News of Note
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Gates: Don't Handcuff Our Troops
U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq Were First Abducted
Bush accepts Republican House resolution on Iraq
Bomb kills 15, Bush critic Pelosi visits Baghdad - Video
Bush: 'I'm the decision-maker' on Iraq
Senate OKs new U.S. commander in Iraq
Oliver North: Does Congress Care?

Operation Enduring Freedom
Chaplains Reach Out to Soldiers With Extended Tours in Afghanistan
Progress Quietly Proceeds in Afghanistan

Homeland Security / War on Terror / Hamas-Hezbollah Happenings
Fifteen Palestinians killed in Gaza clashes
Mortars, killings shake Mogadishu
Hezbollah buries dead, urges Lebanese unity - Video

Troops on Trial
Abu Ghraib Officer Faces Court Martial

Other Military News
Navy Helicopter Crashes Off California Coast

Worldwide Wackos
U.N. Officials: Iran to Assemble Thousands of Nuclear Centrifuges Next Month
Report: Iran Preparing to Put Satellite in Orbit
U.S. OKs 'Necessary Actions' Against Iranians
Iran wants senior atom inspector out
Military.com Blog: Is Iran Launching a Satellite?
Two killed in suicide attack in Pakistani capital - Video
U.S. bans luxury exports to North Korea

Homegrown Moonbats
Rosie O'Donnell Sends 'Idols' to Disney World

Politics / Government
Huckabee to File for '08 Presidential Run
Lawyers probe Fleischer's immunity deal

In the Courts / Crime and Punishment
Manhunt in the Desert - VIDEO
Search Expands for Missing 3-Year-Old Montana Boy
Authorities: Man Who Posed as 12-Year-Old in Middle School Has Sex Tape With Child
Family of Woman Who Died After Water-Drinking Contest Sues Radio Station
6 H.S. Girls Charged in Murder Plot That Included Energizer Bunny
Teens Who Cooked Puppy Alive Plead Guilty
Cheer Coach Accused of Sex With Students
Ex-Students Get 5 Years for Seton Hall Fire
3 Charged in Major Child Porn Bust

U.N. News
U.N. condemns denials of Holocaust; Iran demurs

Media in the Media / Bloggers in the News / Watching the Web
Bartiromo did nothing wrong, says CNBC

Science / Nature
Wife Saves Husband From Mouth of Lion With Log
Two Mountain Lions Shot After Calif. Mauling
Scientists use radio waves to detect explosives

News from My Neck of the Woods
PHOTO ESSAY: Cold Grips Northeast - STORY (HOLY CRAP it's cold!)

Oddities
Fisherman Returns Home for Own Funeral
Delayed convict steals car to get back to jail
Huge python makes a meal of 11 guard dogs
AP: Michael Jackson returns to the U.S.

Other News of Note
Tailgating Banned at Super Bowl
Church Hosting 'Porn and Pancakes' Talk

Fox News
Designers Debate: Is Thin Still In? - PHOTO ESSAY
PHOTO ESSAY: 50-Car Pileup in Pa. - STORY
I-90 Reopens After Fatal Crash Near Erie, Pennsylvania
Pop Tarts: 'Minder' Escorts Lindsay Lohan to Grocery Store
Real Estate Mogul Plans World's Most Expensive House, at $155 Million

Reuters: Top News
Canada to pay Arar $10.5 million for Syria ordeal
Blair sees momentum in WTO talks
Minimum wage hike would help blacks: study
N.Y. scanners spark union cries of "geoslavery"
Users go professional with online video
The Phone wears Prada
Murders spark soul-searching in sleepy Black Sea town
Supreme Federer talks down his legacy
Diet, exercise take off equal pounds, study finds
"Presenteeism" afflicts business, experts say
Hollywood studio chief loses bid for film credit
Novelis stock surges on talk of company sale
Nickel hits new high
Amgen shares fall on drug setbacks
Fortune Brands outlook misses view
Dow and S&P dip on rate worry
Spinning profits from spinoffs
Buying into battered energy
Wal-Mart not participating in February New York Fashion Week
Disney Leibovitz ads aim for older family
For stocks, earnings may trump Fed and jobs
Lifting the Lid-Research firm hunts for clues in insider sales
U.S. earns outlooks off this week: Reuters Estimates
Novelis in sale talks; India group said interested

