News of Note
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Iraqis Arrest Official Accused of Recording Saddam Execution on Cell Phone
Iraqi Gov't Probes Saddam Execution - VIDEO
Saddam execution video draws criticism (Sick that this has been more controversial than videos of terrorists beheading the innocent)
Iraq: 12,000 civilians killed in '06
Saddam Co-Defendants to Be Hanged
Al-Maliki Rules Out Second Term in Interview

Operation Enduring Freedom
AFGHAN, COALITION FORCES CAPTURE ONE SUSPECTED TERRORIST

Homeland Security / War on Terror / Hamas-Hezbollah Happenings
Just 6 Cities Earn Top Marks for Crisis Communications
Feds grade 75 cities on emergency interaction
Pat Robertson: God Told Me Major Terror Attack Is Coming in 2007
FBI Details Possible Gitmo Detainee Abuse

Troops on Trial
Navy Begins Investigation Into Iraqi Soldier's Death
Iraqi Soldier Fatally Wounded By Marine

Other Military News
Helicopter crashes east of San Diego
Troops Aid Stranded Colorado Cattle
PHOTO ESSAY: National Guardsmen Airdrop Aid
General Wants Gay Ban Lifted

Religion of Peace??
Somalia's PM: Islamic Forces Neutralized
Battle for Somalia nears Kenya border: residents - Video

Worldwide Wackos
North Korean Foreign Minister Paek dies

Politics / Government
Ex-U.S. President Ford called "rock of stability"
Wednesday to bring final rest for Ford
Ford Funeral Moves to Michigan
Op-ed: Thanking Ford for Vietnam
Mass. Gay Marriage Ban Proposal Proceeds
Bush to Meet Cabinet Ahead of Dem Takeover
Giuliani '08 Plan Laid Out in Newspaper (DOH!)
Bush seeks positive tone for new U.S. Congress
Poll shows support for Democrats' goals
Pelosi ascent in Congress a breakthrough

Immigration / Border Control
German Muslim held, denied U.S. entry

U.N. News
Another Snub by the U.N.? (Oh, what a surprise...)
U.N. urges end to Sri Lanka fighting after deaths

Science / Nature
Haylift to save snowbound cattle begins
Missouri man reels in ancient fishhook
Ancient latrine fuels debate at Qumran
Your Car Becomes the Cop

Oddities
Woman Mistakes Antifreeze for Home Brew
Paging Agent Mulder: O'Hare 'UFO' Reported
Apology for "topless" New Year's Eve shock
Mob burns house of village thug

Other News of Note
Man Saves Teen Who Fell Into Train Tracks
14 Year Old Sails Across Atlantic Alone

Fox News
Denver Memorials Spring Up for Slain Bronco
U.S. Honors Former President Ford - PHOTOS
Starbucks: Yes to Caffeine, No to Trans Fats
Cops Indicted in Katrina Shootings Applauded
Fla. Mobile Home Owners May Be Millionaires
Search Resumes for Missing Indonesian Jet
New Secretary-General to Fill 2 U.N. Posts This Week, Could Bring Controversy
Dakota Fanning 'Rape' Film Heads to Sundance
Pantyhose Regaining Footing After Losing Legs
Judge's Book Fans Flames of Culture War

Reuters: Top News
Anger as Indonesia resumes search for airliner - Video
Ousted Thai PM denies any links to Bangkok bombs
Java ferry survivor says bodies dumped from life raft - Video
Merkel seeks closer EU-US ties on economic issues
Hasina-led alliance to boycott Bangladesh elections
"Perfect storm" brews over Australia's west
Sirius reaches 6 mln subscribers, free cash flow positive
From yap to growl, Israeli device dogs intruders
Bare-fist bouts a knockout with SAfrica fight fans
Health insurance bridges gap for poor families
A drink may help high blood pressure risk
"Pirates" sequel buoyed box office in 2006
Oprah opens academy for poor girls in South Africa
Oil deepens losses on mild U.S. weather
Thai stocks fall after bombs, tourism shares hit - Video
Euro holds firm as yield plays dominate
European shares little changed at open
Mild jobs may lift stocks as '07 starts
FX market ready for higher '07 returns
Asian deals with PartyGaming
Manhattan apartment downturn short-lived: report
U.S. group sues Nokia, Samsung over Bluetooth
Divining fourth-quarter earnings from December sales
Florida tribe sued over Hard Rock takeover
Plethico Pharma eyeing two firms in the U.S.: source

