Jews from Warsaw, Poland
1798 - Coup of Midderigh
1813 - Americans capture Frenchtown, Canada
1814 - 1st Knights Templar grand encampment in US held (NYC)
1817 - English freighter Diana sinks off Malaysia
1831 - Charles Darwin takes his Bachelor of Arts exam
1837 - Earthquake in southern Syria kills thousands
1862 - Confederate government raises premium for volunteers from $10 to $20 (approximately $400 today)
1863 - Union General Burnside's "Mud March"
1873 - Britain's SS Northfleet sinks at Dungeness, England - 300 die
1879 - James Shields (D) elected US senator from Missouri after previously serving as US senator from Illinois & Minnesota; Zulus attack a British Army camp in Isandhlwana, South Africa
1881 - Ancient Egyptian obelisk "Cleopatra's Needle" erected in Central Park (NYC)
1890 - José Marti forms La Liga (Union of Cuban exiles) in New York City, NY
1901 - After 63 years, England stops sale of Queen Victoria postage stamps series & begins King Edward VII series
1905 - "Bloody Sunday" - Russian demonstrators fired on by tsarist troops
1918 - Ukraine proclaimed a free republic (German puppet)
1924 - Baldwin government resigns in England
1925 - Albania Republic proclaimed under President Achmed Zogu
1926 - Belgian chief of staff General Maglinse quits
1931 - French government of Steeg falls
1932 - British Anglicans & Old-Catholic church merge
1936 - French Laval government falls
1939 - Uranium atom 1st split, Columbia University
1941 - 1st mass killing of Jews in Romania; British/Australian troops capture Tobruk from Italians
1942 - Japanese air raid on Rabaul, New Britain
1943 - Joint Chiefs of Staff determine invasion in Sicily for July 10th; Temperature rises 49ºF (9ºC) in 2 minutes in Spearfish SD
1944 - Battle of Anzio (Italy); Allies stopped on the beach
1945 - Burma highway reopens; Heavy US air raid on Okinawa
1946 - US President sets up the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency)
1947 - KTLA TV channel 5 in Los Angeles CA (IND) begins broadcasting (1st commercial TV station west of Mississippi)
1949 - Chinatown telephone exchange closed
1951 - Fidel Castro ejected from a Winter League game after beaning batter
1955 - Norwegian government of Einar Gerhardsen forms
1956 - 30 die in a train crash in Los Angeles
1957 - Israeli forces withdraw from the Sinai Penisula; Mad Bomber (George P. Metesky), accused of 30 explosions, is arrested
1959 - USAF concludes less than 1% of UFO's are unknown objects
1960 - Coal mine of Johnburg caves in - 417 die; French President De Gaulle escapes assassination attempt by General Massu
1964 - World's largest cheese (15,723 kg) manufactured, Wisconsin; Kenneth Kaunda becomes premier of North-Rhodesia (Zambia)
1965 - US launches TIROS 9 weather satellite
1968 - Apollo 5 launched to Moon; unmanned lunar module tests made
1969 - Orbiting Solar Observatory 5 launched into earth orbit
1970 - 1st commercial Boeing 747 flight (Pan Am), New York to London in 6½ hours
1973 - Roe vs Wade US Supreme Court legalizes some abortions; US, North & South Vietnam & Vietcong sign boundary accord
1975 - Landsat 2, an Earth Resources Technology Satellite, launched
1976 - Bank robbery in Beirut nets $20-50 million (record)
1980 - Dissidents Andrei Sacharov & Jelena Bonner banished to Gorki
1982 - 75% of North America is covered by snow
1983 - 2nd flight readiness firing of Challenger's main engines; 22 seconds
1985 -30ºF (-34ºC), Mountain Lake Bio Station, Virginia (state record)
1985 - Cold wave damages 90% of Florida's citrus crop
1986 - Ghorbanifar 1st suggests diversion of cash to contras, says North
1989 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakstan/Semipalatinsk USSR
1992 - Space Shuttle STS-42 (Discovery 15) launches into space; Princess Sarah Ferguson wears paper bag over her head on airline ride
1994 - 5.5 earthquake strikes Sumatra
1995 - A Palestinian bomb attack in Beit Lid, Israel, kills more than 20
1997 - Space Shuttle Atlantis Returns to Earth
1998 - STS 89 (Endeavour 12) launches into orbit; World League of American Football becomes NFL East