AP World News
Study says skin tone affects earnings
Beijing unveils centuries-old temples
Bluesman B.B. King hospitalized in Texas .
Judge balks at State Farm Katrina deal
Snedeker extends Buick Invitational lead
Winfrey chooses Sidney Poitier memoir
9 youths convicted in Halloween beatings
Dow ends down 16 on economic reports
Bears QB knows how to handle criticism
Scalpers put Super Bowl tickets online
Amnesia victim wandered for 25 days
Home sales fall; show faint life-signs
Scientist develops caffeinated doughnuts
Gozalez ready for Federer in Australia

Military.com
DoD Gives Equipment to Police
Find a Military.com Career Fair Near You
Connect With Your old Military Buddies
Six Tips for Better Money Management
Check Out Military.com's Equipment Guide

CENTCOM: News Releases
MILITANT ATTACK USED DECEPTION, U.S. ARMY TYPE UNIFORMS
IA CAPTURES LEADER OF TERRORIST BOMBING CELL
IA SAVES IRAQI FAMILY FROM TERRORIST THREAT NEAR TAJI
IRAQI POLICE-LED OPERATION FINDS TORTURE HOUSE AND WEAPON CACHES, DETAINS 21
NINE INSURGENTS KILLED DURING WEAPONS DISTRIBUTION
FOOD DROP OPERATIONS IN WESTERN BAGHDAD NEIGHBORHOOD FOSTERING GOODWILL FROM RESIDENTS
IP CAPTURES LEADER OF TERRORIST BOMBING CELL NEAR HASWAH
CAMP LEJEUNE-BASED REGIMENTAL COMBAT TEAM 2 RELIEVES TWENTYNINE PALMS UNIT IN WESTERN AL ANBAR PROVINCE
REGIMENTAL COMBAT TEAM 6 ASSUMES RESPONSIBILITY FOR AREA OF OPERATION
HAIFA STREET B-ROLL
IRAQIS HOLD REOPENING CELEBRATION FOR SCHOOL
INSURGENTS’ TORTURE HOUSE FOUND – THREE CAPTIVES

USJFCOM
USJFCOM begins Integrated Battle Command Experiment Series - podcast
USJFCOM, others evaluate individual augmentee process - podcast
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
Stability & Security in Iraq Report (pdf)
For Top News Visit DefenseLink

ON THE GROUND
Marine Helicopter Squadron Gets Ready to Deploy - Story
Medics Administer Aid to Nearby Villages - Story
Iraqi-Led Team Finds Torture House, Weapons - Story
Transition Team Braves Attacks to Train Police - Story

IN IRAQ
Combined Effort Provides Aid to Baghdad
Insurgents and Weapons Found, Captives Freed
Army Engineers Help Develop Port Capacity
Iraqi Soldiers Lead Cordon and Search
Marines Clear Insurgents From River Valley
Army Engineers Help Develop Port Capacity
Marines Provide Combat Roadside Service
U.S. Soldiers Help Open Schools in Mushahidah
Iraqi Soldiers Receive Leadership Training
Dark Horse Keeps Watchful Eye Over Base
Stryker Force Ready to Respond to Threat
Mobile Surgical Unit Exercises Muscles
School Supplies Bring Smiles to Children

IN DJIBOUTI
Camp Lemonier Expansion Creates New Jobs
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
'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: Terror Plots Disrupted
Waging and Winning the War on Terror
Terrorism Timeline
Terrorism Knowledge Base

CASUALTIES
Officials Identify Casualties
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26, 2007 - Defense Department officials announced the identities of five soldiers and one Marine who died supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Story

