2004: Information and Much More from Answers.com
- ️Tue Sep 11 2001
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace issues a report January 8 stating that the Bush administration systematically misled Americans and the rest of the world on the so-called "imminent danger" posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Former secretary of the treasury Paul O'Neill tells 60 Minutes reporter Leslie Stahl on CBS television January 11 that Bush discussed plans for an attack on Iraq right after taking office 3 years ago, Bush loyalists immediately try to discredit O'Neill, but ranking Republicans as well as Democrats demand answers to charges that the Bush administration exaggerated the threat of Iraqi WMDs.
Iraqi police storm into the bedroom of Ahmed Chalabi May 19 and carry off at least one computer, files, and 20 or more weapons taken from the politician's security guards (see 1995). Now 59, Chalabi has been receiving $300,000 per month from the U.S. Government but has come under fire for supplying false information used by the Bush administration to justify last year's invasion.
Former U.S. Navy Pueblo spy ship commander Lloyd M. Bucher dies at a California nursing home January 28 at age 76; Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox at his Brooksville, Me., home May 29 at age 92; Watergate Committee counsel Samuel Dash of heart failure at Washington, D.C., May 29 at age 79; former president Ronald Reagan at his California home June 5 at age 93, having suffered from Alzheimer's disease for a decade (his body is taken to lie in state at the Capitol Rotunda in Washington; mail deliveries and Wall Street trading activities are halted on the day of his funeral June 11).
The founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program signs a detailed confession February 1 that beginning in 1989 he provided Iran, Libya, and North Korea with the designs and technology needed to produce the fuel for nuclear weapons (see 2003). Now 68, Abdul Qadeer Khan has been revered as a national hero and receives a pardon from Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf.
President Bush responds reluctantly to pressure from survivors of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks by establishing a bipartisan committee in early February to examine U.S. intelligence operations and possible misjudgments; headed by former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean, the committee hears testimony about preparedness for possible terrorist attacks like the ones of 9/11, its report is not due until early next year, but Britain's prime minister Tony Blair appoints a similar committee whose report is due earlier.
President Bush accepts Central Intelligence Agency director George J. Tenet's resignation "for personal reasons" June 3. Having served in the position since 1997, Tenet is succeeded by his quiet McKeesport, Pa.-born deputy director John E. (Edward) McLaughlin, 61. A bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee panel issues a 511-page report July 9 charging the CIA with having made judgments about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" that were "either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting." Although it finds no evidence that the Bush administration tried to coerce the agency into producing exaggerated warnings about Iraq's weapons programs, it has been heavily censored by the administration and nevertheless reaffirms earlier findings that there was no "established formal relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda." The unanimous report concludes that sloppy "group think" and prewar assumptions led the agency to mislead the administration, the American people, and the world.
The bipartisan 9/11 Commission appointed by President Bush in February issues its report July 21, calling not only for a reorganization of intelligence operations but also for efforts to address the roots of anti-American sentiment in the Islamic world. Bush appoints House Intelligence Committee chairman Porter Goss, 65, (R. Fla.) to succeed Tenet, and Goss (a onetime CIA field agent) is sworn in September 24. His appointment creates turmoil in the CIA as the Pentagon works to establish its own intelligence agency.
A monument to America's World War II veterans opens April 29 on the mall at Washington, D.C., and is dedicated a month later. Designed by Providence, R.I., architect Friedrich St. Florian, the monument honors a generation that is dying at the rate of more than 1,100 per day.
Resolution 1559 approved by the United Nations Security Council April 12 calls for withdrawal of foreign forces from Lebanon, dissolution of militias in that country, and a free, fair presidential election.
The United Nations Security Council votes 15 to 0 June 8 to support a U.S.-British plan for ending formal occupation of Iraq and transferring "full sovereignty" to an interim Iraqi government. A new government with Shiite physician Iyad Allawi, 58, as interim prime minister takes over June 28 in a clandestine transfer of power designed to thwart interference by terrorist insurgents, and an Iraqi court arraigns former president Saddam Hussein July 1, but close to 140,000 U.S. troops remain in country.
President Bush angers some formerly supportive Muslim leaders April 14 by endorsing Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon's plan to retain some West Bank settlements, flout a UN mandate that Israel return to its pre-1967 borders, and undercut any "road map" to peace. Israeli helicopter gunships have assassinated two Hamas political and spiritual leaders earlier in the year, Bush's action breaks with the neutral policies of previous U.S. presidents, and critics suggest that he has changed course to please his Christian evangelical supporters. Israel's Supreme Court rules unanimously June 30 that a small portion of the steel fence being built along the West Bank must be rerouted to reduce the harm imposed on Palestinians but the three-judge panel says there is a legitimate security reason for the barrier and some land can be expropriated for it. The International Court of Justice at the Hague rules July 9 that the major part of the barrier violates international law and in a nonbinding decision calls on Israeli officials to dismantle (14 of the 15 justices endorse the decision, with only the U.S. justice Thomas Buergenthal dissenting). Israeli hard-liners say the court has failed to recognize the seriousness of the terrorist attacks that have taken 1,000 lives in the past 4 years (according to the United Nations, 3,437 Palestinians have been killed and 33,776 wounded by June 23 since the uprising began in late 2000, 6,399 Israelis have been wounded), the country is full of maimed and blinded survivors, and the terrorist attacks continue. Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasir Arafat dies of an undisclosed illness outside Paris November 11 at age 75, raising hopes that new leadership will permit a peaceful resolution of tensions in the region.
Terrorists bomb Madrid commuter trains March 11, killing 200 and injuring close to 1,500 in the worst such incident since the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. Muslim extremists claim responsibility and say they did it to punish Spain for supporting the U.S. occupation of Iraq; street demonstrators fault the government for blaming the bombings on the Basque separatist group ETA, and voters March 14 oust the conservative government that has supported George W. Bush's occupation of Iraq and sent 1,300 troops to that country. The Socialist Party candidate for prime minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, 43, has been critical of that policy, wins an upset victory, and promises to withdraw Spanish troops unless the United Nations takes over the occupation June 30; his election is widely viewed as a stinging rebuke to President Bush, whose invasion of Iraq has been opposed by the vast majority of Europeans. The election result sends shock waves through other countries whose governments have supported U.S. policy in the Middle East, and some say it will encourage further terrorist attacks.
