01|The United States Senate confirms John Ashcroft, President George W. Bush's nominee for attorney general, to head the U.S. Department of Justice. Ashcroft served as governor of Missouri from 1985 to 1993 and as a U.S. senator from 1995 to 2001.|
01|The California Legislature authorizes the state to issue $10 billion in revenue bonds to raise money to buy electricity. The money enables California to purchase power through long-term contracts at prices lower than normally available on the market. California plans to sell the electricity at cost to the state's two largest private utility companies. Electric utility experts blame the current crisis in California on a number of factors: too few power-generating plants in the state; mechanical breakdowns in the transmission of electricity; the rising price of natural gas, which fuels many of the state's generators; and flaws in the deregulation of the state's public utilities.|
01|The Indonesian parliament censures President Abdurrahman Wahid on charges of official corruption. He is alleged to have been involved in the theft of more than $4 million from the government's food-distribution agency and is charged with failing to declare and pay taxes on a $2-million gift from the sultan of Brunei.|
02|The rate of unemployment in the United States rose from 4 percent in December 2000 to 4.2 percent in January 2001, an official of the U.S. Department of Labor announces. The January unemployment rate is the highest in 16 months. |
03|A large demonstration in the Libyan capital of Tripoli ends with four students stabbing themselves in protest of the conviction of a Libyan intelligence officer for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. On Jan. 31, 2001, three Scottish judges, presiding over a court in the Netherlands, sentenced the Libyan officer, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, to 20 years in prison for the murder of 270 passengers and crew members aboard the jet, which was flying from London to New York City.|
04|President-elect Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who is scheduled to take office on February 7, meets with opposition leaders in an effort to stabilize Haiti's current political crisis. Leaders of a coalition of opposition groups threaten to block Aristide's inauguration, scheduled for February 7, because they refuse to accept the results of two elections, held in 2000, that returned Aristide to the presidency and gave his party a majority in the legislature.|
05|The percentage of young gay men in urban America infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, increased from 7 percent to 12.3 percent between the mid-1990's and the late 1990's, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), based in Atlanta, Georgia. The figures are based on studies conducted from 1994 to 1998 and from 1998 to 2000 on gay and bisexual men in their 20's in large U.S. cities. The CDC also reports that 30 percent of gay black men in their 20's are infected with the virus, compared with 15 percent of Hispanic men, 7 percent of white men, and 3 percent of Asian American men.|
05|More than 60 people are injured, 10 seriously, when an Amtrak train en route to New York City from Niagara Falls strikes the rear of a 91-car freight train and derails east of Syracuse, New York.|
06|Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon is elected prime minister of Israel with the largest margin in that country's history--62.6 percent of the vote. Sharon's opponent, Prime Minster Ehud Barak, takes 37.2 percent of the vote. Sharon served as a field commander in the Israeli army before entering politics. Armored divisions under his command captured Sinai in the 1967 war and defeated Egypt in 1973.|
07|The U.S. Senate votes 99 to 0 to pay $582 million of the approximately $1 billion that the United States owes the United Nations (UN) in back dues. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, blocked the payment of dues for several years in an attempt to force the UN to institute various reforms. In late 2000, Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, negotiated an arrangement with UN officials that resulted in lower U.S. dues for the first time in 28 years.|
07|Hate crimes committed by individuals involved in neo-Nazi or other right-wing groups rose 40 percent in Germany between 1999 and 2000, reports Germany's Interior Minister Otto Schily. Violent acts committed against foreigners in Germany rose by nearly 70 percent during the same period.|
08|U.S. President George W. Bush sends a plan outlining $1.6 trillion in tax cuts to the U.S. Congress. According to the president, future budget surpluses will cover the reduction in federal income caused by the tax cuts. The White House Office of Management and Budget projects that surpluses will total nearly $5 trillion by 2011.|
09|The space shuttle Atlantis docks with Alpha, the international space station, 225 miles (360 kilometers) above Earth. The shuttle carries the $1.4-billion Destiny science laboratory, which is designed to enable residents aboard Alpha to conduct experiments on the effects of weightlessness and radiation on human beings. The lab is the size of a school bus and weighs 16 short tons (14.5 metric tons).|
09|A U.S. nuclear-powered submarine, the U.S.S. Greeneville, collides with the Ehime Maru, a Japanese fishing vessel, as the submarine surfaces 9 miles (14 kilometers) off Honolulu, Hawaii. Nine of the 35 people aboard the Ehime Maru are killed, including students from a marine and fisheries high school in Japan.|
10|The first analysis of the human genome--the 3 billion chemical subunits that make up the human genetic blueprint--reveals that human beings have far fewer genes than scientists previously believed. Scientists at Celera Genomic Corporation of Rockville, Maryland, and the International Human Genome Project, a group of academic centers financed by the National Institutes of Health and the Wellcome Trust of London, report that humans have only 30,000 genes, some 70,000 genes fewer than many scientists formerly believed.|