Birthdays
1440 - Ivan III the Great, Russian czar (1462-1505)/conquered Lithuania
1561 - Francis Bacon England, statesman/essayist (Novum Organum)
1571 - Robert Bruce Cotton, English antiquary, politician
1655 - Geleyn Evertsen, Lieutenant-Admiral (Zealand)
1826 - Confederate General M(Merriwether) Jeff Thompson
1858 - Frederick Lugard, British captain/baron (Congo)
1865 - Friedrich Paschen, German physicist
1874 - Wincenty Witoz Galicia, PM of Poland (1920-21, 1923, 1926)
1875 - Bonifacius C. de Jonge, Governor (Dutch East Indies)
1877 - Hjalmar Schacht president of German Reichsbank/minister of Economics
1890 - Fred M. Vinson 13th Chief Justice of US Supreme Court (1946-53)
1892 - Marcel Dassault (Bloch), French airplane builder
1898 - Ross R. Barnett lawyer/(Gov-D-MS, 1960-1964)
1906 - Willa B. Brown (Coffey), first African-American woman to get a commercial pilot's license
1909 - Lev D. Landau, Russian physicist (Nobel 1962); (Sithu) U Thant, 3rd UN Secretary-General (1962-72)
1928 - Birch Bayh (Senator-D-IN, 1963-1981)
1935 - Pierre S. Du Pont IV (Governor-DE, 1977-1985)
1937 - Eden Pastora Gomez, Nicaraguan contra leader
1943 - H. James "Jim" Saxton (Representative-R-NJ, 1984-present)
1949 - Rein P. Hummel, Dutch MP (PvdA)
1955 - Thomas David Jones, PhD/Astronaut (STS 59, 68, 80, sk 98)
2179 - Hikaru Walter Sulu (character on Star Trek)

Passings
1336 - Louis III, last Earl of Loon
1552 - Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, beheaded for treason
1581 - Seerp Galama, Dutch nobleman/military/politician, at 52
1798 - Lewis Morris, US farmer Declaration of Independence signer, at 71
1799 - Horace B. de Saussure, Swiss physicist/geologist/alpinist, at 58
1850 - Vincenzo Pallotti, Italian saint, at 54
1879 - Anthony Durnford British Colonel, in battle; George Shepstone, British political affiliate, in battle
1901 - Victoria (Alexandrine), Britain's Queen (1837-1901), at 81
1909 - Richard A. C. E. Erlenmeyer, German chemist, at 83
1922 - Benedictus XV (Giacomo Markies D. Chiesa), pope (1914-22), at 67
1923 - Max Nordau (Südfeld), German physician/zionist leader, at 73
1942 - Reimond Tollenaere, leader Flemish National Front, at 81
1969 - Judy Garland, singer/actress (Wizard of Oz), of an overdose at 48
1973 - Lyndon B. Johnson, President (1963-69), at his Texas ranch at 64
1979 - Ali Hassan Salameh [Abu Hassan], killed by car bomb; believed to have helped mastermind massacre of 1972 Munich Olympics athletes
1982 - Eduardo Frei Montalva, President of Chile (1964-70), at 71
1987 - R. Budd Dwyer, Pennsylvania State Treasurer, facing prison for conspiracy & perjury, shoots himself to death at a televised news conference
1988 - Georgi M. Malenkov, Russian premier (1953-55), at 86
1992 - Ali Amini, PM of Iran (1961-62)
1994 - Irving B. Kahn, inventor (teleprompter), at 76
1995 - Mahmoud Sayed Selim, Egyptian Muslim leader, shot to death at 29; Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, mother of President John F. Kennedy, at 104
1996 - Edward Thomas, historian/intelligence expert, at 77; Yisrael Eldad, extremist politician, at 85
1997 - Wally Whyton, musician/broadcaster, at 66

Reported Missing in Action
1966
The following USN personnel reported MIA when their S2D was shot down:
Forman, William S. (MN); pilot

Frenyea, Edmund M. (CA); crew

Sennett, Robert R. (CA); crew

Templin, Erwin B. Jr., (TX); crew

Also reported MIA this day in 1966:
Grissett, Edwin R.,Jr., USMC (TX); KIC December, 1969 - remains returned June, 1989

1969
Ross, Douglas A., US Army (CA); KIA - remains returned/ID'd March, 1998

1974
Jones, Diane, Civilian; released from Quang Ngai February, 1974

Markham, James M., Civilian; returned from visit December, 1974

Quinn, Judge Sophie, Civilian; released from Quang Ngai February, 1974 - detained twice (1974 and April, 1975)

Benoit, Charles, Jr., Civilian; returned from visit December, 1974