Former Dutch queen Juliana dies at Soestjik Palace March 20 at age 94.
Georgians elect a new president January 4 to succeed Eduard Shevardnadze (see 2003). U.S.-educated lawyer and former minister of justice Mikhail Saakashvili, 36, wins more than 96 percent of the votes (see "Rose Revolution," 2003).
Chechnya's president Akhmad Kadyrov is killed May 9 at age 52 along with other notables when a bomb explodes under Grozny Stadium during celebrations of the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945. Handpicked by Russia's Vladimir Putin, Kadyrov won office last year in what was generally considered a rigged election; his 27-year-old son and successor is considered a brute, and internal strife continues. Chechen terrorists bring down two Russian airliners and join with Arab terrorists September 1 to hold schoolchildren and teachers hostage at Beslan, killing 344 (including at least 172 children) in an incident that shocks the world. President Putin uses terrorism September 13 as an excuse to order an overhaul of the country's political system, reducing still further the democratic control of regional governments and the central legislative branch of government.
Ukraine verges on civil war following a rigged election November 21 that ends in "victory" for Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovich, who has been backed by Russia's president Vladimir Putin to succeed the country's outgoing president Leonid D. Kuchma. Supporters of Viktor A. Yuschenko, 56, claim that their man won, people in eastern Ukraine side with Yanukovich, Secretary of State Colin Powell speaks out in support of Yuschenko, the Ukraine Supreme Court orders a new election December 26, Yuschenko prevails in the so-called "Orange Revolution," Western leaders hail his victory, but Yuschenko faces opposition in the eastern and southern regions of his country.
Romanian opposition leader Traian Basescu, 53, wins an upset victory in the nation's presidential election December 12, defeating Prime Minister Adrian Nastase. A former sailor (and former communist), Basescu has been mayor of Bucharest since 2000 and ordered the roundup of thousands of stray dogs that terrified the people.
India's National Congress Party regains power May 13 after parliamentary elections oust Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist party, whose coalition government has ruled since 1988 during a period of rapid economic growth that has not helped the nation's agricultural minority. Italian-born party leader Sonia Gandhi, 57, declines the prime ministership, which goes instead to Oxford-educated finance minister Manmohan Singh, 71, who has been the driving force behind liberalizing and restructuring India's economy and will be her first non-Hindu prime minister.
Indonesia's first direct presidential elections July 5 and September 20 end in victory for former security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, 55, who defeats incumbent president Megawati Sikarnoputri.
Afghanistan's transitional president Hamid Karzai wins the nation's first presidential election October 9, with women voting separately from men in a country still controlled for the most part by war lords and drug lords. Despite fears of Taliban interference, an estimated 70 percent of registered voters participate, and the voting is generally peaceful.
The New China News Agency announces September 18 that China's 78-year-old leader Jiang Zemin has turned over control of the military to President Hu Jintao, who has been Communist Party chief since 2002 and president since last year. Now 61, Hu is the country's youngest leader since Mao Zedong took power in 1949.
United Arab Emirates president Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan Zayed dies at Abu Dhabi November 2 at age 86, having headed the UAE since its founding in 1971 and used Abu Dhabi's oil revenues to help development in the other emirates. His 56-year-old son Khalifa succeeds to the presidency.
Former Mexican president José López Portillo dies of pneumonia at Mexico City February 17 at age 83.
Haiti's president Jean-Bertrand Aristide goes into exile February 29, flying to the Central African Republic after a 4-week revolution ends a second, growingly corrupt presidency that began with his restoration in 1994. He and his supporters claim that he signed a letter of resignation under pressure from U.S. troops, who came to him before dawn, advised him that they could not protect him, and that he would be killed by insurgents if he did not let them fly him out of the country. U.S. marines land 16 hours later to restore order with United Nations support, the White House denies Aristide's allegations that he was abducted with his wife by U.S. soldiers, but the Bush administration has evidently given financial support to the insurgents while cutting off aid to Aristide's government. Aristide returns to the Caribbean within weeks, flying to Jamaica and insisting that he is still Haiti's president.
U.S. cold warrior Paul H. Nitze dies at his Washington, D.C., home October 21 at age 97; nuclear bomb developer Theodore Taylor at Silver Spring, Md., October 28 at age 79; diplomat Joseph Sisco at his Chevy Chase, Md., home November 23 at age 85.
The Democratic National Convention at Boston nominates Sen. John F. Kerry, who has swept almost every state primary despite enthusiastic support for New York-born Howard Dean, 55, a physician and three-term Vermont governor who has spoken out against the invasion of Iraq last year while Kerry has merely opposed the way in which the invasion was justified and carried out. The Republican National Convention at New York nominates President Bush amidst peaceful demonstrations by vociferous opponents (police arrest nearly 1,200 people August 31, many of them simply unlucky bystanders). Strongly supported by the Religious Right, Bush uses appeals to "moral values," persuades voters that the country needs a resolute leader who will not waver in "the war on terror," and wins election to a second term November 2, taking 286 electoral votes to Kerry's 252 in a victory made possible by razor-thin margins in Ohio and Florida, the narrowest victory for a sitting president since 1916. Republicans gain seats in both houses, and Senate majority leader Bill Frist warns Democrats November 11 that the Republicans will not allow filibusters to block action on the president's judicial nominees in his second term.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell announces his resignation; President Bush nominates his more complaisant, Alabama-born national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, 50, to succeed Powell.
