01|Louis Inacio Lula da Silva is inaugurated president of Brazil in the capital, Brasilia. Da Silva, the leader of the Workers Party and a former labor union leader, is Brazil's first president to come from the country's working class and the first candidate representing a left-wing party to win a presidential vote.|
02|Orangutans, tree-living apes native to Borneo and Sumatra, have distinct cultures that dictate how they eat, show off to the opposite sex, use tools, and even say good night to each other, report researchers at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. An anthropological study, based on three decades of observations, reveals major differences in behavior patterns between the orangutans on Borneo and the orangutans on Sumatra. According to the scientists, the differences indicate that much of the lifestyle of the red-maned ape is learned, an intellectual achievement that scientists believed until recent years was limited to human beings. Scientists uncovered 24 distinct culturally transmitted behaviors, including how nests are built and what foods are eaten. Some orangutans build two-story nests similar to bunk beds and sleep in the lower section to protect themselves from rain. Others build a single-story nest but under a thatched roof. Some orangutans employ sticks as tools to extract insects from trees and seeds from prickly fruits. Other orangutans smash the same fruits and then use leaves to protect their hands as they remove the seeds. Still others do not eat the fruit at all.|
03|A coalition of hard-line parties led by Islamic clerics stages rallies in six Pakistani cities that draw tens of thousands of people demonstrating their opposition to the United States and to a possible U. S.-led war on Iraq. In Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, thousands of demonstrators march through the streets of Manama, the capital, protesting the presence of U.S. Armed Service personnel currently based in Bahraini ports.|
03|Brazil's new president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, suspends the purchase of 12 new fighter jets, at a cost of $760 million, saying that the money could be better spent feeding the country's poor. In Da Silva's inaugural address on January 1, the former factory worker and union leader stated that his greatest priority as president is relieving hunger, a social problem that affects at least 25 million of Brazil's 175 million people.|
04|Cote d'Ivoire's main rebel group agrees to attend a peace conference, scheduled to begin on January 15 in Paris, with the government of President Laurent Gbagbo in a settlement brokered by French mediators. The leader of the rebels, Guillaume Soro, promises to respect a much violated cease-fire. President Gbagbo agrees to deport foreign mercenaries fighting alongside loyalist troops to quell the rebellion, which began with an unsuccessful coup (overthrow) on Sept. 19, 2002. Another rebel faction continues to battle government troops in various parts of western Cote d'Ivoire.|
05|Two suicide bombers detonate explosives in a crowded street in central Tel Aviv, Israel, killing 23 people, primarily foreign laborers, and wounding at least 100 others.|
05|Democrat Ed Case wins a special election in Hawaii's Second Congressional District to become the final member to be selected to the 108th Congress. Case had been an incumbent in the U.S. House of Representatives for fives weeks, filling out the term of Patsy T. Mink, who died in 2002.|
05|President Valdas Adamkus of Lithuania is defeated in a runoff election against Rolandas Paksas, a former prime minister and mayor of the capital, Vilnius. Paksas ran a populist campaign in which he promised to renegotiate the terms of Lithuania's membership in the European Union, particularly rules that would result in cutting subsidies to Lithuania's agricultural sector.|
06|Several thousand members of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized) leave the United States for the Middle East in preparation for possible war against Iraq. Military experts estimate that approximately 50,000 U.S. troops are already in the Middle East, many in Kuwait, with another 50,000 soldiers either on the way or preparing for transport. An additional 20,000 British troops are preparing to join U.S. forces in the Middle East by late February or early March, according to defense analysts, who believe that Prime Minister Tony Blair has told the heads of the British armed forces to prepare for war.|
06|The leaders of the Republican Party choose New York City as the site of the 2004 Republican National Convention. Officials note that New York was chosen, in part, because of the "emotional symbolism" surrounding the city since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in September 2001. New York City has never before hosted a Republican convention.|
06|The discovery of a strange planet is announced by astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The planet, which has a mass similar to that of Jupiter, orbits so close to its sun that a year passes every 29 hours, making temperatures on Planet OGLE-TR-56b "melting hot." The planet, located in the Milky Way some 8,000 light-years from Earth, is the first detected outside what scientists refer to as our solar system's immediate neighborhood, the Orion spiral arm.|
