EUPHRATES PATROL - U.S. Navy sailors come ashore after searching for weapons caches islands on the Euphrates River near Haditha, Iraq, Jan. 6, 2008. The sailors are attached to Riverine Squadron Two's Detachment 3, which regularly patrols the river and its surrounding inland waterways to protect their use for legitimate commerce. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Kirk Worley

Labels: Euphrates River, Haditha, Iraq, photos, Riverine Squadron 2, US Navy

News of Note
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Iraqi Soldier Kills Two American GIs During Joint Mission in Baghdad
Homicide Bombing Attack on Iraqi Crowd Leaves 11 Dead
Iraqis, Coalition Forces Work Together to Provide Health Care for Tunis Residents
Soldiers Provide Humanitarian Aid for Iraqis in Need

Homeland Security / War on Terror / Hamas-Hezbollah Happenings
Al Qaeda Offers Cell Phone Terror Videos - VIDEO
U.S. Al Qaeda Spokesman in New Tape - VIDEO
Pakistan Will Not Allow U.S. to Hunt Al Qaeda on Its Soil
Jerusalem Spends $400,000 for First Bush Visit
Jerusalem readies for Bush's arrival
Bush faces Mideast obstacles
CIA tapes probe could spotlight torture issue
Long odds for Bush in switch to Mideast peacemaker
Israel kills 4 in Gaza raid, Olmert vows escalation
Bhutto's party to seek U.N. probe if wins power
Arab plan for Lebanon wins broad support

Other Military News
Woman Booted From Army for Having Breast Implants

Religion of Peace??
Bishop: 'No-Go' Areas for Non-Muslims in U.K.
$10,000 Reward Offered for Father Suspected of Killing Teen Girls

Politics / Government
Fireworks Fly Over Taxes - GOP hopefuls take off gloves, go one-on-one
Political Sizzle in N.H. - Hopefuls chase independents for support
Clinton to Obama: Stop Changing Positions
CAMPAIGN CARL (Fox News)
BOURBON ROOM (Fox News)
What Would You Ask the GOP Presidential Candidates?
Clinton battles to keep New Hampshire from Obama - Video
Clinton looks to youth for New Hampshire rebound
Bereaved family campaigns for Edwards
Huckabee tax plan raises eyebrows in U.S.
Bill Bradley endorses Obama's campaign
Clinton, Obama clash in personal terms
Peace summit opens in violence-torn eastern Congo
Supporters hold church service for Liberia's Taylor
Saakashvili wins Georgian presidential election - Video
Witnesses to testify against Liberia's Charles Taylor
Wedding Bells for Sarkozy? - PHOTOS
Kenyan Opposition Candidate Rejects Unity Deal
Kenyan opposition leader open to talks
Kenya's unrest takes violent toll

Illegal Immigration / Border Control
Dallas Newspaper Selects the Illegal Immigrant as Texan of the Year

In the Courts / Crime and Punishment / Law and Order
Hospital Nightmare
Clemens: Allegations 'Totally False'
Cop Killer: Not Trained to Kill Me - VIDEO
'Long Island Lolita' Amy Fisher Promotes Sex Tape
TV Bounty Hunter's Sidekick Surrenders to Police in Lewdness Case
San Francisco Authorities Seek to Inspect Tiger Attack Victims' Cell Phones
Former Illinois Police Officer Suspected in Wife's Disappearance Named in Brutality Suit
Court Nixes Britney Spears' Child Visitation Rights, Gives K-Fed Full Custody
California Man Arrested for Digging 50 Holes in Bike Trail
Ga. Hiker Believed Dead, Suspect Charged - PHOTOS
Peeping Massage Therapist Gets 2 Years in Jail for Secretly Taping Clients
Homeowner May Have Caught Serial Rapist on Video
Defendant in Contempt After Giving Judge Nasty Note
Cops: Man cooked parts of slain woman
Kenyan police accused of killings, arson
Gates pushes idea of Windows everywhere

Media in the Media / Bloggers in the News / Watching the Web
WEBCAMS AROUND THE WORLD: Ventura Beach, Calif.