A U.S. soldier in Iraq reports January 13 that detainees held by American authorities in former dictator Saddam Hussein's notorious Abu Ghraib prison have been subjected to abuse in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez orders an investigation, but Texas-born White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, 48, sends President Bush a memo January 25 saying that "the war on terrorism is a new kind of war, a new paradigm [that] renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitation on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders some of its provisions quaint." He advises the president that he can avoid allegations of war crimes by simply declaring that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the conflict with the Taliban and al Qaeda (Secretary of State Powell disagrees). The Red Cross complained about interrogation of prisoners at the facility in October of last year and says in February that "systemic" abuse in the prison is "tantamount to torture"; CBS television shows photographs on its 60 Minutes 2 program April 28 that shock viewers by depicting humiliation and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. military personnel, some of them women. Arab newspapers and television stations show the pictures, shattering the myth that Americans would never treat prisoners the way "evildoers" such as Saddam Hussein did, and further visual evidence emerges that embarrasses the U.S. military, undercutting its efforts to combat Islamic terrorists. Many critics call for Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld to resign, others note that the perpetrators are being prosecuted within the rules of law, and that U.S. forces in Iraq are working to undo the damage wrought by Saddam Hussein's regime.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules June 28 that "enemy combatants" may not be held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, or elsewhere without access to counsel and fair trials in federal courts (seeRasul et al. v. Bush et. al.2002). The justices turned down an appeal January 12 challenging the secrecy surrounding the arrest and detention of people in the weeks following September 11, 2001, tacitly accepting the Bush administration's rationale for refusing to disclose the identities of those arrested or the circumstances of their arrests. Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal have been released March 9, David Hicks has been officially charged June 10 after 6 months in solitary confinement. In the case of Louisiana-born Saudi American Yaser Esam Hamdi, now 24 (Hamdi v. Rumsfeld), the court rules 8 to 1 that as a U.S. citizen his 2-year detention was invalid from the start or has become so: "a state of war is not a blank check for the president," says Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in her majority opinion, and Clarence Thomas registers the only dissent from the rebuke to the Bush administration. A federal appeals court at New York has found the detention of U.S. citizen José Padilla unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court says he must refile his case (Rumsfeld v. Padilla) in a South Carolina court. A 17-page memorandum issued in late December by the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice replaces a 50-page opinion issued in August 2002 contending that President Bush could set aside laws and treaties prohibiting torture of prisoners: "There is no exception under the statute permitting torture to be used for a 'good reason' [even if the aim is] to protect national security," says the new directive, but it falls short of declaring the interrogation methods previously approved by the Justice Department to be illegal, and the Pentagon will send detainees to other countries where they may or may not be tortured to obtain information whose reliability is in any case suspect.
The House of Representatives fails by one vote July 8 to bar the federal government from demanding records from libraries and bookstores under the 2001 USA Patriot Act in some terrorist investigations. President Bush has threatened to veto a spending bill if it included the proposed amendment sponsored by Rep. Bernard Sanders (Independent, Vt.), Republicans have lobbied to defeat it, and although the House traditionally holds its votes open for 15 minutes to give members time to get from their offices to the floor, Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R. Tex.) has kept the vote open for 38 minutes in order to browbeat eight lawmakers into changing their votes. The House Ethics Committee will admonish DeLay three times by year's end for violating House rules, the House will drop its rule requiring the suspension of any member under indictment, but it will revive the rule early next year after widespread protest.
Attorney General John Ashcroft resigns following the November 2 election, but President Bush's choice of his successor raises objections from civil libertarians: Alberto Gonzales has been complicit in the decisions related to prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanámo Bay.
Genocide continues in western Sudan, where mounted Arab militia (janjaweed) have depopulated an area as large as California with help from aerial bombing by the Sudanese air force (see 2003).
Onetime apartheid opponent Wilton Mkwayi dies of cancer at King Williams Town, South Africa, July 23 at age 81.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court underscores its November 2003 ruling on same-sex marriage February 4, saying that only full marriage rights for gay couples, not civil unions, will conform to the state's constitution. President Bush says the decision is "deeply troubling," he placates his Christian Coalition core supporters February 24 by calling for a U.S. constitutional amendment that would effectively ban same-sex marriage, the Senate narrowly defeats a measure supporting the amendment in July, but the issue distracts voters in November from more substantive issues related to the economy, foreign policy, national health, and nuclear proliferation. Voters in 11 states support measures to ban same-sex marriage.
The 10-minute film Submission by Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh, 47, from a script by Somalian-born Dutch parliament member Ayaan Hirsi Ali, 34, infuriates Muslim extremists, who perceive the film about violence against Muslim women as an attack on Islam. Mohammed Bouyeri, 26, murders van Gogh at Amsterdam November 2, shooting him eight times, slitting his throat, and then stabbing him in the chest. Reprisals against Islamic centers roil the Netherlands.
NASA's space vehicle Spirit lands on Mars January 3, having traveled more than 300 million miles and come within about 660 feet (200 meters) of its target; its Rover robot soon sends back photographs of the planet's surface. President Bush sets a new space-exploration goal January 14, calling for a return to the moon by 2020 and establishment of a lunar base for a manned landing on Mars; critics say it would take 3 years for men to reach the planet and return, that robotic-controlled instruments could achieve just as much, that the program would cost $170 billion to $600 billion, and that the money could be better spent on earthly needs. A second NASA space vehicle (Opportunity) lands on another part of Mars January 24 and begins beaming pictures back to Earth the next day.
Astronaut Gordon Cooper dies at his Ventura, Calif., home October 4 at age 77.
A New York court finds Martha Stewart guilty March 5 of lying to federal investigators, conspiracy, and obstructing justice in connection with her sale of ImClone stock in 2002. She draws a 5-month prison sentence July 16 plus 5 months of house arrest and a $30,000 fine.
Enron founder Kenneth Lay pleads not guilty in federal court at Houston July 8 to charges that he conspired to defraud investors. Now 62, Lay has had close ties to President Bush, and the administration has been under pressure to show that nobody is above the law. A bankruptcy judge awards Enron's creditors 20¢ on the dollar.
Only 12.5 percent of U.S. employees belong to labor unions, down from 12.9 percent last year, and in the private sector only 7.9 percent are unionized, down from 8.2 percent and the lowest level since the early 1900s.
Onetime labor leader Victor Reuther dies at Washington, D.C., June 3 at age 92; financier and conservationist Laurance S. Rockefeller of pulmonary fibrosis at his New York home July 11 at age 94.
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes December 31 at 10783.01, up from 10453.92 at the end of 2003. The NASDAQ closes at 2175.44, up from 2003.37.
May Department Stores agrees June 9 to buy Chicago-based Marshall Field's for $3.24 billion in cash. Kmart announces November 17 that it is acquiring Sears for $11 billion in a takeover engineered by billionaire Edward S. Lampert, now 42. The Greenwich, Conn.-based Lampert bought Kmart out of bankruptcy 2 years ago but both companies have been hard pressed to compete with the giant Wal-Mart discount chain.