AP World News
Search resumes for Indonesian jetliner
Carly Simon to promote her new CD on QVC
Automakers spend big at Detroit show
Louisville dreams big after Orange Bowl
Skinner, Deacons tie Orange Bowl 10-10
'Wheel,' 'Jeopardy!' renewed to 2012
Red Wings retire Yzerman's No. 19 jersey
Alabama, Dolphins await Saban's decision
Moore surprised she clicked with Kutcher
Cancer's unrecognized toll: time
Orange Bowl QBs not cut from same mold
S.F. group enjoys shopping sabbatical
Utah town's dog license limit is ruff

Military.com
SpouseBUZZ Looks at Taxes
Def. Tech: Rapid Fire
Exclusive: Jerry Ford, Navy Hero
A Cause for Wounded Vets
An Exclusive Excerpt from Operation Homecoming

CENTCOM: News Releases
AL-QAIDA WEAPONS DEALER KILLED DURING BAGHDAD RAID

IRAQI ARMY CAPTURES IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICE FACILITATOR

IRAQI ARMY CONDUCTS OPERATIONS TO CAPTURE INSURGENT CELL LEADER

INITIAL TIP LEADS TO DISCOVERY, ELIMINATION OF IED MATERIALS

SUSPECTED IED FACTORY FOUND IN EASTERN BAGHDAD

IRAQI SECURITY FORCES COMBAT INSURGENCY IN ANBAR PROVINCE

USJFCOM
2006 -- The Year in Review
USJFCOM gets approval to connect U.S., Australian networks - podcast

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

ON THE GROUND
Top Marines Visit Camp Taqaddum in Iraq - Story
Soldiers Work Fast to Keep Aircraft Refueled - Story
Raids in Iraq Yield Terrorists, Terror Leaders - Story
Stryker Brigade Reunites in Baghdad - Story
Coalition Troops Kill 4 Terrorists; Iraqis Detain 21 - Story
Iraqi Doctors Facilitate Change in Healthcare - Story

IN IRAQ
U.S. Troops Help Conduct Operations in Siniyah
Soldiers Rescue Kidnapped Iraqis from Insurgents
Cell Leader Killed in Iraq, Weapons Cache Found
Five Iranians Detained in Recent Baghdad Raids

IN AFGHANISTAN
Afghan Officials, U.S. Troops Open Runway
Chief of Chaplains Brings Support to Region
Buccaneers Return from Afghanistan Tour