Science / Medicine and Health / Technology
Hospital Launches Investigation After Man Discharged in Storm Found Dead in Snowbank
Warner Bros to back Blu-ray DVD format exclusively - Video
U.S. video game industry growth seen slowing
Academy stresses evolution's importance
Scientists move toward helping paralysis patients
Panasonic unveils wireless HD video system
Toshiba HD DVD sales hit 1 mln in North America
Americans opt for healthy eating, not diets
Tuberculosis exposure feared on India-to-U.S. flight
Scientists discover new key to flu transmission
Broadcasters gear up for cell-phone TV
China tries unsafe product crackdown
GM researching driverless cars

Mother Nature
Nevada Town Submerged in Frozen Floodwater, 5 Missing in Calif., Colo., Storms - PHOTOS - VIDEO
Monster Arctic Storm Pummels California, Threatens Mudslides, Cuts Power

Oddities
Forget Tupperware: Taser Parties Are the New Craze
Japan's new rich party like it's 1989
Tough street-racing law nabs 85-year-old
Snacking on a wing and a prayer - Video

Other News of Note
China Cracks Down on Sexually Explicit Videos, Music

Fox News
FOXBusiness: Unemployment Rate Hits 2-Year High
Stranded Fishing Crew Rescued After 3 Months
Plane Crash Kills 6 Off Alaska's Kodiak Island - VIDEO
Vatican Urges Prayers for Priest Sex Abuse Victims
Pop Tarts: Penelope Cruz, Sister Engage in Lesbian Lip-Lock

Reuters
Britney Spears out of hospital: reports - Video
Cage, pregnant teen in box office spotlight
Cruise's UA close to deal, Globes uncertain: sources
No-nonsense BHP boss has Rio in his sights
Goldman close to completing N. Rock financing: paper
Market determines oil prices: Saudi Arabia
Gulf Arab stocks still appealing after rally: Nomura
Fed policy views split due to uncertainty: Kohn
Goldman, JP Morgan see Fed cutting 50 bps in January
Fear of recession to cloud U.S. stocks - Video
Wall Street skids as jobs data stirs recession fear - Video
Johnson Controls hikes lead-acid battery prices 4 pct
Oil retreats from $100 record on economic worry - Video
Gold eases after rising but sentiment bullish - Video
Dollar slips after soft jobs report but off lows
U.S. jobs report hit commercial real estate shares
U.S. student lender Sallie Mae plans loan cuts
Shutterfly shares fall as photo pricing pressure looms

AP World News
Chargers rally late to beat Titans 17-6
Leno, Kimmel to go on each other's shows
Giants' road show surges past Bucs 24-14
'Treasure' digs up $20M more in gold
Jags nick Steelers on late field goal
Dozens of cars pile up in Wis.; 2 dead
Bhutto is posthumous Parade mag cover

CENTCOM: News Releases
COALITION FORCES DISRUPT AL KUT CRIMINAL ELEMENT NETWORKS, 11 TERRORISTS KILLED

USJFCOM
2007 -- The Year in Review - photos
U.S. Joint Forces Command, IBM sign new cooperative research and development agreement
More about CRADAs
Ribbon cut for new SOCJFCOM headquarters - podcast

Multi-National Force-Iraq
North Babil Tribal Council Meets at Kalsu
Soldier Follows in Footsteps of His Father, Grandfather
Iraqi National Police apprehend kidnappers, save student (Baghdad)
Operations net explosives, weapons caches in Rashid
Adhamiyah Iraqi Security Volunteers find weapons caches
Airstrikes kill three suspected al-Qaeda in Iraq (Maderiyah)
CLCs uncover large cache in Tuwaitha
CLCs discover several caches in Sabbah Nissan

DefenseLink
IRAQ NEWS
Forces Kill 3 Terrorists, Apprehend 12 Suspects
NCOs Build Iraqi Academy
Project Helps Community Clean Up

AFGHANISTAN NEWS
Airmen Memorialize Fallen Comrade
Forces Clothe, Feed Afghan Orphans
Troops Disarm Bombs, Save Lives
Forces Provide Medical Aid to Villagers

FACE OF DEFENSE
Deployed Cartoonist Continues Strip
Soldier Honors Vietnam-Veteran Father

MILITARY NEWS
Funding Impasse Poses Challenge to Recruiters
‘Battlemind’ Training Reduces Combat Impact

AMERICA SUPPORTS YOU
Group Helps Veterans Transition to Civilian Life
Calendar Provides Ideas