06|French soldiers in Cote d'Ivoire kill 30 members of a rebel faction after the French were attacked outside the western town of Duekoue in the center of the country's important coca-growing region. A force of about 2,500 French soldiers, primarily members of the Foreign Legion, arrived in the former French colony in late 2002 to put down the rebellion, which has split the West African nation of 16 million people along ethnic and religious lines.|
06|A group of more than 300,000 American Indians give a U.S. federal judge a court filing based on historic records in which the Indians assert that the U.S. government has cheated Native Americans out of as much as $137.2 billion over the last 115 years. The group contents that officials with the U.S. Department of the Interior either stole, lost, or misallocated billions of dollars from mineral, timber, and grazing leases on reservations since taking over the responsibility of managing assets on Indian lands in 1887. The court filing is part of the largest class action lawsuit, begun in 1996, ever filed by U.S. Indians against the federal government.|
07|President George W. Bush proposes a new round of tax cuts designed to stimulate the sluggish U.S. economy. The plan cuts personal tax rates for 2003, particularly for married couples and for people at upper income levels; it provides a $400-per-child rebate to many U.S. families and increases the child-care credit from $400 per child per year to $1000; it ends taxation on most stock dividends; and it provides substantial new incentives for small business to purchase new equipment. President Bush also proposes extending for the next five months unemployment insurance benefits to those people whose benefits have run out.|
07|The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush expresses a willingness to talk with representatives of the government of President Kim Jong Il of North Korea about the current crisis sparked by the reactivation of North Korea's nuclear arms program. A Bush administration spokesperson notes, however, that the United States government will not offer North Korea incentives to abandon its nuclear weapons program. International affairs experts speculate that the two strongest U.S. allies in the region, South Korea and Japan, pressured the United States to back down on its earlier refusal to communicate with North Korea until its abandoned its latest nuclear initiative.|
07|Health-care costs in the United States soared in 2001 to $1.4 trillion, $5,035 per person, announce officials with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The 8.7-percent increase over 2000 is the largest since 1991. Experts blame the increase on surging prescription drug prices.|
08|A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Virginia, rules that a wartime president can indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen captured as an enemy combatant on the battlefield. A citizen held under such circumstances can also be denied access to legal representation and other civil rights. The decision involves Yasser Esam Hamdi, a U.S. citizen of Saudi descent who was captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan. Hamdi is being held in a military brig in Norfolk, Virginia. Attorney General John Ashcroft characterizes the decision as a major victory for President George W. Bush in his conduct of the war on terrorism.|
08|President George W. Bush signs into a law legislation extending unemployment benefits for about 2.5 million U.S. citizens. The bill, passed on January 7, is the first enacted by the new Republican-controlled Congress.|
08|A Turkish Airlines jet, en route from Istanbul to Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey, crashes just short of the runway at the Diyarbakir airport, which was enshrouded in fog. Five of the 75 people aboard the four-engine British Aerospace RJ 100 aircraft survive.|
09|Bank employees in Venezuela begin a two-day strike, shutting down all banking services in the country and sending the bolivar, the Venezuelan currency, tumbling on international markets. The strike is a show of solidarity with a nationwide strike launched as an economic offensive against the government of President Hugo Chavez. The general strike, now in a fifth week, has crippled oil production in Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter.|
09|United Nations (UN) weapons inspectors in Iraq report to the UN Security Council that Iraq has failed to fully cooperate with UN efforts to disarm Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. While UN inspectors have not yet uncovered any real evidence that such weapons exist, chief inspector Hans Blix remains dissatisfied with Iraq's declared weapons inventory and believes that caches of undeclared chemical and biological weapons remain hidden.|
