Iraqis took to the streets after the national soccer team beat Saudi Arabia 1–0 in the Asian Cup championship. At least four people were killed by “happy fire” in the midst of what were reported to be the largest spontaneous celebrations in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein. “Sport brings us together while the heads of everything in Baghdad can't bring us together for five years,” said one reveler. “If the Iraqi football team ruled us, peace would spread in our home.” Each member of the Lions of the Two Rivers will receive $10,000 from the government, but a decision about whether to allot players their own 400-square-meter plots of land has been put off until September.1 2 3
Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Britain of “colonial thinking” for demanding the extradition of Andrei Lugovoi, who is suspected of murdering former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko,4 and Bulgarian medics who allegedly infected 426 Libyan children with HIV were pardoned and released by their home government. 5
Serbians awaiting a U.N. Security Council decision on Kosovar independence told reporters they no longer cared whether Serbia retained the disputed province. “Kosovo means absolutely nothing to me; I have never been there and I never will go there,” said 38-year-old anthropologist Jelena Simovic. “I am fed up with Kosovo. I just want to live normally.”6
A spokesman said that special international envoy Tony Blair would spend his first official trip to Israel, dubbed “Mission Impossible,” in “listening mode,”7 and an Israeli study concluding that hummus stimulates serotonin production bolstered sentiment that eating the popular chickpea dip could help Israelis and Palestinians reconcile.8
YouTube and CNN co-hosted a debate for the Democratic presidential candidates at The Citadel in South Carolina. After a YouTuber asked the candidates to say something they liked and something they disliked about the candidate to their left, John Edwards said that he approved of Hillary Clinton's record of national service, but perhaps not her salmon-colored jacket. Additional questions came from a Viking, a five-year-old, a snowman, and a man in a chicken costume.1
Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney described Hillary Clinton's economic plan as “out with Adam Smith and in with Karl Marx”2 and letters written by Senator Clinton during her undergraduate years at Wellesley College were made public. One described her childhood sense of being the only person in the universe. “I'd play out in the patch of sunlight that broke the density of the elms in front of our house,” wrote the 19-year-old Clinton, “and pretend there were heavenly movie cameras watching my every move.”3
A Washington, D.C., newspaper ranked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi number four on a list of the “50 Most Beautiful People on Capitol Hill.” Other honorees included congressional aides, a Washington Redskins cheerleader, and a police officer.4
Dick Cheney's biographer revealed that the vice president once considered his future post a “cruddy job.”5
President George W. Bush delivered a speech intended as a “surge of facts” to refute claims that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is not connected to Osama bin Laden,1 and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified that no one in the Bush Administration had voiced objections to the NSA's wiretapping program. FBI director Robert Mueller testified that the surveillance program was “much discussed” by other officials, and Senate Judiciary chair Patrick Leahy of Vermont sent Mr. Gonzales a transcript of his testimony and asked him to “mark any changes you wish to make to correct, clarify or supplement your answers so that, consistent with your oath, they are the whole truth.”2
The publisher of Weekly World News announced that the publication would end its 28-year print run next month, 3 and a men-versus-machine poker match showed humans to be the superior bluffers.4
Law-enforcement agents issued decks of playing cards featuring missing-persons cases to Florida convicts,5 a prisoner in Ft. Lauderdale was convicted of indecent exposure for masturbating in his cell,6 and Wisconsin inmates brawled over Woody Allen's marriage to Sun Yi Previn.7
Two Wisconsinites who had locked a seven-year-old boy in his room while they watched a Green Bay Packers game were each sentenced to several months in jail. The couple claimed to have left the boy peanut butter and jelly, bread, and a bucket for a toilet. “What do you do?” the defense attorney asked the judge. “Maybe this coming football season,” he continued, “lock them in a room with a bucket and make them watch Bears games.”9
A blonde woman wearing only stilettos and a gold bracelet bought a pack of cigarettes at a German gas station before climbing back into the passenger seat of a waiting Ferrari.10
A 70-year-old British grandmother was convicted in the honor killing of her son's estranged wife,11 and a Rhode Island cat was reported to have received a wall plaque for his “compassionate hospice care” in predicting the deaths of two dozen residents of a nursing home. According to staff members, when Oscar curls up next to someone, that patient has less than four hours to live.12
Indonesian lawmakers discussed implanting microchip tracking devices in HIV patients,13 and scientists said that obesity can spread like a virus among friends.14
Fast-growing supermassive black holes fed like piranhas on cosmic gases,15 a panel found that NASA had allowed astronauts to fly drunk,16 and a crew member at the International Space Station tossed half a ton of garbage into orbit. “Jettison!” cried the astronaut. “Our spaceship earth is a beautiful place.”17
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