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

Today in History
1066 - King Harald of England crowned
1099 - Henry V crowned German king
1227 - Ferrand of Portugal freed from the Louvre
1352 - French king Jean II introduces Order of the Star
1453 - Emperor Frederik III becomes archduke of Austria
1496 - Moorish fortress Alhambra, near Grenada, surrenders to the Christi
1497 - Jews are expelled from Graz (Syria)
1535 - City of Lima Peru founded by Francisco Pizarro
1540 - King Henry VIII of England married his 4th wife, Anne of Cleves
1579 - Artois/Hainault/Dowaai sign pro-Spanish Union of Arras
1622 - Pope Gregory XV forms Congregatio the Propagande Fide
1639 - Virginia is 1st colony to order surplus crops (tobacco) destroyed
1663 - Great earthquake in New England
1681 - 1st recorded boxing match (Duke of Albemarle's butler vs his butcher)
1690 - Emperor Leopold's son Jozef chosen Roman Catholic king
1745 - Bonnie Prince Charlie's army draws to Glasgow
1759 - George Washington marries Martha Dandridge Curtis
1773 - Massachusetts slaves petition legislature for freedom
1781 - Battle of Jersey (Island in the UK)
1784 - Turkey & Russia sign treaty in Constantinople
1832 - New England Anti-Slavery Society organizes (Boston)
1838 - Samuel Morse made 1st public demonstration of telegraph
1839 - 2 day storm off Irish & English coast immortalized as "The Big Wind"
1842 - 4,500 British & Indian troops leave Kabul, massacred before India
1857 - Patent for reducing zinc ore granted to Samuel Wetherill, Pennsylvania
1861 - New York City NY mayor proposes New York become a free city, trading with N & S; Florida troops seize Federal arsenal at Apalachicola
1873 - US Congress begins investigating Crédit Mobilier scandal
1893 - Great Northern Railway connects Seattle with east coast
1896 - Cecil Rhodes resigns as premier of Cape colony
1898 - 1st telephone message from a submerged submarine, by Simon Lake
1900 - Boers attack at Ladysmith, about 1,000 killed or injured
1907 - Maria Montessori opens her 1st (Montessori) school (Rome)
1912 - New Mexico becomes 47th US state
1914 - Stock brokerage firm of Merrill Lynch founded
1922 - Conference of Cannes concerning German retribution payments
1927 - US marines sent to Nicaragua
1929 - Alexander I establishes a royal dictatorship in Yugoslavia
1930 - 1st diesel engine automobile trip (in a Packard sedan) completed
1936 - Barbara Hanley became Canada's 1st woman mayor (Webbwood, Ontario)
1938 - Bronze memorial statue of Henry Hudson erected in the Bronx
1941 - FDR's "4 Freedoms" speech (speech, worship, from want & from fear)
1942 - 1st around world flight (Pan Am "Pacific Clipper"); Bob Feller enlists in Navy & reports for duty to Norfolk Virginia
1945 - Future President George Bush marries Barbara Pierce in Rye NY
1950 - Britain recognizes Communist government of China
1957 - Elvis Presley makes his 7th & final appearance on Ed Sullivan Show
1958 - Gibson patents the Flying V Guitar
1964 - Rolling Stones' 1st tour as headline act (with Ronettes)
1967 - 2 homemade buses collided on a mountain road in Terpate, Philippines plunging off a cliff, killing 84, injuring 140
1967 - "Milton Berle Show" last airs on ABC-TV
1968 - Surveyor 7 (last of series) launched by US for soft-landing on Moon; Dr. N.E. Shumway performs 1st US adult cardiac transplant operation
1971 - Cecil Partee elected president pro tem of Illinois state senate; Berkeley chemists announces 1st synthetic growth hormones
1972 - Vladimir Bukovski is exiled from USSR
1973 - "Schoolhouse Rock" premieres on ABC-TV with Multiplication Rock
1978 - 1st postage stamp copyrighted by US (Carl Sandburg stamp); US hand over St Stephan crown to Hungary
1980 - Indira Gandhi's Congress Party wins elections in India
1986 - British Defense Secretary Michael Heseltine resigns; STS 61-C scrubbed at T-31 seconds because of liquid oxygen valve problem
1987 - 100th US Congress convenes; Astronomers at University of California see 1st sight of birth of a galaxy
1991 - Jorge Serrano Elías elected President of Guatemala
1993 - Bill Wyman announces he will leave Rolling Stones; Jean Mueller discovers comet Mueller/1993a
1994 - Ice skater Nancy Kerrigan is attacked by Tonya Harding's bodyguard
1998 - Don Sutton selected to Baseball Hall of Fame