10|The government of North Korea, citing provocations by the United States, pulls out of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. The treaty, officially the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, is an international agreement between 187 nations that attempts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. North Korea is the first country to withdraw since the treaty went into effect in 1970. International affairs experts note that the withdrawal heightens an already tense standoff between North Korea and the United States.|
10|The U.S. economy lost 101,000 jobs in December 2002, but the overall rate of unemployment held steady at 6 percent, announces a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Labor. The U.S. economy lost a total of 1.6 million jobs in the two-year period between January 2001 and December 2002, which marked the first time employment had fallen in consecutive years since 1957-1958.|
11|The governor of Illinois, George Ryan, who leaves office on January 13, commutes the death sentences of all inmates on Illinois's Death Row--164 men and women--to sentences of life in prison. He describes Illinois' system of capital punishment as "haunted by the demon of error." On January 10, Ryan pardoned four Death Row inmates on the basis that they were innocent of the crimes for which they had been condemned. In 2002, he placed a moratorium on executions in Illinois after 13 Death Row inmates had been exonerated (proven innocent) .|
12|Eleven people die in widespread violence in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip, following an appeal by Palestinian Authority leader Yasir Arafat for Palestinians to refrain from attacks on Israeli civilians.|
12|Stephen M. Case, founder of online service provider America Online (AOL), resigns as chairman of AOL Time Warner, the world's largest media company. Market experts suggest that stockholder dissatisfaction over the deteriorating value of AOL Time Warner stock has forced Case to give up control of the company. The stock's value has declined by more than 66 percent since Case merged AOL with Time Warner in 2001.|
12|Five U.S. Navy ships, amphibious dock landing and amphibious assault vessels, leave ports in Virginia and North Carolina loaded with U.S. Marines as a military buildup continues in anticipation of a possible war with Iraq. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Defense declines to say exactly where the ships are headed but notes that defense officials expect to have more than 100,000 troops in the Persian Gulf by January 31.|
13|Senior officials from the U.S. Department of State, visiting Seoul, South Korea, express willingness to enter into a dialogue with North Korea in order to resolve the current crises over North Korea's nuclear weapons program. James A. Kelly, the assistant U.S. secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, notes that the United States might contemplate economic assistance to North Korea if it were to shut down its nuclear program.|
13|The total budget deficit for the governments of the 50 states for 2003 will exceed $45 billion, estimates The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan institute that conducts research and analysis on a range of government policies and programs. The center projects that state deficits will climb from $60 billion to $85 billion in 2004.|
13|Senator Joseph I. Lieberman (D., Connecticut), who ran for vice president with Al Gore in 2000, announces his intention of running for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in the 2004 election.|
13|The use of prescription medications to treat emotional problems in children and teen-agers doubled in the 10 years between 1986 and 1996, announce researchers who examined records of nearly 900,000 youths enrolled in U.S. Medicaid programs in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states and a health maintenance organization in the Northwest. The head of the study, Julie Magno Zito of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, notes that the use of psychiatric drugs--including the antidepressant Prozac and the stimulant Ritalin--doubled in one study group and tripled in the two other groups.|
14|The United States Food and Drug Administration halts 27 gene therapy tests involving several hundred patients after learning that a second child on gene therapy in France has developed a medical condition that resembles leukemia. Gene therapy generally entails the introduction of healthy genes into patients suffering from diseases caused by defectives genes. Two of nine boys successfully treated for a fatal immune deficiency, commonly known as bubble-boy disease, have subsequently developed the leukemia-like condition.|
14|At least 70,000 Turkish Cypriots take to the streets of Nicosia, the capital, to demonstrate in favor of accepting a United Nations plan to reunite Cyprus ahead of its entry into the European Union in 2004. The demonstrators demand the resignation of Turkish leader Rauf Denktash, who has shown reluctance to participate in peace talks with leaders of the island's Greek majority. Cyprus has been divided into two republics since Turkish forces invaded in 1974 and occupied the island's north.|