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

CASUALTIES
Officials Identify Casualties - 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
0236 - St Anterus ends his reign as Catholic Pope
0269 - St Felix I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
0936 - Duke Alberik II of Spoleto appoints his son Pope Leo VII
1407 - Bloody battles between Hoeksen & Kabeljauwen in Dordrecht
1431 - Joan of Arc handed over to the bishop
1521 - Martin Luther excommunicated by Roman Catholic Church
1667 - Russia & Poland sign Truce of Androsovo
1746 - Bonnie Prince Charlies army leaves Glasgow
1752 - East Indies invasion "Geldermalsen" leaves at Malakka 92 killed
1777 - Washington defeats British at Battle of Princeton, New Jersey
1780 - Danish national anthem "Kong Kristian", 1st sung
1825 - Scottish factory owner Robert Owen buys 30,000 acres in Indiana as site for New Harmony utopian community
1831 - 1st US building & loan association organized, Frankford PA
1833 - Britain seizes control of Falkland Islands in South Atlantic
1840 - 1st deep sea sounding
1847 - California town of Yerba Buena renamed San Francisco
1852 - 1st Chinese arrive in Hawaii
1861 - Delaware legislature rejects proposal to join Confederacy; US Fort Pulaski & Fort Jackson, Savannah, seized by Georgia
1862 - Romney Campaign - Stonewall Jackson moves north from Winchester
1868 - Meiji Restoration returns authority to Japan's emperors
1870 - Brooklyn Bridge construction begins; completed May 24, 1883
1871 - Oleomargarine patented by Henry Bradley, Binghamton NY
1872 - 1st patent list issued by US Patent Office
1876 - 1st free kindergarten in US opens in Florence MA
1888 - 1st wax drinking straw patented, by Marvin C Stone in Washington DC
1889 - Admissions convention meets in Ellensburg WA, asks for statehood
1890 - 1st US college-level dairy school opens at University of Wisconsin
1896 - Emperor Wilhelm congratulates President Kruger on the Jameson Raid
1900 - Perihelion Passage
1911 - US postal savings bank inaugurated
1918 - US employment service opens as a unit of Department of Labor
1921 - Turkey makes peace with Armenia
1922 - 1st living person identified on a US coin (Thomas E. Kirby) on the Alabama Centennial half-dollar
1924 - British Egyptologist Howard Carter finds sarcophagus of Tutankhamun
1925 - Mussolini dissolves Italian parliament/becomes dictator
1926 - Greek General Theodorus Pángulos names himself dictator
1929 - 27 year old William S Paley becomes CBS president
1938 - March of Dimes established to fight polio
1939 - Gene Cox becomes 1st female page in US House of Representatives
1941 - Canada & US acquire air bases in Newfoundland (99 year lease); Italian counter offensive in Albania
1942 - American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) Command forms
1943 - 1st missing persons telecast (New York City NY); Canadian Army troops arrive in North Africa
1945 - Allies land on west coast of Burma, conquer Akyab; British Prime Minister Winston Churchill visits France; Greek General Plastiras forms government; US aircraft carriers attack Okinawa
1947 - William Dawson becomes 1st black to head congressional committee; 1st opening session of Congress to be televised
1952 - "Dragnet" with Jack Webb premieres on NBC TV
1955 - José Ramon Guizado becomes President of Panamá
1959 - Alaska admitted as 49th US state
1961 - Adam Clayton Powell elected Chairman of House Education & Labor; US breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba
1962 - Ground is broken for the Houston Astrodome; Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro
1967 - Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys is indicted for draft evasion
1969 - Representative Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., seated by Congress
1970 - Marxist government takes over in Congo
1974 - Arias Navarro succeeds Carrero Blanco as premier of Spain; Burma accepts its constitution
1977 - Apple Computer incorporated
1984 - Syria frees captured US pilot after appeal from Jesse Jackson
1985 - Israel government confirms resettlement of 10,000 Ethiopian Jews
1988 - Israel orders 9 Palestinian "instigators" deported from West Beirut; Margaret Thatcher becomes longest-serving British PM this century
1990 - Panamá's leader, General Manuel Noriega, surrenders to US authorities
1991 - Israel reopens consulate in USSR after 23 years
1992 - 32 Cubans defect to the US via helicopter
1994 - 100s killed in Venezuela in prison revolt; 35-foot-tall Chief Wahoo, trademark of Indians on top of Stadium since 1962, is taken down, to be moved to Jacob's Field
1994 - Tupolev-154M crashes at Irkutsk, Siberia 122 killed
1997 - Bryant Gumbel co-hosted his final "Today" show on NBC-TV