U.S. makers of residential central air conditioners agree March 17 to abide by a federal mandate and make their equipment more energy efficient (see National Appliance Energy Conservation Act, 1987). Members of the Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute have fought implementation of the mandate, they promise that by January 2006 the typical unit will use 30 percent less electricity, but the standard does not apply to window units.
A chartered Boeing 737 leaves Sharm el Sheik for Paris January 3 and crashes into the Mediterranean, killing all 148 aboard, most of them French tourists returning from the Egyptian resort at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula.
The Cunard Line cruise ship Queen Mary 2 (QM2) leaves Southampton January 12 on her maiden voyage, a 14-day trip to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Built in France for Carnival Cruise Lines at a cost of nearly $800 million, the largest, costliest ocean liner ever seen displaces 151,400 tons, is 1,132 feet in length, has two restaurants where meals are served on Wedgwood china with Waterford glass, offers eight other places to dine, has five indoor and outdoor pools, a full-size planetarium, nightclubs, a casino, a 20,000-square-foot fitness center operated by the Arizona-based Canyon Ranch, and sails with a full complement of 2,620 passengers (the smallest stateroom is 194 square feet and there are five duplex apartments, each with its own exercise area, library, and three baths).
South Korea's bullet trains begin service April 1 with French-designed trains reaching speeds of 128 miles per hour on the 253-mile run between Seoul and Pusan. Part of a $17 billion, 18-year project undertaken to relieve traffic congestion, the rail network is scheduled for completion in 2010 and is the largest civil engineering works in the nation's history.
France's Millau Bridge opens December 16 to span the Tarn Valley with a steel-and-concrete highway structure designed by architect Norman Foster that cuts 20 minutes off the trip from Paris to the Mediterranean, but motorists and truckers protest the high tolls.
Computer programming pioneer Robert W. Bemer dies of cancer at his home west of Fort Worth, Texas, June 22 at age 84.
South Korean veterinarian Woo Suk Hwang, 50, and his Seoul National University colleague Shin Yong Moon, 55, report in the journal Science February 13 that they have used cloning to create embryonic human blastocysts and extracted stem cells that can potentially be used to cure spinal cord injuries and diseases such as diabetes. Having harvested 242 eggs from 16 female volunteers, they removed the eggs' genetic material, replaced it with DNA extracted from adult cells donated by the same women, and employed tiny bursts of electricity to fuse together the donor material and egg. Nurtured in Petri dishes, only 30 of the hybrid eggs developed into blastocytes, and critics say therapeutic cloning remains a distant prospect, but the government-funded Korean work would not be possible under U.S. restrictions on such funding (see 2001).
Nobel geneticist Edward Lewis dies of prostate cancer at Pasadena, Calif., July 21 at age 86; Nobel geneticist Francis H. C. Crick of colon cancer at San Diego July 28 at age 88; Nobel geneticist Maurice H. F. Wilkins at London October 6 at age 87.
Mississippi's new governor Haley Barbour signs a new law May 26 that ends Medicaid eligibility for some 65,000 low-income seniors with severe disabilities such as Alzheimer's disease, cerebral palsy, incapacitating conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, and mental illness including schizophrenia. Cuts in federal taxes have made it hard for states to pay for Medicaid; the Yazoo City-born Barbour, now 56, was chairman of the national Republican Party before winning the governorship and has complained about taxpayers having to "pay for free health care for people who can work and take care of themselves and just choose not to."
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejects a bid by Attorney General John Ashcroft to overturn Oregon's 1994 Death with Dignity Act. He has ordered the Drug Enforcement Agency to prosecute physicians who prescribed lethal drugs to terminal patients, but the court rules two to one May 26 to uphold the state law.
Low-income U.S. seniors who have applied for them receive cards in June entitling them to discounts on pharmaceutical drugs, but the full program is not scheduled to kick in until 2006 and has little popular support. Medicare officials announce September 3 that premiums will increase by $11.60 to $78.20 per month (up 17.5 percent) beginning in January; updated annually under a formula set by law, premiums rose by 8.7 percent last year and 13.5 percent this year, but the new jump is the largest increase in the program's 40-year history.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously June 21 that the Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974 bars suits against health maintenance organizations and insurance companies in state courts.
Merck announces September 29 that it will withdraw its arthritis and pain medication Vioxx because studies have shown that it doubles a patient's risk of heart attack and stroke. The cox-2 inhibitor has been on the market for 5 years, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) comes under attack for having permitted its use. Extended high doses of Pfizer's Celebrex also can increase the risk of heart attack, according to a study released December 17, and other studies raise fears that some over-the-counter analgesics may also present such risks.
Cataract surgery pioneer Charles D. Kelman dies of lung cancer at Boca Raton, Fla., June 1 at age 74, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gives approval December 17 to the drug Macugen developed by New York-based Eyetech Pharmaceuticals with help from Pfizer Inc. to retard vision loss due to a severe wet form of age-related macular degeneration. Injected painlessly into the eye every 6 weeks, Macugen works by blocking a protein believed to nourish blood vessels that grow behind the eye and leak, causing blindness.
Penicillin co-developer Norman Heatley dies at his home outside Oxford January 5 at age 92; virologist Jordi Casals-Ariet at New York February 10 at age 92, having discovered the virus that causes Lassa fever; cardiac stress test pioneer Robert A. Bruce dies of leukemia and spinal stenosis at his Seattle home February 12 at age 87; psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross at her Scottsdale, Ariz., home August 24 at age 78, having revolutionized care of the terminally ill; Nobel pharmacologist Sir John R. Vane dies at Farnborough, England, November 19 at age 77, having shown how aspirin blocks formation of prostaglandins; Nobel physiologist Julius Axelrod dies at his Rockille, Md., home December 29 at age 92, having played a leading role in the development of acetaminophen (Tylenol) and antidepressants (Prozac, Zoloft).
The Archdiocese of Portland, Ore., files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection July 6, having been abandoned by insurance companies after paying out more than $54 million to settle claims arising out of alleged sexual molestation by abusive priests.