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
0672 - St Vitalian ends his reign as Catholic Pope
0847 - Sergius II ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1302 - Dante becomes a Florentine political exile
1538 - States of Gelderland accepts Willem van Kleef as viceroy
1556 - Willem of Orange becomes knight of Guilder Flies
1593 - Vatican opens 7 year trial against scholar Giordano Bruno
1662 - 1st American lime kiln begins operation (Providence RI)
1671 - Pirate Henry Morgen lands at Panama City
1710 - Czar Peter the Great sets 1st Russian state budget
1736 - Abdication of Stanislas, last king of Poland
1785 - 1st US state university chartered, Athens GA
1823 - President Monroe appoints 1st US ambassadors to South America
1864 - Civil War skirmish at Kelly's Ford, VA; Battle of Fair Gardens, Tennessee
1870 - Manitoba & Northwest Territories incorporated; After accepting 15th amendment, Virginia is readmitted to Union
1880 - Thomas Edison patents electric incandescent lamp
1886 - 1st British government of Salisbury resigns
1888 - National Geographic Society organizes (Washington DC)
1891 - Mine explosion kills 109 at Mount Pleasant, PA
1897 - British troops occupy Bida Gold Coast (Ghana)
1900 - Social Democrat Party of America (Debs' party) holds 1st convention
1902 - 5 workers killed on explosion during IRT subway construction (New York City NY)
1905 - Maurice Rouvier forms government in France
1908 - Pasiphaë, a satellite of Jupiter, discovered by Melotte
1915 - US Marines occupy Haiti
1916 - Communist party "Spartacus Letters" 1st published in Berlin
1918 - "Tarzan of the Apes", 1st Tarzan film, premieres at Broadway Theater
1924 - Egyptian king Foead nominates Saad Zaghloel Pasja premier
1924 - Lenin placed in Mausoleum in Red Square
1926 - US Senate agrees to join World Court
1927 - Harlem Globetrotters play their 1st game
1934 - French government of Chautemps falls (Stavisky Affair)
1941 - Peruvian agent Rivera-Schreibér warns of Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor
1943 - 1st US air attack on Germany (Wilhelmshafen)
1944 - Leningrad liberated from Germany in 880 days, with 600,000 killed
1945 - Nazi occupiers forbid food transport to West (The Netherlands); Russia liberates Auschwitz & Birkenau Concentration Camp (Poland); Wally van Hall, "banker in defiance", arrested
1948 - 1st locomotive to carry 1,000,000 pounds (450,000 kg) operates; 1st tape recorder sold
1951 - US begins 126 nuclear tests at Nevada Test Site
1953 - Netherlands end Marshall aid
1958 - Ferenc Münnich follows Kádár as premier of Hungary
1961 - "Sing Along with Mitch" [Miller] premieres on NBC TV
1963 - Sam Rice, Eppa Rixey, Elmer Flick, & John Clarkson elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
1965 - 1st ground station-to-aircraft radio communication via satellite
1967 - Apollo 1 fire kills astronauts Grissom, White & Chaffee
1967 - Treaty signed banning military use of nuclear weapons in space
1969 - 14 spies hanged in Baghdad; 9 Jews publicly executed in Damascus Syria
1970 - Movie rating system modifies "M" rating to "PG"
1971 - Montgomery St Station, last link in BART, `holed thru'
1973 - William Rogers & Nguyen Duy Trinh sign US-N Vietnam treaty
1976 - "Laverne & Shirley" spin-off from "Happy Days" premieres on ABC TV; Morocco-Algeria battles in Westerly Sahara
1977 - President Carter pardons most Vietnam War draft evaders (10,000); 1st broadcast of "Roots" mini-series on ABC TV
1982 - Mauno Koivisto installed as President of Finland; Roberto S. Cordova installed as President of Honduras
1984 - Michael Jackson is burned during filming for Pepsi commercial
1985 - 15th Space Shuttle (51-C) Mission-Discovery 3 returns to Earth
1988 - Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approves nomination of Judge Anthony M. Kennedy to US Supreme Court
1989 - German war criminals Fischer & Austrian der Fünten freed
1990 - Dissolution of Polish communist party
1991 - Dutch PSP, Pacifist Socialistic Party, disbands
1992 - Mike Tyson goes on trial for rape (he is found guilty); Presidential candidate Bill Clinton (D) & Genifer Flowers accuse each other of lying over her assertion they had a 12-year affair
1993 - DC-3 crashes in Kinshasa, killing 12
1994 - Carlos Reina succeeds President Callejas in Honduras; Romanian social-democrats form government with anti-Semites
1996 - 15 day old siamese twins separated-Sarah Morales survives, Sarahi dies; Germany celebrates its 1st Holocaust Remembrance Day
1998 - Crane crashes into Roosevelt Is (New York City NY) Tram, injuring 10