14|Some 17,000 employees of the General Electric Company (GE) of Fairfield, Connecticut, launch a two-day strike at 48 locations in 23 states to protest the company's decision to force employees to contribute between $200 and $400 a year more for health insurance. Officials with two unions claim that GE has no justification for forcing employees to make higher copayments when the company is expected to post profits in excess of $16 billion in 2003. Company executives respond that the company's soaring health care costs, which jumped by 45 percent between 1999 and 2002, from $965 million to $1.4 billion, are making it impossible for GE to remain competitive in the global marketplace.|
15|North Korea rejects an offer made by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush to revive aid if North Korea were to discontinue its nuclear program, describing the proposal as a "deceptive drama to mislead world public opinion." The North Korean foreign ministry warns that the current confrontation over North Korea's nuclear arsenal will end only after the United States has signed a nonaggression pact.|
15|U.S. President George W. Bush announces that his administration plans to file a brief with the Supreme Court asking that the affirmative action admission policies instituted by the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor be declared unconstitutional. At the Michigan undergraduate school, minority applicants are given extra points in a formula that is used to determine admission. Officials at the University of Michigan law school use race as one factor among several others to determine admission. President Bush describes the policies as "flawed," characterizing them as a quota system that "rewards or penalizes prospective students based solely on their race."|
15|The U.S. Supreme Court upholds a 1998 law that extended copyrights held by corporations, including all existing such copyrights, from 75 years to 95 years. The law extended individual copyrights for the life of the author or inventor plus 70 years. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote the 7-to-2 majority decision, notes that while the extensions may be poor public policy, Congress clearly had the Constitutional authority to grant them. The author of one of two minority opinions, Justice Stephen G. Breyer, claimed the extensions inhibit, rather than promote, the progress of human knowledge by granting control not to authors, but to their "heirs, estates, or corporate successors." Legal experts describe the court's decision as an important victory for the entertainment and publishing industries, which will make billions of dollars by retaining control over lucrative properties. Congress has extended the time limit on U.S. copyrights many times since 1790, when the first was granted at a maximum of 28 years.|
16|United Nations (UN) weapons inspectors in Iraq, examining bunkers constructed in the late 1990's, find 11 empty chemical warheads in an ammunition storage area about 90 miles (145 kilometers) southwest of Baghdad, the capital. None of the components, which the inspectors describe as being in "excellent" condition, are listed in the declaration of weapons of mass destruction that Iraq issued to the UN in December 2002. A 12th warhead is X rayed and analyzed for chemical traces. In Baghdad, UN inspectors carry out the first searches of private residences, the adjoining houses of two Iraqi scientists.|
16|The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush issues a directive that allows managed care organizations to limit emergency services for people on Medicaid. The directive appears to reverse provisions of a 1997 law that authorized the states to enroll Medicaid recipients in managed care organizations. The legislation stipulated that such organizations must provide coverage to Medicaid patients in any situation that a "prudent layperson" would regard as an emergency. A spokesperson for the Bush administration notes that the new policy gives the states, which are currently hard pressed by escalating budget deficits, greater flexibility in the operation of their Medicaid programs.|
16|Shark populations in the northwest Atlantic Ocean have declined by more than 50 percent since biologists first began keeping track of their numbers in 1986, announce researchers from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Julia K. Baum, who led the team of Canadian researchers, notes that the numbers of certain species, such as Great White and Hammerhead sharks, have declined by as much as 79 percent and 89 percent respectively. Baum warns that marine food chains are likely to be substantially affected by such a dramatic decline in the ocean's dominant hunters.|
17|The German economy--the largest on the continent with one quarter of Europe's total economic output--grew by only 0.2 percent in 2002, announces Germany's Federal Statistics Office. The 2002 rate of growth is Germany's worst in 10 years and last among major European Union nations.|