Religious Roundtable founder Edward E. McAteer dies at his Memphis home October 6 at age 78, having played a major role in making the evangelical Christian right a powerful voice in U.S. politics. Opponents of teaching evolution regain control of the Kansas board of education in the November election, parents at Dover, Pa., file suit in December challenging their local school board's contention that "intelligent design" is a scientific (rather than a religious) theory, calling it a violation of the First Amendment's establishment clause that separates Church and State, but the school board will proceed early next year to label Darwinian evolution only "a theory."
Fire at a private school July 16 kills 90 children aged 4 to 11 at Kumbakonam, India. The southern state of Tamil Nadu issues orders 2 days later that schools must immediately stop holding classes in any structure with a thatched roof and remove such roofs.
U.S. troops close down the Shiite weekly Al Hawza at Baghdad March 28 on charges that it has printed anti-American lies that incited violence by fanatical followers of the 31-year-old seminarian radical Muqtada al-Sadr. Thousands of Iraqis take to the streets to protest, and the censorship draws sharp criticism worldwide. Iraq's new prime minister Iyad Allawi gives orders July 18 for the paper's reopening in a conciliatory gesture.
USA Today's top editor Karen Jurgensen, 55, resigns April 19, accepting responsibility for fabricated stories by the paper's former foreign correspondent Jack Kelley, 43, who resigned in early January after filing false stories from Iraq that were far more serious violations of journalistic ethics than those of New York Times reporter Jayson Blair (see 2003). Daily circulation of the Gannett newspaper has climbed above 2 million, making it the largest U.S. daily, and management seeks to restore its integrity.
The New York Times publishes a mea culpa May 26 but buries on page 10 its apologies for having run articles more than a year ago with regard to Iraq's supposed "weapons of mass destruction," admitting that many accounts were never independently verified (see 2003).
A 5-to-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision handed down June 29 blocks an effort by Congress to curb children's access to sexually explicit material on the Internet.
Computerized typesetting pioneer John W. Seybold dies at a Haverford, Pa., hospice March 14 at age 88; telephone answering machine inventor Joseph J. Zimmermann Jr. at Brookfield, Wis., March 31 at age 92, having seen electronic "voice mail" replace thousands of jobs; gunmen at Moscow kill Forbes magazine's 41-year-old New York-born editor Paul Klebnikov as he leaves his office July 8; Accuracy in Media founder Reed Irvine dies at a Rockville, Md., hospice November 16 at age 82; investigative journalist Gary Webb of gunshot wounds to the head at his Carmichael, Calif., home December 10 at age 49 (his death is ruled a suicide).
The 216-year-old Times of London eliminates its broadsheet edition and becomes strictly a tabloid November 1, following the lead set in May by its smaller rival the Independent. Both papers began publishing tabloid editions a year ago, and circulation of the tabloid Times has risen to 300,000, accounting for 46 percent of its 652,254 total.
The front page of London's leftist Daily Mirror tabloid November 4 says, "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" London's Independent publishes a black page with the headline "Four more years" and pictures that include a hooded Iraqi prisoner and an orange-clad detainee at Guantánamo Bay. The left-leaning German newspaper Tageszeitung runs a front-page headline in English: "Oops they did it again." The London Daily Mail says, "March of the Moral Majority," the Daily Telegraph says, "America's moral majority sweeps Bush back into the White House," but Rupert Murdoch's London tabloid Sun says in an editorial, "The world is a safer place with George W. Bush back in the Oval Office," and Murdoch's Times says Europe "must come to terms, not only with Mr. Bush, but with the nation that has elected him. This is a president who really can speak for America."
Seattle's Central Library opens May 23 in a spectacular new building designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas.
Google announces December 14 that it has agreed with some leading U.S. research libraries (e.g., Harvard's Widener, University of Michigan, New York Public Libary, Stanford) and Oxford University to begin converting their holdings to digital files for free access via the Internet.
Nonfiction: The 9/11 Report by the presidential commission makes it clear that Iraq had no connection with the September 2001 terrorist attacks; The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill by Ron Suskind, who has been told by the former secretary of the treasury that the president seemed disengaged at cabinet meetings; Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror by former White House anti-terrorist adviser Richard A. Clarke, 53, a Pennsylvania-born chocolate maker's son who creates a furor by alleging that President Bush was determined after 9/11/01 to find a connection with Iraq's Saddam Hussein for the attack and has actually undermined the effort against terrorism (he draws fire from White House aides for suggesting that Bush policies have made the nation more vulnerable to terrorist atrocities); Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush by former Nixon legal aide John W. Dean, who says it was "an impeachable offense" to lead America into war with Iraq on the basis of "deceit" and "deception;" Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward, who alleges that Vice-President Richard Cheney was obsessed with making war on Iraq even before 9/11/2001; The Great Game: The Myth and Reality of Espionage by former CIA inspector general Frederick P. (Porter) Hitz, 65; The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror by Michael Ignatieff; President of Good and Evil: the Ethics of George W. Bush by philosopher Peter Singer; My Life by former president Bill Clinton; House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Families by New York-born investigative reporter Craig Unger, 55; Colossus: The Price of America's Empire by Niall Ferguson; Rogue State: America at War with the World by T. D. Allman; A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Services by James Bamford; The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media that Love Them by Washington, D.C.-born, Bayshore, N.Y.-raised Pacifica Radio journalist Amy Goodman, 46, and print journalist David Goodman (no relation); The Buying of the President 2004: Who's Really Bankrolling Bush and His Democratic Challengers—And What They Expect in Return by Charles Lewis; What's the Matter with Kansas?; How the Conservatives Won the Heart of America by Thomas Frank; The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David K. Shipler; Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen J. Greenblatt; Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made Modern America by Ron Chernow; The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution by Richard Dawkins, who cannot fathom why an educated lawmaker can believe in so-called creationism.
Historian and former librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin dies of pneumonia at Washington, D.C., February 28 at age 89; Guinness Book of Records cofounder Norris McWhirter after a heart attack at his Wiltshire home April 20 at age 78; biographer and historian William Manchester at his Middletown, Conn., home June 1 at age 82; journalist-author Gloria Emerson is found dead in her Manhattan apartment August 4 at age 75 (she had suffered from Parkinson's disease); deconstructionist philosopher Jacques Derrida dies of prostate cancer at Paris October 8 at age 74; historian and TV personality Pierre Berton of heart failure at Toronto November 30 at age 84; author and activist Susan Sontag of acute leukemia at her native New York December 28 at age 71.
