News of Note
Operation Iraqi Freedom
New U.S. commander takes over in Iraq
Petraeus: Situation in Iraq 'Not Hopeless'- Official: U.S. Pols Saw Iraq-Iran Evidence
U.S. weighs divulging Iran-Iraq proof
General says Iraq strategy must succeed - Video

Operation Enduring Freedom
Pakistan needs more help from U.S., Afghans
NATO chief sees Afghan insurgency smashed by 2009
NATO: Afghanistan on road to stability

Homeland Security / War on Terror / Hamas-Hezbollah Happenings
Arab League calls on Quartet to end Israeli dig

Fallen Heroes
1 dead, 19 hurt in Calif. air base crash

Worldwide Wackos
Iran holds atomic fete with U.N. deadline looming
So, What Happens April 10? - Iran's president makes bizarre nuke proclamation (OK, knucklehead, don't nuke me on my birthday - it'll really piss me off)
U.S. urges speedy conclusion to North Korea talks - Video

Politics / Government
Putin Slams U.S. for 'Almost Uncontained Use of Force'
U.S. pols taken aback by Russian leader's criticism
Sen. Obama Enters 2008 Presidential Race
Alleged Rape Victim's Harrowing Tale (woman who claims Israeli President raped her)
Obama sees new generation of leadership - Video
Hillary Clinton faces tough questions over Iraq
McCain criticizes Europe on Afghanistan
Turkmenistan holds election for new president
Empowered Democrats examine Bush administration
Bush: Energy proposals will aid economy

In the Courts / Crime and Punishment / Law and Order
Judge: 'Jessica's Law' Not Retroactive
Couple Charged With Having Sex In Front of 9-Year-Old Daughter to 'Teach Her How'
Gonzaga Hoops Players Arrested, Suspended
NYPD Cop Arrested After Fellow Officer Shot
Students Sue Over Confederate Flag Ban
Maine lesbian "adoptee" case tests legal bounds
Spanish prison offers family cells
Portugal mulls liberalizing abortion law
Gonzaga players suspended after arrest
Mo. kidnap case challenges young lawyers
Expert: 2 bombs may be from 'The Bishop'

U.N. News
U.N. Fires Staffers With Fake Degrees
U.N. police clash with Kosovo Albanian protesters

Science / Medicine / Technology
Scientists Develop 'Natural' Breast Implants

Mother Nature
N.Y. sees 110 inches of snow in 7 days

Fox News
Legals Home in on Anna Nicole
Baby Dannielynn in Top Bahamian Official's Custody - VIDEO
French Drop Young Beauties for Older Women
2 Italians Stoned to Death Off African Coast
Mom Goes Tanning, Leaves Kids in Cold Car
Roughly 1,500 Mourn Deadly Kentucky Fire
Talk About a Photo Finish (NASCAR)

Reuters: Top News
Mexico's Calderon vows no respite in drug gang war
Portugal divided ahead of abortion referendum
Dupont sees key GMO role in ethanol corn challenge
Stocks to swing with oil and Fed chief - Video
Stocks drop as more home loans go bad; Micron warns
Brandes says to vote against Icahn Lear buyout
Holiday toy sales lead Hasbro to strong 4th qtr
Oil rises above $60 on Nigerian cuts, Iran
Real estate brightens dollar outlook
When value is key
G7 warns markets against yen-shrinking bets
Economy to grow slowly in early 2007: Blue Chip
US Airways CEO arrested on drunk driving suspicion
Carmakers to Calif. attorney general: drop suit
Paulson tells G7 let markets regulate hedge funds
Attorneys can question BP CEO says Texas Court

AP World News
Accidental drug mix said to kill Levert
Late field goal lifts AFC over NFC 31-28
Law may accommodate learning disabled
Postmaster shows lot of love in Fidelity
G-7 presses China on yuan flexibility
West Virginia holds on to stun UCLA
Anna Nicole Smith fans buzzing online
Nasdaq again fails in bid for LSE
No. 22 Hoyas honor the past with big win
Blackface, KKK costumes criticized

Military.com
Petraeus Takes Command - Video
Copters in Iraq Upgraded
Hundreds Protest F-22 Arrival
DT: Prez' New Top Secret Net
Op-ed: Who Else Died Besides Ms. Smith?
Blog: Random Acts of Loveliness
Valentines Day Already? D'oh!
Advisors: Working Through Homecoming
Use Your GI Bill Right