17|Saddam Hussein, addressing the Iraqi nation in a 40-minute television address, calls on his people to defend their country against an attack led by the United States, which he refers to as the "Mongols of this age." He also asks the Arab world to "mobilize and defeat the enemy at the gates of Baghdad." Hussein gives no indication that he will step down as Iraq's president as has been suggested by various leaders in the Arab world as a way to avoid war.|
17|At least 27 people in southeast Brazil are killed in mudslides triggered by torrential rains that left more than 7,000 people unable to return to their residences.|
18|Four people are killed and more than 400 houses destroyed when strong winds fan fires burning out of control in forests south of Canberra, Australia, into suburban areas around the capital, triggering what authorities described as the worst fire emergency in the city's history. The ferocious fires knock out power stations, leaving areas of the metropolitan region in darkness, and force thousands of people to evacuate their houses. Dozens of other brush fires feeding on parched undergrowth and oil-filled eucalyptus trees are also burning out of control in the Snowy Mountains southwest of Canberra and in the state of Victoria and areas north of Sydney.|
18|Tens of thousands of demonstrators converge on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to protest U.S. President George W. Bush's threatened use of military force against the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the U.S. military buildup in the Middle East. Protestors stage similar demonstrations in Cairo, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, and Tokyo.|
19|Iraq informs the United Nations that Iraqi officials uncovered four empty warheads like the 12 warheads found by weapons inspectors on January 16. All are designed to carry chemical warfare agents.|
20|The government of France issues a warning that it will not support the United States in any United Nations resolution for military action in Iraq in the coming weeks and threatens to use its veto on the Security Council to block any UN-backed offensive. The French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, accuses the United States of "impatience" over Iraqi disarmament and notes that UN weapons inspectors have yet to turn up any evidence that justifies a military confrontation.|
20|British police raid a north London mosque and confiscate a canister of tear gas and various passports and credit cards. Six men from North Africa and one man from eastern Europe are arrested. Public attention was first focused on the mosque when one of the resident Islamic clerics praised Osama bin Laden and the al-Qa'ida network for the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. A member of the same mosque, Richard Reid, was arrested in December 2001 when he attempted to ignite explosives hidden in a shoe while aboard a trans-Atlantic flight. According to Scotland Yard, the raid on the mosque is linked to an earlier raid, on Jan. 5, 2003, on an Algerian-occupied apartment in London, in which police found a poison manufactured from castor beans. British police subsequently arrested 17 North Africans, mostly Algerians, living in the United Kingdom.|
21|Hispanics have surpassed African Americans as the largest minority group in the United States, announce officials with the U.S. Census Bureau. The Hispanic population of the United States grew to 37 million in July 2001, up 4.7 percent from April 2000. The African American population increased to 36.1 million people, up 2 percent during the same period. According to Census Bureau demographer Roberto Ramirez, Hispanics in July 2001 comprised nearly 13 percent of the U.S. population of 284.8 million people.|
21|At least 29 people are killed and more than 300 others are injured when an earthquake of 7.8 magnitude strikes the Pacific state of Colima. The effects of the quake are felt as far away as Mexico City, the capital, a distance of 300 miles (483 kilometers) .|
21|More than 50 people die in India due to record cold temperatures, which have killed at least 1,900 people in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh since the beginning of 2003.|
21|A epidemic of a yet undiagnosed strain of flu has killed 2,000 people since October 2002 and infected more than 100,000 others in the northern-most province of Congo (Kinshasa), announces the health minister. Health officials estimate that at least 500,000 of the 6 million residences of Kinshasa, the capital, are infected, though no deaths are yet reported in the city.|
22|The fossil of a dinosaur with two sets of wings, one on its forelimbs and the other on its legs, has been discovered in China, announce scientists at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing. The dinosaur was about 4 feet (1.2 meters) in length and had feathers on all four wings and on its long tail. Xing Xu, the paleontologist who led the team that discovered the fossil, describes the creature as a tree-dwelling animal that could glide, much like today's flying squirrel. Various scientists in the United States note that the discovery appears to support a current hypothesis that bird flight began with tree-dwelling reptiles who glided through the forest canopy and eventually turned the experience into powered flight. A second group of scientists contend that bird flight originated with ground animals that took to the air from a running start.|