Birthdays
1367 - Richard II Bordeaux, King of England (1377-99)
1412 - Joan of Arc, martyr
1587 - Gaspar de Guzmán, Count of Olivares, Premier of Spain (1621-43)
1602 - Karl Rabenhaupt, German/Dutch baron of Sucha/army leader
1745 - Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier, aeronaut (1st pioneer balloonist/brother of Joseph-Michel/co-inventor of calorimeter, hydraulic ram, process for producing vellum)
1776 - Ferdinand von Schill, Prussian officer/rebel
1799 - Jedediah Strong Smith, US fur trader/explorer
1800 - Willem A. Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, Dutch politician
1807 - Joseph Holt, Union Brevet Major General
1811 - Charles Sumner, leading Reconstruction senator
1827 - John Calvin Brown, Confederate Major General; John Wesley Frazer, Confederate Brigadier General
1854 - Sherlock Holmes Mycroft, fictional detective (via Arthur Conan Doyle)
1882 - Samuel Rayburn (Representative-TX), Speaker of the House (1940-57)
1896 - Freerk Siemon Wolters, notary/resistance fighter
1897 - Péter Veres, literary/Hungarian minister of defense
1911 - Eduardo Frei Montalva, President of Chile (1964-70)
1913 - Edward Gierek, party leader (Polish CP)
1914 - Danny Thomas, comedian (Danny Thomas Show)
1915 - Don Edwards (Representative-CA, 1963-1992)
1925 - John Z. DeLorean, former automaker (DeLorean)
1931 - Gerard van Muiden, Dutch MP (CDA)
1936 - Julio María Sanguinetti Cairolo, President of Uruguay (1985-90, 1995-2000)
1940 - Ed Zschau (Representative-CA, 1983-1987)
1948 - Guy Spencer Gardner, Lieutenant-Colonel USAF/astronaut (STS-27, STS-35); Robert E. (Bob) Wise, Jr. (Representative-WV, 1983-2001, WV Governor, 2001- )
1955 - Rowan Atkinson, British comedian/actor (Mr Bean, Blackadder, Never Say Never Again)
1957 - C. Michael Foale, astronaut (STS 45, 56, 63, 84/86)
1963 - Philippe Perrin, Lieutenant-Colonel FAF/astronaut
1968 - John Singleton, director/screenwriter (Boyz in the Hood)

Passings
1425 - Jan of Bavaria, liege of Holland/bishop/duke
1448 - Christopher III, King of Denmark/Norway/Sweden
1693 - Mehmed IV sultan (Turkey), dies at 51
1694 - Francesco Morosini Italian army General
1702 - Thomas Franklin, English smith/uncle of Benjamin Franklin
1785 - Haym Salomon dies in Philadelphia, PA at 44, helped finance the revolution
1799 - W.G. Frederik, prince of Orange/General, dies at 25
1884 - Gregor Mendel Augustine, monk/heredity pioneer, dies at 61
1919 - Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President (1901-09), dies at his home in Oyster Bay NY at 60
1929 - Nicolas Nikolayevitch, grand-duke of Russia, dies at 72
1958 - Josephine, princess of Belgium/nun, dies at 85
1985 - Robert H.W. Welch, Jr., US founder/leader John Birch Society, dies at 85
1993 - Elisabeth arch duch of Austria/princess of Liechtenstein, dies at 70; Rudolph Nureyev, Russian ballet dancer (Kirov), dies of AIDS at 54
1994 - "Iron" Adriaan van Es Dutch undersecretary of Navy (1963-72), dies at 80; Morty the Moose (Northern Exposure), dies at 6; Virginia Kelley Clinton Mother of President Clinton, dies at 70
1995 - Edward Sutcliffe judge (British Central Criminal Court), dies at 77; Joe Slovo, Latvian/South African attorney/Secretary-General (SACR), dies at 68
1996 - Henry Lennox d'Aubigny Hopkinson, diplomat/politician, dies at 94; Robert Russell "Chubby" Wise musician, dies at 80
1997 - Ian Peter Leslie Smith, journalist

Reported Missing in Action
1967
Mullen, Richard D., USN (IL); F8E shot down, released by DRV - retired as a Captain - alive and well as of 1998

1971
Miller, Carlton P., Jr., USNR (MA); F4J went overboard afer a landing incident (RIO) - Killed, body not recovered

1973
Lindahl, John C., USN (KS); A7B crashed into the water shortly after takeoff, body not recovered

Labels: Headlines, History