CENTCOM: Press Releases
SUSPECTS DETAINED, CACHES FOUND, ASSISTANCE PROVIDED
F-15 STRIKE EAGLES TAKE OVER CLOSE AIR SUPPORT MISSION AT BAGRAM

USJFCOM
President meets with troops - photos
USJFCOM symposium looks to further improve intelligence support for warfighter - podcast
Learn more about JTC-I
USJFCOM sends second rotation to support CENTCOM - podcast

DefenseLink
More Troops Vital For Afghan Success - Story
Pace: Debate, Discourse Not U.S. Weaknesses - Story
Pace to Visit Australia, Indonesia - Story
Petraeus Addresses Multinational Force Iraq - Story
Vietnam Hero to be Awarded Medal of Honor - Story
Technology Helps Soldiers Stay Close to Family - Story
Multinational Force Sweeps Pick Up Iranians - Story

More Headline News
Gates Talks Intel, Russian Relations, Kosovo
Casey Reflects on Last Day as Commander
Iraqis Responding as Promised to Security Plan
DoD Policy Office Acted Within Law, Authority
Leaders Emphasize Commitment to Afghanistan

Military News
Supplemental Funds Critical to Army Readiness
Wounded Marine Goes Home in Style
N.Y. Guard Prepares to Help in Snow Emergency
U.S. Military Helps Americans Injured in Honduras

War on Terror
Mechanical Failure Suspected - Story
Investigators Studying Helo Cases
Three Soldiers Die in Iraq
Bagram PRT Opens New Bridge
Forces Capture Senior Official
Four Marines Die in Iraq
Helicopter Crash Claims Seven

America Supports You
NHL Team Honors Troops - Story
Program Ships Love to Troops
Vet Finds Future with Pizza Chain
Vets Transcend Their Disabilities

Transformation
Combat Systems Restructured - Story
Dover Reorganizes for C-17s
Leaders Discuss 1,000-Ship Navy
Symposium Focuses on ISR

Face of Defense
Sailor Earns Bronze Star
Songs Soothe Combat Soldiers
Couple Re-enlists in Iraq

DefendAmerica
Top Police Training Official in Iraq Sees Encouraging Signs - Story
Maj. Gen. Hunzeker biography
Bloggers' Roundtable Web Site

NEWS UPDATES
Leaders Emphasize Commitment To Future Success in Afghanistan - Story
Stability & Security in Iraq Report (pdf)
For Top News Visit DefenseLink

ON THE GROUND
Iraqi, U.S. Soldiers Clean Up Streets of Baghdad - Story
Reconstruction Team Opens New Bridge, Road - Story
Unit Assists With Community Relations Project - Story
Three Neighborhoods Get Water, Sewer Upgrade - Story
Stryker Soldiers Make Adhamiyah District Safer - Story
Two Shammar Villages Enjoy School Renovations - Story
Correctional Facilities Help Secure Iraq’s Future - Story

IN IRAQ
Senior Official at Iraq Ministry of Health Detained
Combined Force Troops Get Commando Training
MEDEVAC Unit Stays on Alert to Save Comrades
Iraqi Army, Cavalry Bring Aid to Shafa’at Residents
Center Offers Link to U.S., Iraqi Governments
Iraqi Police Discover Large Weapons Cache
Iraqi Troops Focus on Life-Saving Skills
Coalition, Iraqi Security Station Opens in Iraq
Engineers Help Clean Up Streets of Ghazaliya
Reconstruction Teams Manage Projects in Iraq
Aircrews Take Iraqi and U.S. Forces Into Action

IN AFGHANISTAN
Zabul Provincial Hospital Welcomes Jordanians
Goodwill Missions Continue in Eastern Afghanistan
Senior Air Force Leaders Address Deployments