Birthdays
106 BC - Marcus Tullius Cicero Rome, statesman/author (Academica)
1624 - William Tucker, 1st Black child born in America
1763 - Joseph Fesch, French cardinal/war commission/earl/senator
1793 - Lucretia Coffin Mott, US teacher/minister/abolitionist/feminist
1810 - Eliza Von Bretton di Zerega, baroness
1819 - Thomas Hill Watts, Confederate Attorney General
1876 - Wilhelm Pieck, co-founder of German Communist Party/President (1949-60)
1879 - Grace Anna Goodhue Coolidge, US First Lady (1923-29)
1883 - Clement Richard Attlee, British PM (1945-51)
1901 - Ngo Dinh Diem President/Dictator of South Vietnam (1955-63)
1902 - Henry Lennox d'Aubigny Hopkinson, diplomat/politician
1903 - Charles Foulkes, Canadian General
1916 - Betty Furness, actress/consumer activist (Studio 1)
1922 - Morten Nielsen, poet/resistance fighter
1924 - Henry M. Fazzie, South African Union/UDF-leader
1929 - Marilyn Lloyd (Representative-TN, 1975-1995)
1932 - Anatoli Petrovich Kuklin, cosmonaut
1934 - Carla Hills, politician (US Presidential Commission on Housing-1982)
1945 - Stephen Stills, singer/songwriter/guitarist (Crosby Stills & Nash)
1946 - John Paul Jones, rocker (Led Zeppelin)
1947 - Sergey Filipovich Protchenko, Russian cosmonaut
1956 - Mel Gibson, actor (Mad Max, Lethal Weapon)
1967 - Joseph Amor, video game record holder (Space Invaders)

Passings
1322 - Philip V "the Tall," King of France (1316-22)
1543 - Juan Cabrillo, conqueror of Central America, discoverer of California
1552 - Henry II of Bavaria, bishop of Utrecht (1524-29), dies at 64
1560 - Peder Palladus, Danish church reformer (Visitasbog), dies at about 56
1570 - Bartholomeus Latomus [Steinmetz], Flemish archbishop of Trier, dies
1661 - Maria Henriëtte Stuart (of Orange), English Princess Royal/eldest daughter of the English king Charles I/mother of English king William III, dies of smallpox at 29
1670 - George Monck, English General (-to the-sea), dies at 61
1759 - Marquis & Marquess of Tavora, Portuguese nobles, executed
1835 - Willem F. Röell, Dutch baron/minister of Internal Affairs, dies at 67
1898 - James Wimshurst, British designer/inventor (vacuum pump), dies at 70
1915 - James E. Flecker, British diplomat/novelist (Hassan), dies at 30
1931 - Joseph J.C. Joffre, French marshal, dies at 78
1933 - Wilhelm Cuno, German Reich's chancellor (1922-23), dies at 56
1946 - William Joyce (Lord Haw Haw), hanged in Britain for treason
1967 - Jack Ruby, assassin who killed assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, dies at 55
1972 - Frans Masereel, Flemish WWII resistance fighter (Le Soleil), dies at 82
1976 - Michael V. Love, US test pilot (X-24), dies in F-4 crash at 37
1977 - Avraham Ofer Israeli minister of housing, suicide
1979 - Conrad Hilton. US founder (Hilton Hotels), dies at 91
1988 - Gaston Eyskens, PM of Belgium (1949, 1958-61, 1968-72), dies at 82
1992 - Radomiro Tomic, Chilean President (1970), dies
1993 - Peter Brocco, blacklisted in the 1950's, dies of heart attack at 89
1995 - Byron MacGregor, newscaster, dies at 56

Reported Missing in Action
1968
Anderson, Roger D., US Army (TX); escaped January, 1968

Bean, James E., USAF (KY); F105D shot down, released by DRV March, 1973 - alive as of 1998
** also flew 41 combat missions in the P-47 in France and Germany during WWII with the Army Air Corps **

Ellis, Billy J., US Army (TN); disappeared during an attack on LZ Leslie - likely KIA

Estes, Edward D., USN (MO); A4C shot down, released by DRV March, 1973 - retired as a Captain - alive and well as of 1998

Lancaster, Kenneth R., US Army (MD); fell from skid of UH1H during extraction, likely Killed

1971
Ayres, James H., USAF (TX); F4E crashed (w/Stratton)

Stratton, Charles W., USAF (TX); F4E crashed (w/Ayres)

The following US Army personnel reported MIA when their U6 disappeared:
Holgun, Luis G. (CA)

Magee, Patrick J. (MT)

Omelia, Dennis W. (NC)

Okerlund, Thomas R. (WA)

Palen, Carl A. (IA)

Parsons, Michael D. (NV)

Rhodes, Ferris A., Jr. (SC)

1973
Scaife, Kenneth Doyle, USN (PA); drowned

1975
Rawlings, James; remains ID'd February, 1974