22|The U.S. Senate votes 94 to 0 to confirm Tom Ridge as the first secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which is responsible for preventing terrorist attacks within the United States. More than 20 existing government agencies with approximately 170,000 employees are being merged to form the new department, which formally opens for business on January 24.|
23|Islamic militants arrested by British police in London earlier in January may have been plotting to poison the food supply on at least one British military base, report U.S. law enforcement officials in Washington, D.C. The theory is based on information supplied to U.S. intelligence agents by British authorities, who uncovered traces of the poison ricin in a London apartment in a raid on January 5. One of the persons arrested in that raid worked for a food preparation company and was in contact with individuals who worked on a British military base. The connections convinced British investigators that the ricin, which is made from castor beans and can be fatal even in small doses, was being manufactured to poison British troops.|
23|The sturdy design of the Pentagon, dating from the early 1940's, saved thousands of people who would otherwise have died in the terrorist attack on the building on Sept. 11, 2001, conclude a panel of six structural engineers affiliated with American Society of Civil Engineers. Their seven-month study reveals that the building's interior forest of closely spaced, reinforced-concrete columns greatly limited damage, allowing thousands of people to escape from harm. The attack on the Defense Department headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C., resulted in the deaths of 125 military and civilian employees and the 64 people aboard the hijacked American Airlines jet. By contrast, nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks on New York City's World Trade Center towers, which had no interior columns and exterior walls consisting of lightweight steel and glass.|
23|McDonald's Corp., the world's largest restaurant company, which is based in Oak Brook, Illinois, posts its first-ever loss, $343.8 million for the fourth quarter of 2002. McDonalds Chief Executive Jim Cantalupo notes that double-digit profit growth is no longer a realistic target.|
23|The first of some 2,000 Australian troops and defense personnel sail from Sydney, Australia, for the Persian Gulf to join U.S. and British forces assembling for a possible war with Iraq. Australian Prime Minister John Howard notes that Australian naval and military units were being "prudently predeployed to allow the military to prepare properly" for possible action in the region.|
24|The Czech parliament fails to elect a new president after three rounds of voting. Lower house speaker Ludomir Zaoralek announces that neither former Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus nor Jaroslava Moserova, a former diplomat, gained a sufficient number of votes to win. A previous three rounds of voting on January 15 also failed to produce a winner, and experts on Czech politics speculate that the current president, Vaclav Havel, is likely to leave office on February 2 before his replacement is determined.|
24|More than 150 Spanish police raid a dozen apartments in Barcelona, Spain, and other areas of Catatonia, and arrest 16 men suspected of belonging to the al-Qa'ida terrorist network. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, noting the quantities of explosives and chemical materials seized in the raid, claims the arrest thwarted a "major terrorist attack."|
24|A blast of Arctic air brings rare snow flurries to coastal Florida from Daytona Beach to Cape Canaveral and sends temperatures to record lows of 37 degrees F. (2.7 degrees C.) in Miami and 33 degrees F. (0.5 degrees C.) in West Palm Beach.|
25|An extremely fast-growing, virus-like computer worm--a program that makes copies of itself--infects nearly 40,000 corporate computers, which respond by emitting thousands of false signals per second. The innumerable signals disrupt hundreds of thousands of computer systems around the globe and overwhelm Internet data pipelines. Software experts believe the attackers exploited a flaw in a popular Microsoft database software that allows hackers to size control of corporate servers.|
25|President Laurent Gbagbo of Cote d'Ivoire accepts a peace plan to end his country's civil war, which began with a failed coup (overthrow) in September 2002. The plan, which was brokered in Paris by the government of French President Jacques Chirac, includes the appointment of a new prime minister, former Prime Minister Seydou Diarra, with whom Gbagbo is to share power in a coalition government.|