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 - 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
660BC - Traditional founding of Japan by Emperor Jimmu Tenno
0385 - Oldest Pope elected; Siricius-bishop of Tarragona
0731 - St Gregory II ends his reign as Catholic Pope
0824 - St Paschal I ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1531 - Henry VIII recognized as supreme head of the Church in England
1543 - Battle at Wayna Daga Ethiopian/Portugese troops beat Muslim army; Karel/Henry VIII sign anti-French covenant
1573 - 1st European, Francis Drake sees the Pacific (from Panamá)
1575 - King Frederick of Denmark offers island of Hveen to Tycho Brahe
1720 - Sweden & Prussia sign peace (2nd Treaty of Stockholm)
1752 - Pennsylvania Hospital, the 1st hospital in the US, opened
1766 - Stamp Act declared unconstitutional in Virginia
1768 - Samuel Adams letter, circulates around American colonies, opposing Townshend Act taxes
1790 - Society of Friends petitions Congress for abolition of slavery
1793 - Prussian troops occupy Venlo Netherlands
1794 - 1st session of US Senate open to the public
1808 - Anthracite coal 1st burned as fuel, experimentally, Wilkes-Barre PA
1809 - Robert Fulton patents the steamboat
1811 - President Madison prohibits trade with Britain for 3rd time in 4 years
1812 - Massachusetts Governor Gerry signs a redistricting bill-the 1st "gerrymander"
1814 - Norway's independence proclaimed
1852 - 1st British public female toilet opens (Bedford Street London)
1854 - Major streets lit by coal gas for 1st time
1858 - 1st apparition of Mary to 14-year-old Bernadette of Lourdes France
1861 - US House unanimously passes resolution guaranteeing noninterference with slavery in any state
1873 - Spanish Cortes fires king Amadeus I
1889 - Meiji constitution of Japan adopted; 1st Diet convenes in 1890
1895 - Georgetown became part of Washington DC
1898 - Owen Smith of North Carolina, AME Zion minister, named minister to Liberia
1907 - De Master's Dutch government resigns; Passenger ship Larchmont sinks by Block Island - 322 die
1908 - Heemskerk's government begins in Holland
1916 - Emma Goldman arrested for lecturing on birth control
1919 - Friedrich Ebert (SPD), elected President of Germany
1922 - US intervention army leaves Honduras
1926 - Tokelau (Union) islands in south Pacific transfers to New Zealand
1928 - 2nd Winter Olympics games opens in St Moritz, Switzerland
1929 - Vatican City (world's smallest country) made an enclave of Rome
1935 - 1st US airplane flight with auto slung beneath the fuselage, New York
1936 - Pumping begins to build Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay
1941 - Lieutenant-General Erwin Rommel arrives in Tripoli; Sicherheitsdienst complains about Dutch anti German sentiments
1942 - "Archie" comic book debuts
1943 - General Eisenhower selected to command the allied armies in Europe; Transport nr 47 departs with French Jews to Nazi-Germany
1944 - German troops re-conquer Aprilia Italy; U-424 sunk off Ireland
1945 - 1st gas turbine propeller-driven airplane flight tested, Downey, CA; Yalta agreement signed by FDR, Churchill & Stalin
1948 - John Costello follows Eamon Da Valera as premier of Ireland
1951 - Kwame Nkrumah wins 1st parliamentary election on Gold coast (Ghana)
1953 - President Eisenhower refuses clemency appeal for Rosenberg couple; Russia breaks diplomatic relations with Israel
1958 - Marshal Chen Yi succeeds Chu En-lai as Minister of Foreign affairs; Ruth Carol Taylor is 1st African-American woman hired as flight attendant
1961 - Robert C. Weaver sworn in as Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency with then highest federal post held by a Black; Trial of Adolf Eichmann begins in Jerusalem
1963 - CIA Domestic Operations Division created
1964 - Greeks & Turks begin fighting in Limassol, Cyprus; Taiwan drops diplomatic relations with France
1968 - Jeffrey Kramer survives 76 meter jump, Washington Bridge, Hudson River, NY; Israeli-Jordan border fight; Madison Square Garden III closes; Madison Square Garden IV opens (New York NY)
1970 - Japan becomes 4th nation to put a satellite (Osumi) in orbit
1971 - US, UK, USSR, others sign Seabed Treaty outlawing nuclear weapons
1974 - Titan-Centaur test launch fails
1975 - Margaret Thatcher defeats Edward Heath for Conservative leadership
1976 - Clifford Alexander, Jr., confirmed as 1st Black Secretary of the Army
1978 - China lifts a ban on Aristotle, Shakespeare, & Dickens
1978 - EOKA organization disbands in Cyprus
1979 - Iran's premier Bakhtiar resigns, Ayatollah Khomeini seizes power
1981 - Polish premier Jozef Pinkowski replaced by Wojciech Jaruzelski
1984 - 10th space shuttle mission (41-B)-Challenger 4-returns to Earth
1985 - Jordan king Hussein & PLO leader Arafat sign accord
1986 - Rights activist Anatoly Scharansky released by USSR, leaves country; Iran begins Fajr-8 offensive against Iraq
1987 - Philippines constitution goes into effect
1988 - Anthony M. Kennedy appointed to the Supreme Court
1990 - Nelson Mandela (political prisoner-27 years) freed in South Africa
1991 - UNPO, Unrepresented Nations & People Organization forms in Hague Netherlands
1992 - F-16 jet crashes at residential district of Hengelo Netherlands (No deaths)
1993 - Janet Reno selected by Clinton as US Attorney General
1994 - Space shuttle STS-60 (Discovery 18), lands
1995 - Space shuttle STS-63 (Discovery 19), lands
1998 - Lyrics to "Candle in the Wind 1997" auctioned for $442,500
1999 - Pluto is once again the farthest planet from the sun in our solar system