Birthdays
1546 - Joachim III, Frederick elector (Brandenburg); Abbas I "the Great", shah of Persia (1587-1629)
1822 - Thomas Leiper Kane, Union Brevet Major General
1826 - Richard Taylor, Confederate Lieutenant-General
1828 - Samuel Allen Rice, Union Brigadier General
1830 - William Henry Fitzhugh Payne, Confederate Brigadier General
1832 - Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson], author (Alice in Wonderland)
1834 - Dmitri Mendeleev, chemist (discovered periodic table of the elements); Robert Sanford Foster, Union Brevet Major General
1850 - Samuel Gompers, Dutch/US 1st president-American Federation of Labor
1859 - Kaiser Wilhelm II Potsdam, German emperor (1888-1918)
1872 - Learned Hand, Chief judge (US Court of Appeals)
1887 - Carl Blegen, archaeologist (excavator at Troy, Pylos)
1900 - Hyman G. Rickover, US Admiral (father of modern nuclear navy)
1908 - William Randolph Hearst, Jr., newspaper publisher (Hearst Publishing)
1914 - Anna Larina, revolutionary
1921 - Donna Reed, actress (From Here to Eternity, Wonderful Life)
1922 - Wilfrid Bourne, QC/Clerk of the Crown in Chancery
1924 - Kenneth Corfield CEO (STC); Rauf Denktasj Turkish-Cypriot politician; William van Straubenzee, British MP
1925 - Geoffrey Tucker, British political consultant
1927 - Nancy Dickerson, journalist (NBC)
1930 - Esteban Edward Torres (Representative-CA); Roger Sims, British MP
1932 - Neville Trotter, British MP
1933 - Mohamed Al Fayed, CEO (Harrods); Rita Hennessy, matron-in-chief (QARANC)
1934 - Federico Mayor Zaragoza Barcelona, Spain, UNESCO directorl Donald Spiers, controller (Aircraft MoD); Edithe Cresson, premier of France (1991-92); Julian Ogilvie Thompson, CEO (De Beers)
1935 - Gillian Beer, professor/president (Clare Hall-Cambridge)
1938 - Timothy, Captain of The Queen's Flight
1940 - Brian T. O'Leary, astronaut
1945 - Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, North Irish peace activist (Nobel 1976)
1958 - Alan Milburn, British MP
1970 - Carlos Javier Bernardo, Dutch prince

Passings
0098 - Marius Cocceius Nerva, Emperor of Rome (96-98), dies at about 67
0672 - Vitalianus, pope (657-72)/saint
0847 - Sergius II, pope (844-47)
1565 - Robrecht de Berghes, prince-bishop of Liege (1557-64)
1699 - William Temple, statesman
1763 - John Theodor of Bavaria, prince-bishop of Liege/cardinal, dies
1816 - Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood/admiral
1851 - John James Audubon, conservationist (Audubon Society), dies at 65
1857 - Dorothea von Benckendorff. Baltic monarch of Lieven, dies at 72
1889 - Ivan S. Aksakov, Russian journalist, dies at 65
1893 - James G. Blaine, US minister of foreign affairs, dies at 62
1967 - Roger B. Chaffee astronaut, dies at 31 in Apollo I fire; Virgil I. (Gus) Grissom astronaut, dies at 41 in Apollo I fire; Edward Higgins White II, Lieutenant-Colonel USAF/astronaut (Gemini 4), dies in Apollo I fire at 36; Alphonse Juin, French marshal, dies at 78
1974 - Georgios Grivas, Greek General/opposition leader on Cyprus (EOKA), dies at 75
1981 - Leo Collard, Belgian minister of Education (1946/54-58), dies at 78
1983 - Paul "Bear" Bryant, US football coach (Alabama), dies at 69
1986 - L. Ron Hubbard, novelist/founder (Church of Scientology), dies at 74
1993 - Andre "the Giant" Roussimoff, WWF wrestler, dies of heart attack at 49
1995 - Halsey S. Colchester, British SAS/MI6-spy/priest, dies at 76
1996 - Olga Havlova, political activist, dies at 63; Ralph Webster, Yarborough, politician, dies at 92
1997 - Cecil Lewis, airman/writer, dies at 98; Matthew Coady, journalist, dies at 73

Reported Missing in Action
1968
Cordova, Robert J., USN (NE); reported missing overboard, KIA

1969
Conger, John E., US Army (OH); reported WIA

1973
Hall, Harley H., USN (WA); F4J shot down (pilot, w/Kientzler) - Killed in Captivity, remains returned June, 1995 (ID disputed)

Kientzler, Phillip A., USN (CA); F4J shot down (RIO, w/Hall), released by PRG March, 1973

Morris, George W., Jr., USAF (CA); OV10 shot down while looking for Hall and Kientzler (co-pilot), ejected

Peterson, Mark A., USAF (OH); OV10A shot down while looking for Hall and Kientzler (pilot, w/Morris), ejected

1974
Bell, Steve, Civilian; detained 24 hours and released

Collins, Peter, Civilian; detained 24 hours and released