Fiction: The Rule of Four by Princeton graduate Ian Caldwell and Harvard graduate Dustin Thomason, both 28, is based on The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili published at Venice in 1499 (the authors grew up in northern Virginia and have been close friends since childhood. Published May 11, their book goes through 11 printings in its first 2 weeks); The Plot Against America by Philip Roth; The Darling by Russell Banks; Gilead by Marilynne Robinson; Globalia by Jean-Christophe Rufin; Nothing Lost by the late John Gregory Dunne; The Tyrant's Novel by Thomas Keneally; Dark Voyage by Alan Furst; The Faith Fox by Jane Gardam; The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler; Eventide by Kent Haruf; The Enemy by Lee Child; Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen; Killer Smile by Lisa Scottoline; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by English novelist Mark Haddon, 41, who has heretofore written children's books.
Novelist M. M. Kaye dies in Suffolk, England, January 29 at age 95; Hubert Selby Jr. of chronic pulmonary disease at his Los Angeles home April 26 at age 75; Kamala Markandaya of kidney failure at her London home May 16 at age 79; Françoise Sagan of a pulmonary embolism at Harfleur September 24 at age 69; Arthur Hailey of an apparent stroke at his home in the Bahamas November 25 at age 84.
Poetry: Obliviously On He Sails: The Bush Administration in Rhyme by Calvin Trillin, now 68.
Poet Donald Justice dies of pneumonia at Iowa City August 6 at age 78 following a stroke; Nobel poet Czeslaw Milosz at Kraków August 14 at age 93; Anthony Hecht of lymphoma at Washington, D.C., October 20 at age 81; Mona Van Duyn of bone cancer at her suburban St. Louis home December 2 at age 83.
Juvenile: Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata; Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko; Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy by Gary D. Schmidt.
Author Joan Aiken dies at her West Sussex home January 4 at age 79; writer-illustrator Syd Hoff of pneumonia at Miami Beach May 12 at age 91.
New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) reopens November 20 with a $20 admission fee. Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi, 67, has designed the new building.
Abstract expressionist Agnes Martin dies at a Taos, N.M., retirement community December 16 at age 92; pop artist Tom Wesselmann following heart surgery at New York December 17 at age 73.
Fashion photographer Helmut Newton loses control of his Cadillac as he leaves Hollywood's Chateau Marmont Hotel January 23, crashes into a wall across the street, and dies in a hospital at age 83; photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson dies at his home in southwest France August 3 at age 95; photojournalist Carl Mydans at his Larchmont, N.Y., home August 16 at age 97; photojournalist Eddie Adams of acute myeloid leukemia (Lou Gehrig's disease) at his New York home and studio September 19 at age 71; photographer Richard Avedon of a brain hemorrhage at San Antonio October 1 at age 81; longtime Life photographer George Silk of congestive heart failure at Norwalk, Conn., October 23 at age 87.
Theater: Bug by Tracy Letts 2/29 at New York's off-Broadway Barrow Street Theater (formerly Greenwich House), with Shannon Cochran, Mike Shannon; Match by Washington, D.C.-born playwright Stephen Belber, 36, 4/8 at New York's Plymouth Theater, with Frank Langella, Washington, D.C.-born actress Jane Adams, 39, Newark, N.J.-born actor Ray Liotta, 48; Frozen by English playwright Bryony Lavery, 56, 5/4 at New York's Circle-in-the-Square Theater, with Swoosie Kurtz; Gem of the Ocean by August Wilson 12/6 at New York's Walter Kerr Theater, with Phylicia Rashad, Lisa Gay Hamilton, John Earl Jelks; A Number by Caryl Churchill 12/7 at New York's off-Broadway Theater Workshop, with Dallas Roberts, Sam Shepard.
Rhode Island-born actor-monologuist Spalding Gray goes missing January 10 and is found dead March 7 at age 62, having evidently jumped off New York's Staten Island ferry in a fit of depression; actress Uta Hagen dies at her New York home January 14 at age 84; playwright Jerome Lawrence at his Malibu, Calif., home February 29 at age 88; standup comedian Alan King of lung cancer at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center May 9 at age 76; playwright Peter Barnes of a heart attack at London July 1 at age 73; playwright Jerome Chodorov at Nyack, N.Y., September 12 at age 93.
Television: Lost 9/22 on ABC with Matthew Fox as one of 48 passengers stranded on an uncharted Pacific island after their jet tore apart in mid-air; Desperate Housewives 10/3 on ABC with Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman.
"Captain Kangaroo" (Bob Keeshan) dies at Windsor, Vt., January 23 at age 76; former talk show host Jack Paar at his Greenwich, Conn., home January 26 at age 85; former game show host and announcer Art James at Palm Springs, Calif., March 28 at age 74; journalist, author, and TV personality Alistair Cooke of heart disease at his Fifth Avenue, New York, apartment March 29 at age 95; soap opera creator John D. Hess of lung cancer at his New Hope, Pa., home April 15 at age 85; former game show host Gene Wood of lung cancer at Boston May 21 at age 78; stand-up comedian Rodney Dangerfield of complications from heart-valve replacement surgery at Los Angeles October 5 at age 82.
Films: Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 wins a standing ovation at the Cannes Festival, but studio Miramax Pictures is owned by Walt Disney Co. and Disney refuses to release the anti-Bush administration polemic, possibly because it fears retribution from the president's brother Jeb Bush, who is governor of Florida and could make things difficult for DisneyWorld outside Orlando. When the film opens at U.S. theaters in June it breaks box-office records despite criticism that it has some inaccuracies; Terry George's Hotel Rwanda with Don Cheadle as hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina, Sophie Okonedo, Nick Nolte; Brad Bird's The Incredibles with Pixar animation, voice-overs by Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Jason Lee, Samuel L. Jackson; Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby with Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman; Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ with Jim Caviezel as Jesus. Also: Martin Scorsese's The Aviator with Leonardo DiCaprio as the late Howard Hughes, Cate Blanchett as the late Katharine Hepburn; Richard Linklater's Before Sunset with Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy; Michael Mann's Collateral with Jamie Foxx, Tom Cruise; Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with Ontario-born actor Jim Carrey, 42, Kate Winslet; Bill Condon's Kinsey with Liam Neeson, Laura Linney; Pedro Almodóvar's The Motorcycle Diaries with Mexican actor Gael García Bernal, 25, as a teenaged Ernesto Guevara; Alfonso Cuarón's The Prisoner of Azkaban with Daniel Radcliffe (as Harry Potter), Emma Watson, Rupert Grint; Andrew Adamson's Shrek 2, with DreamWorks animation based on characters created by the late William Steig, voice-overs by Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, John Cleese, Julie Andrews; Alexander Payne's Sideways with Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Sandra Oh, Virginia Madsen; Mike Leigh's Vera Drake with London-born actress Imelda Staunton, 48, as an abortionist.