Birthdays
1535 - Gregory XIV [Niccolò Sfondrati], Roman Catholic pope (1590-91)
1776 - Joannis Capodistrias, Greek Governor of Troezen (1827-31)
1812 - Alexander Hamilton Stephens, Confederate Vice President; Benjamin Franklin Sands Commander (Union Navy), died in 1883
1829 - William Anderson Pile, Union Brevet Major General
1833 - Melville Weston Fuller, 8th chief justice
1840 - Sanuel Dana Greene, Union Naval Lieutenant Commander
1847 - Thomas Alva Edison, Light bulb inventor (held 1200 patents)
1898 - Leo Szilard, Hungarian physicist/A-bomb worker/peace activist
1904 - Henry R. LaBouisse, headed UNICEF (1965-79); Sir Keith Holyoake, New Zealand PM (1960-72)
1906 - Denis Barnett. British air chief marshal
1920 - Farouk I Cairo, last King of Egypt (1936-52)
1921 - Lloyd Bentsen (Senator-TX) (1988 Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee)
1925 - Peter Berger, British Vice-Admiral
1932 - Dennis Skinner. MP
1938 - General Manuel Antonio Noriega, Panamanian General/dictator (1983-1990)
1941 - Jeremy Mackenzie, General
1942 - James Couchman, MP
1944 - Michael G. Oxley (Representative-OH)
1950 - Earnest Jim Istook (Representative-OK)
1953 - Stephen D. Thorne, Lieutenant Commander USN/astronaut
1960 - Richard A. Mastracchio, astronaut

Passings
0641 - Heraclius, emperor of Byzantium (610-641), dies at about 65
0731 - Gregory II Greek-Syrian Pope
0821 - Benedict of Aniane, saint
0824 - Paschal I, Italian Pope (817-24)
0867 - Theodora the Saint, beauty queen/empress of Byzantine
1503 - Elizabeth of York, Consort of King Henry VII, dies on 38th birthday
1543 - Ahmed Gran, sultan of Adal, dies in battle
1554 - Lady Jane Grey, deposed Queen of England, beheaded after 9 day rule at 17
1650 - René Descartes, philosopher ("I think therefore I am")
1868 - Léon Foucault, discoverer of 1st physical proof of Earth's rotation
1870 - Jacob M. de Kempenaer, Dutch Minister of Internal Affairs (1848-49), dies at 76
1899 - George Morgan, 1st English motorist to die in a motor accident
1901 - Milan I, king of Serbia, dies at 56
1931 - Charles Algernon Parsons British inventor (steam turbine), dies at 76
1940 - John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, Governor-General of Canada (1935-40)
1941 - Rudolf Hilferding, German economist/Minister of Finance (SPD), suicide at 63
1945 - J.S.H. Lokerman Dutch resistance fighter, dies in Neugengamme
1971 - Whitney Young., Jr., National Urban League director, drowns in Nigeria
1973 - Hans D. Jensen, German physicist (Nobel prize 1963), dies at 65
1977 - Louis J.M. Beel, Dutch premier (1946-48, 58-59), dies at 74

Reported Missing in Action
1965
Shumaker, Robert H., USN (CA); F8D shot down, released by DRV February, 1973 - retired as a Rear Admiral - alive and well as of 1998

1968
Van Putten, Thomas, US Army (MI); escaped April, 1969 - had a leg amputated as a result of injuries sustained in captivity - alive as of 1998

1969
Kroske, Harold W., Jr., US Army SF (NJ); injured in ground fight and believed KIA, body not recovered

Zukowski, Robert J., USAF (IL); F105D shot down, remains returned 1993 and 1996 - ID'd October, 1996

1970
Kieffer, William Lewis, Jr., USAF (MD); A1E shot down, KIA, body not recovered

Labels: Headlines, History