26|Israeli forces backed by tanks and helicopters launch a large-scale assault on Gaza City in the Gaza Strip. The Israelis answer Palestinian antitank missiles with tank and missile fire and blow up the residence of a Hamas militant. They also destroy a number of metal workshops, which Israeli intelligence agents claim were used to produce weapons. At least 12 Palestinians are killed and more than 50 others are wounded in what is described as the deepest incursion into the Palestinian-held city in two years.|
26|The Tampa Bay Buccaneers win the National Football League's Super Bowl XXXVII in San Diego in a 48-21 victory over the Oakland Raiders.|
26|Serena Williams wins her fourth consecutive Grand Slam singles championship against her sister, Venus, with a score of 7-6 (4), 3-4, 64. Serena Williams is only the fifth woman in tennis history to hold all four Grand Slam titles at once, though she did not take all four in a single season.|
27|Chief United Nations (UN ) weapons inspector Hans Blix informs the UN Security Council that Iraq is resisting international efforts to ensure that it disarms itself of weapons of mass destruction. He notes that Iraq has failed to account for a wide range of chemical and biological weapons and reveals that "strong evidence" exists that Iraq maintained quantities of anthrax long after it claimed that all stocks had been destroyed. Blix concludes, however, that UN weapons inspectors should have more time to complete their work.|
28|U.S. President George W. Bush informs Congress, in his second state of the union address, that while the United States continues to seek the support of its allies, his government would not wait for their consent to confront Iraq. He points out that Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, continues to show "utter contempt" for the United Nations and its resolutions that he surrender weapons of mass destruction. The president characterizes Hussein as the personification of evil and describes how he has used chemical weapons against his own people and routinely tortured his opponents. Asserting that Hussein is connected with the al-Qa'ida terrorist network, President Bush suggests that Iraq may be supplying terrorists with chemical or biological weapons and argues that there is little distinction between the current war on terrorism and confronting Hussein's "outlaw regime."|
28|Israel's conservative Likud Party crushes the rival Labor Party in parliamentary elections. Likud members win 37 seats in the 120-seat Israeli parliament, the Knesset, compared with Labor's 19 seats, which is the fewest ever held by the once dominant party. The secular, centrist Shinui party captures 15 seats. Political experts suggest that Israeli voters believe that Likud's hard-line prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is the most dependable leader in Israel's bitter conflict with the Palestinians. The experts note that Israelis continue to blame Labor for the failed Oslo Accords, a 1993 treaty designed to establish a framework and timetable for peace in the Middle East.|
29|AOL Time Warner Inc., the world's largest media company, posts a $98.7 billion loss for 2002, the biggest annual loss in U.S. corporate history. A company spokesperson also announces the resignation of Ted Turner as vice chairman of the board of directors. Turner, AOL Time Warner's largest single stockholder, founded one of the company's most valuable assets, Turner Broadcasting, which includes the Cable News Network.|
30|The leaders of eight European countries--the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom--publish an open letter extolling the United States for "bravery and generosity" and calling on the international community to stand united against Iraq.|
30|Richard C. Reid, a member of the al-Qa'ida terrorist network who attempted in December 2001 to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with explosives concealed in his shoes, is sentenced to life in prison by Federal District Court Judge William G. Young. Upon hearing the sentence, Reid announces, "I am at war with your country" and pledges his allegiance to al-Qa'ida leader Osama bin Laden. Judge Young reminds Reid that he is a terrorist, not an enemy combatant.|
30|The U.S. Senate confirms John Snow as secretary of the U.S. Treasury after the former railroad executive assured Senate Democrats that he backs the protection of U.S. pension funds.|
31|U.S. spy satellites over North Korea have detected trucks moving what U.S. intelligence agents have concluded is North Korea's stockpile of nuclear fuel rods out of storage, confirms a spokesperson for the administration of President George W. Bush. Having observed an unusual degree of activity at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, U.S. intelligence analysts concluded that North Korea either was attempting to conceal the rods at a new location or transporting them to a reprocessing plant in order to convert them into bomb-grade plutonium.|
31|A commuter train derails about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Sydney, Australia, during the morning rush-hour, killing at least nine passengers and injuring 39 other people.|