11|Officials in Java, Indonesia's most populated island, announce that 94 people have been killed in landslides and floods in the western part of the island since February 4. The officials warn villagers in central Java to evacuate areas around Mount Merapi, an active volcano that experts on volcanoes believe is ready to erupt.|
12|The U.S. Appeals Court for the Ninth Circuit, meeting in San Francisco, upholds a lower court ruling that the Internet company Napster, Inc. must suspend its online music-sharing service. The online service allows users to make free copies of copyrighted music recordings.|
12|The spacecraft NEAR (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous)-Shoemaker lands on the asteroid Eros under the remote control of scientists at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. The landing is the first controlled descent of an unmanned craft onto an asteroid. NEAR-Shoemaker went into orbit around Eros in February 2000.|
13|An earthquake of 6.1 magnitude rocks El Salvador during the morning rush hour, killing more than 250 people and injuring 2,500 others. An earthquake in El Salvador on January 13 killed approximately 700 people.|
13|Two Israeli helicopter gunships, flying over northern Gaza, launch missiles into the car of a top Palestinian official, instantly killing Massoud Ayyad, who Israel security officials claim was a terrorist.|
14|The Kansas Board of Education votes to restore the theory of evolution to state school standards. The vote reverses a 1999 vote to eliminate certain aspects of the theory of evolution from the state's science curriculum standards. Under the 1999 ruling, school districts in Kansas were free to develop their own approaches to teaching evolution, but the topic was not included on state tests taken by all public school students. The 1999 standards gave school districts more flexibility in presenting the ideas of creationists, who reject many of evolution's key concepts.|
15|Ehud Barak, caretaker prime minister of Israel, announces that he has agreed conditionally to serve as defense minister under Ariel Sharon, who defeated Barak in a national election on February 6. Barak also agrees to bring his Labor Party into a coalition government with Sharon's Likud Party. Political experts believe that a united government offers Israel the best chance for forging a Middle East peace settlement but question whether a majority of the Labor Party supports such a coalition.|
15|The crew of the space shuttle Atlantis sends the International Space Station into higher orbit, completing its final task before beginning its return to Earth. While at the station, the astronauts completed work on the computer and laboratory systems, including outfitting the space station's new science laboratory, Destiny, which Atlantis transported to the station some 225 miles (360 kilometers) above Earth.|
16|U.S. and British military pilots bomb radar stations and military command centers in Iraq. The strikes are the first in two years against Iraqi targets north of the no-flight zone over southern Iraq, which American and British planes have patrolled since 1992. U.S. President George W. Bush approved the strikes, which were requested by U.S. military commanders in the Middle East. According to the commanders, Iraqi air defense stations are becoming increasingly aggressive in targeting the patrol flights over the zone.|
17|French authorities take custody of more than 900 refugees, most of them Iraqi Kurds. The refugees were aboard a ship that was intentionally run aground near Nice on the French Riviera. The French authorities believe the ship's captain, who escaped capture, was involved in a scheme to smuggle the immigrants into Western Europe. According to those officers who remained aboard the vessel, as many as 1,500 refugees, including 300 children, boarded the ship, an aging freighter, in the Middle East. They spent the voyage in the dark, standing in the ship's hold. Hundreds of the refugees appear to have swum ashore after the ship was scuttled.|
18|Rioting prisoners in Brazil's Carandiru prison, the largest penal institution in Latin America, take some 8,000 people hostage, including 72 guards. Most of the hostages are wives and children visiting inmates in the prison, which houses some 10,000 people.|
19|Global warming is creating climate changes that could impact nations worldwide for hundreds of years, announce scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC is an organization, based in Switzerland, that works in conjunction with the United Nations to advise governments on climatic change. IPCC scientists warn that global warming could result in dramatically increased numbers of severe storms, cyclones, floods, and droughts worldwide. On February 18, scientists announced at a American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Francisco that the icecap atop Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, has decreased 82 percent since it was first surveyed in 1912. Climatologists (persons who study climates) report similar rapid melting of mountain glaciers in the Rockies in North America, the Himalaya in Asia, and the Alps in Europe.|
20|Ehud Barak, the caretaker prime minister of Israel who Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon soundly defeated in a national election on February 6, reverses himself and declines Sharon's invitation to become defense minister in a new coalition cabinet. Barak also resigns as chairman of the Labor Party and quits his seat in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. The party's central committee is scheduled to meet on February 26 to discuss whether Labor will participate in a coalition government led by Sharon.|
20|A wildfire in central Florida spreads across 11,000 acres (4,450 hectares) in the Green Swamp 40 miles (64 kilometers) southwest of Orlando, forcing state officials to evacuate dozens of residents in the area and close a section of Interstate 4 between Tampa and Orlando. Firefighters blame the brush fire on a three-year drought.|
21|The Supreme Court of the United States, in a 5-to-4 decision, rules that the states cannot be sued by state employees for violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a federal law that prohibits discrimination against the disabled. Approximately 4.5 million people in the United States are employed by state governments.|