Actress Ingrid Thulin dies at Stockholm January 7 at age 77; producer Ray Stark at his West Hollywood home January 17 at age 88; actress Frances Dee following a stroke at Norwalk, Conn., March 6 at age 96; actor Paul Winfield of a heart attack at Los Angeles March 7 at age 62; actor-director Sir Peter Ustinov of heart disease and diabetes at a Swiss clinic March 28 at age 82; actor Tony Randall at New York University Medical Center May 17 at age 84; actor Nino Manfredi at Rome June 4 at age 83, having been hospitalized after a stroke in February; Marlon Brando dies of pulmonary fibrosis at Los Angeles July 2 at age 80; Fay Wray at her Manhattan apartment August 8 at age 96; Janet Leigh of vasculitis at her Beverly Hills, Calif., home October 4 at age 77; actor (and embryonic stem-cell research activist) Christopher Reeve of a heart attack related to his paralysis at Mount Kisco, N.Y., October 10 at age 52.
Hollywood musicals: Irwin Winkler's De-Lovely with Kevin Kline as the late Cole Porter, Ashley Judd, music and lyrics by Porter.
Onetime Hollywood musical tap-dancer Ann Miller dies of lung cancer at Los Angeles January 22 at age 81.
Ballerina-turned-dance critic Maude Lloyd dies at her London home November 26 at age 96; Alicia Markova at Bath December 2 at age 94.
Operatic baritone Robert Merrill dies at his New Rochelle, N.Y., home October 23 at age 87; operatic diva Renata Tebaldi at her home in San Marino December 19 at age 82.
Stage musicals: Caroline, or Change 5/2 at New York's Eugene O'Neill Theater (after a run at the Public Theater), with Tonya Pinkins (as Louisiana housemaid Caroline Thibodeaux), Chuck Cooper, music by Jeanine Tesori, book and lyrics by Tony Kushner, 136 perfs.; The Woman in White 9/15 at London's Palace Theatre, with Michael Crawford, Maria Friedman, Anthony Andrews, book from the 1860 Wilkie Collins suspense novel, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Broadway lyricist Fred Ebb dies of a heart attack at New York September 11 at age 76; pianist-composer Cy Coleman of a heart attack at New York November 19 at age 75; Broadway musical star (and television actor) Jerry Orbach of prostate cancer at New York December 29 at age 69.
Popular songs: "Daughters" by Connecticut-born Atlanta singer-songwriter John Mayer, 27; American Idiot (CD) by Green Day; Our Shadows Will Remain (CD) by Joseph Arthur; A Girl Called Eddy (CD) by Erin Moran; Smile (CD) by Brian Wilson; Set Yourself on Fire (CD) by the Montreal band Stars; Neil Sedaka's Solitaire (CD).
Songwriter Bart Howard dies at Carmel, N.Y., February 21 at age 88, having made a small fortune from "Fly Me to the Moon"; steel guitar virtuoso Alvino Rey dies at his Salt Lake City home February 24 at age 95; jazz violinist Claude "Fiddler" Williams of pneumonia at Kansas City April 25 at age 96; pianist-singer Ray Charles of liver disease at Beverley Hills, Calif., June 11 at age 73; tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet of a heart attack at his Queens, N.Y., home July 22 at age 81; "punk-funk" performer Rick James is found dead at his Los Angeles home August 6 at age 56; punk-rock guitarist Johnny Ramone dies of prostate cancer at his Los Angeles home September 15 at age 55; country singer Skeeter Davis of cancer at Nashville September 19 at age 72; jazz pianist Joe Bushkin of pneumonia at his Santa Barbara, Calif., home November 3 at age 87; onetime bandleader Artie Shaw at his Newbury Park, Calif., home December 30 at age 94.
The New England Patriots win Super Bowl XXXVIII February 1 at Houston, defeating the Carolina Panthers 32 to 29.
The Olympic Games held at Athens for the first time since 1896 attract 11,099 athletes from 202 countries and in 17 days attract 4 billion television viewers. U.S. athletes win 35 gold medals, Chinese athletes 32, Russian 27. Olympic track-and-field star Fanny Blankers-Koen has died at Amsterdam January 25 at age 85.
Roger Federer wins in men's singles at Wimbledon, Maria Sharapova, 17, (Russia) in women's singles; Federer wins in U.S. Open singles competition, Svetlana Kuznetsova, 19, (Russia) in women's.
The House of Commons votes 356 to 166 September 15 to outlaw Britain's centuries-old sport of fox hunting with hounds, called by the 19th-century poet-playwright Oscar Wilde "the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable." Supporters of the ban call the sport cruel, elitist, and outmoded; they vow to force the ban through the House of Lords by invoking the Parliament Act.
The Boston Red Sox make World Series history by rebounding from a three-game deficit in the American League championship playoffs and go on to win the Series, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals 4 games to 0, their first Series victory since 1918. Former Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott has died of lung-related causes at Cincinnati March 2 at age 75.
Las Vegas-based Harrah's Entertainment Inc. agrees July 14 to pay about $5.25 billion and assume nearly $4 billion in debt for the Las Vegas-based gambling colossus Caesars Entertainment Inc.
Billionaire cosmetics queen Estée Lauder dies at New York home April 25 at age 97; fashion designer Geoffrey Beene of pneumonia complications at his New York home September 28 at age 77.
A Buenos Aires nightclub fire early in the morning of December 31 leaves 182 dead and 600 injured.