22|A rare gas trapped in carbon molecules from ancient sediments suggests to a group of geochemists that a comet or asteroid hit Earth around 251 million years ago, triggering a mass extinction called "The Great Dying." According to Luann Becker, who led the study, high levels of certain carbon molecules, containing helium-4, were found in sediments dating from the time of the mass extinction. Helium-4 is rare on Earth but common in outer space. The scientists believe that the gas was carried to Earth by an asteroid or a comet. They contend that the impact of the asteroid or comet on Earth triggered massive lava flows, tidal waves, and climatic changes, which resulted in the destruction of 90 percent of all ocean species and 70 percent of all land species.|
23|U.S. President George W. Bush, meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, announces that he does not object to the creation of a fighting force under the direction of the European Union (EU). The president, however, notes that any EU military organization should remain secondary to NATO, a military alliance that consists of the United States, Canada, and 17 European nations.|
24|The Indonesian navy evacuates thousands of refugees fleeing ethnic violence in the Indonesian section of Borneo. Clashes in the city of Sampit, a port 460 miles (740 kilometers) northeast of Jakarta, the capital, resulted in the deaths of at least 450 people during the week of February 18. The victims, migrants from the island of Madura, had been relocated to Borneo in an attempt to relieve overcrowding. The violence stems from land disputes between the Madurese and the native Dayaks. Political experts in the region believe that the Indonesian army and police are either unwilling or incapable of bringing the violence under control.|
25|British officials confirm that the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease among livestock on British farms continues to spread, with cases diagnosed on isolated farms widely scattered across the east, northeast, and west of England. Foot-and-mouth disease, also known as hoof-and-mouth disease, is a highly contagious viral infection that affects animals with cloven (divided) hoofs, such as cattle, hogs, and sheep. Since the first case of the disease was uncovered in a meat packing plant on February 19, thousands of head of livestock have been slaughtered and the carcasses burned to contain the outbreak. British agricultural authorities have also banned the export of meat and milk and prohibited the movement of all livestock. Hunting of all kinds is discouraged, and city dwellers are asked to stay out of the countryside.|
26|The Israeli Labor Party votes to join the government of Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon, leader of the conservative Likud Party. Former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, the new leader of the Labor Party, led the movement to accept Sharon's offer of about a third of the cabinet positions, including minister of defense. Peres is slated to become foreign minister. Political experts believe that Ariel Sharon's success at forming a coalition that includes the Labor Party improves his chances of leading a stable government capable of dealing with the current Palestinian uprising.|
27|United States President George W. Bush, in a televised address before both houses of Congress, proposes that the House and Senate pass a legislation package that would substantially cut federal taxes, reduce the national debt, and revamp Social Security. The president outlines a plan cutting taxes by $1.6 trillion over the next 10 years while paying down the $3.4-trillion national debt by $2 trillion during the same period. He repeats his campaign commitment to reform the Social Security system by allowing younger workers to invest some of their payments into private investments, such as the stock market. According to the president, future budget surpluses, projected to total $5 trillion by 2011, will cover the reduction in federal income caused by the tax cuts.|
27|World population will increase by 3 billion people in the next 50 years--from 6.1 billion people in 2001 to 9.3 billion in 2050--report officials with the United Nations. According to a study released by the United Nations Population Division, most of the increase will occur in developing nations in Africa and Asia. The population of Europe, as a percentage of world population, will decrease by 17 percent; while the population of Africa will increase by 152 percent, despite millions of AIDS-related deaths. Demographers (experts in human population statistics) predict that in 2050 the United States will be the only developed country among the world's most populous nations. They warn that the huge shift in population is likely to result in problems for less-developed countries, which may be unable to feed themselves, and for wealthy countries, which will face a growing elderly population being supported by a shrinking number of younger people.|
28|A 6.8-magnitude earthquake, centered 35 miles (56 kilometers) southwest of Seattle, near Washington's capital, Olympia, shakes the Pacific Northwest and is felt as far south as Portland, Oregon. Officials report that more than 150 people are injured and estimate that the cost of repairing damaged structures, including the dome of the state capitol, could exceed $2 billion. Seismologists (earthquake experts) describe the quake as so deep--at least 30 miles (48 kilometers) beneath the Earth's surface--that the effects are minimal when compared with other earthquakes of a similar magnitude.|
28|Thirteen people are killed and 70 people injured when several of the cars of a high-speed British passenger train, en route from Newcastle to London, jackknife into a freight train traveling in the opposite direction at 60 miles (96.5 kilometers) per hour. The passenger train derailed after hitting a sports utility vehicle (SUV) and the trailer it was towing. The vehicles had rolled onto the tracks from an embankment. The driver of the SUV, who managed to get out of his car as it skidded down the embankment, had lost control of the vehicle after blowing a tire.|