A Redwood, Calif., jury convicts former fertilizer salesman Scott Peterson, 32, of first-degree murder November 12 in connection with the death of his wife, Laci, and their unborn child in December 2002. More than 185 people have testified in the 5-month trial, which has depended on circumstantial evidence.
New York's 89-story Time Warner Center opens in Columbus Circle February 4. Designed by David Childs, the complex includes offices, apartments, restaurants, a posh hotel, a Jazz at Lincoln Center theater, and retail shops.
Architect Edward Larrabee Barnes dies of a stroke at Cupertino, Calif., September 21 at age 89.
Torrential rains in Haiti and the Dominican Republic create floods and mudslides that kill more than 2,000 people in late May as entire villages are engulfed.
Hurricanes in September kill another 2,000 in Haiti, creating devastation also in Florida, which gets hit by four big blows in less than 6 weeks.
Mountain pine bark beetles devastate piñon forests in drought-stricken Arizona and New Mexico while various other kinds of bark beetles kill lodgepole pines, ponderosas, and other trees from Alaska and British Columbia to California and east to South Dakota (see 2001).
President Bush's secretary of agriculture Ann M. Veneman proposes a plan at Boise, Idaho, July 11 to scuttle the Clinton administration rule that put 58.5 million acres of national forest off limits to logging, mining, and other commercial development (see 2003); the controversial plan would leave it up to state governors to decide how much road building should be allowed through national forests, which already have 365,000 miles of roads in the 90 million or so acres of national forest lands open to commercial development.
The Kyoto Protocol on global warming clears its final hurdle September 30 as Russia's cabinet endorses the treaty and takes effect at year's end despite opposition from the Bush administration. It has previously been ratified by 120 countries, it could not take effect until it had support from industrialized nations that accounted for at least 55 percent of 1990-level emissions, Russian emissions in 1990 were 17.4 percent of the total (they are now lower), U.S. emissions 36.1 percent.
Floods and landslides in the northern Philippines leave nearly 1,800 dead or missing in December; the government at Manila declares a 21-day unilateral truce December 15, and communist guerrillas declare a 10-day cease-fire December 21 in the 35-year insurgency that has killed more than 40,000.
The Bush administration issues new rules December 22 that make it easier for regional forest managers to decide whether to allow logging, drilling and mining activity, new ski areas, or access by off-road vehicles. The rules affect 191 million acres of national forest and grasslands, they cut back on requirements for public participation in forest planning decisions, and they draw attacks from environmentalists.
A December 26 earthquake deep beneath the Indian Ocean west of Sumatra measures 9.0 on the Richter scale, creates a tsunami that engulfs seacoast villages and resorts in 12 countries, and kills upwards of 170,000 people in the worst such catastrophe since China's 1976 earthquake (see 1992). Taking a toll about five times greater than that of the 1883 Krakatoa volcanic eruption and its resulting tidal wave, the quake and tsunami leave millions homeless in Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, Kenya, Malaysia, the Maldives, Somalia, Tanzania, and Thailand, but the highest death count is in Indonesia, where more than 100,000 people die.
Plant breeder and geneticist Oved Shifriss of 1949 Big Boy tomato fame dies of congestive heart failure at Bloomington, Ind., June 25 at age 89. The prestigious National Academy of Sciences issues a report July 27 saying that genetically engineered crops do not pose higher health risks than crops created by conventional breeding, but fears of biotech "Frankenfoods" continue to frustrate efforts aimed at introducing food plants that resist disease and insect depredations, make land more productive, and help ease problems of world hunger.
The United States agrees under pressure at Geneva July 30 to make a 20 percent reduction in some of the $19 billion paid in subsidies to corn, cotton, rice, soybean, and wheat growers. Subsidies and supports paid to their farmers by the world's richest countries have totaled some $300 billion, making it hard for farmers in the developing countries to compete.
The Bush administration announces June 22 that the Department of Agriculture has replaced food stamps in all 50 states with electronic benefits and debit cards for the more than 23 million Americans receiving such benefits.
Physiologist Ancel Keys dies at Minneapolis November 20 at age 100, having shown the dangers of diets high in saturated fats.
Asada Nosan poultry company chairman Hajimu Asada, 67, is found dead March 8 along with his wife, Chisako, 64, near one of his chicken farms in western Japan. Asada has admitted that his company continued to deliver live chickens and eggs to customers throughout the country even after thousands of birds had died from avian influenza; roughly 100 million chickens have been slaughtered in efforts to contain the virus, and the Asadas have committed suicide.
Canadian frozen french fry billionaire Harrison McCain dies at Boston's Leahy Clinic March 18 at age 76; Mrs. Paul's frozen seafood founder Edward J. Piszek of bone cancer at his Fort Washington, Pa., home March 27 at age 87; chef and cookbook author Julia Child at her Santa Barbara, Calif., home August 12 at age 91.
International House of Pancakes cofounder Al Lapin Jr. dies of cancer at Los Angeles June 16 at age 76.
President Bush creates a storm of controversy January 7 by proposing an amnesty program that would give millions of undocumented immigrant workers with jobs in the United States a chance to apply for temporary worker status for an unspecified period of time and be entitled to the same minimum wage and other benefits accorded to legal immigrants. Mexico's president Vicente Fox has lobbied for the idea, but Democrats say Bush has floated it to attract Hispanic voters and it receives little support from Republicans in Congress.
A "March for Women's Lives" at Washington, D.C., April 25 brings out the largest support ever for women's reproductive rights. By some estimates the crowd numbers more than 1 million men and women, many of them from Episcopalian, Jewish, Unitarian, Roman Catholic, and other organizations that oppose the religious right's "pro-life" position; presidential adviser Karen Hughes equates pro-choice demonstrators with terrorists.
The Food and Drug Administration acts May 6 to bar over-the-counter sales of the morning-after contraceptive pill Plan B (see 1997). A panel of independent experts has voted 23 to 4 in December to recommend that the pill be made available without prescription, the 34-year-old New York-based generic drug firm Barr Laboratories has applied for permission to sell Plan B without a prescription, the FDA expresses concerns that young girls may not be able to use the pill safely, critics say its decision will mean more unwanted pregnancies and abortions. Opponents of the Bush administration say the White House dictated the move to curry favor with its base in the religious right.