Today in History - January 8
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57 Jan 8, A tablet with this date, making it Britain's earliest dated hand-written document. Archeologists in 2016 said it was one among hundreds discovered during excavations in London's financial district for the new headquarters of media and data company Bloomberg. It was an IOU in which one freed slave promises to repay another "105 denarii from the price of the merchandise which has been sold and delivered."
(AP, 6/1/16)
871 Jan 8, Ethelred of Wessex defeated the Danish forces at Ashdown.
(PCh, 1992, p.72)(MC, 1/8/02)
1081 Jan 8, Henry V, Roman German king, emperor (1098/1111-25), was born.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1198 Jan 8, Lotario de Conti di Sengi became Pope Innocent III (d.1216). He raised the papacy to an acme of papal prestige and power, and Christian Europe came close to being a unified theocracy with no internal contradictions. He oversaw 2 crusades and established fees for indulgences to fatten the Church's treasury. He hired Italian merchant bankers to manage papal funds and sanctioned the new Franciscan and Dominican orders.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Innocent_III)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R6)
1324 Jan 8, Marco Polo, Venetian explorer, governor of Nanking, died.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1455 Jan 8, The Romanus Pontifex, a papal bull, was written by Pope Nicholas V to King Afonso V of Portugal. As a follow-up to the Dum Diversas, it confirmed to the Crown of Portugal dominion over all lands discovered or conquered during the Age of Discovery.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanus_Pontifex)
1547 Jan 8, The first Lithuanian book was printed in Konigsburg (Karaliauciuje) at the printing shop of H. Weinreich. It was a catechism titled: "Katekizmusa prasti Zadei, makslas skaitima raschta yr giesmes" by the Lithuanian student Martynas Mazvydas (200-300 copies). He had been specifically invited by Albrecht von Brandenberg to prepare a book in Lithuanian that would assist the priests in teaching the native language and help spread the ideas of the Reformation, i.e. Lutheranism. It was a small format book of 79 pages part of which was taken up by 11 hymns presented with music. The text was a faithful translation of J. Seklucian’s (1545) and J. Malecki’s (1546) Polish catechisms.
(Voruta #27-28, 7/1996, p.10)(DrEE, 9/14/96, p.4)(LHC, 1/7/03)
1587 Jan 8, Johannes Fabricius, astronomer who discovered sunspots, was born in Denmark.
(HN, 1/8/99)(MC, 1/8/02)
1593 Jan 8, War elephants of Ayutthaya King Naresuan engaged Burmese forces led by Mingyi Swa. One Siamese account held that there was a formal elephant duel between Naresuan and Swa. [O.S. 29 December 1592].
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naresuan)
1642 Jan 8, Astronomer Galileo Galilei (77) died in Arcetri, Italy. Galileo had 2 daughters consigned to a nunnery and one son, whom he got married into a rich Florentine family. In 1614, Father Tommaso Caccini denounced the opinions of Galileo on the motion of the Earth from the pulpit of Santa Maria Novella, judging them to be erroneous. Galileo went to Rome and defended himself against charges that had been made against him. In 1616, he was admonished by Cardinal Bellarmino and told that he could not defend Copernican astronomy because it went against the doctrine of the Church. Later, in 1632 he was summoned by the Holy Office to Rome. The tribunal passed a sentence condemning him and compelled Galileo to solemnly abjure his theory. He was sent to exile in Siena. Galileo spent his last years almost totally blind and poor. In 1999 Dava Sobel published "Galileo's Daughter."
(BHT, Hawking, p.180)(AP, 1/8/98)(WSJ, 10/19/99, p.A24)(MC, 1/8/02)
1598 Jan 8, Genoa, Italy, expelled its Jews.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1656 Jan 8, Oldest surviving commercial newspaper began in Haarlem, Netherlands.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1681 Jan 8, The treaty of Radzin ended a five year war between the Turks and the allied countries of Russia and Poland.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1705 Jan 8, Georg F. Handel's 1st opera "Almira," premiered in Hamburg.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1713 Jan 8, Arcangelo Corelli (59), composer, violinist (Concerti Grossi), died.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1745 Jan 8, England, Austria, Saxony and the Netherlands formed an alliance against Russia.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1746 Jan 8, Bonnie Prince Charlie's troops occupied Stirling.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1775 Jan 8, John Baskerville (68), English printer, type designer, died.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1786 Jan 8, Nicholas Biddle, head of the first United States bank, was born.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1790 Jan 8, President Washington delivered the 1st "State of the Union" address in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1790_State_of_the_Union_Address)
1796 Jan 8, Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois (46), French Revolution leader, died in exile. He was a member of the Committee of Public Safety that ruled during The Terror.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1798 Jan 8, The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was declared in effect by President John Adams nearly three years after its ratification by the states; it prohibited a citizen of one state from suing another state in federal court.
(AP, 1/8/08)
1800 Jan 8, Victor of Aveyron (~1785-1828), a feral child, emerged from French forests on his own. In 1797 he had been found wandering the woods near Saint-Sernin-sur-Rance, France, and was captured, but soon escaped. He was later portrayed in the 1969 movie, The Wild Child (L'Enfant sauvage), by François Truffaut.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_of_Aveyron)
1806 Jan 8, Lewis & Clark found the skeleton of 105' blue whale in Oregon.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1809 Oct 8, Hapsburg Emp. Francis I appointed Count Clemens von Metternich (36) foreign minister of Austria.
(PC, 1992 ed, p.371)(ON, 5/04, p.1)
1811 Jan 8, Charles Deslondes led several hundred poorly armed slaves towards New Orleans in the largest slave rebellion in US history.
(AH, 2/06, p.14)
1815 Jan 8, US forces led by Gen. Andrew Jackson and French pirate Jean Lafitte led some 3,100 backwoodsmen to victory against 7,500 British veterans at Chalmette in the Battle of New Orleans in the closing engagement of the War of 1812. A British army marched on New Orleans without knowing that the War of 1812 had ended on Christmas Eve of 1814. A massacre ensued, as 2,044 British troops, including three generals, fell dead, wounded or missing before General Andrew Jackson's well-prepared earthworks, compared with only 71 American casualties. Among the British victims were Gen. Sir Edward Pakenham and the Highlanders of the 93rd Regiment of Foot. In 2000 Robert V. Remini published "The Battle of New Orleans."
(AP, 1/8/98)(HN, 1/8/99)(WSJ, 1/26/00, p.A20)(AH, 2/05, p.16)
1824 Jan 8, William Wilkie Collins, English novelist (Woman in White), was born.
(www.qub.ac.uk/en/imperial/india/wilkie-background.htm)
1824 Jan 8, Tom Spring defeated Jack Langan in a British championship boxing match that lasted 2½ hours.
(SFC, 2/1/06, p.G6)(www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/spring-t.htm)
1830 Jan 8, Gouverneur Kemble Warren (d.1882), Major Gen (Union volunteers), was born.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1830 Jan 8, Hans von Bulow, pianist, virtuoso conductor, was born in Dresden.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1833 Jan 8, Boston Academy of Music, 1st US music school, was established.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1853 Jan 8, 1st US bronze equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson was unveiled in Wash. DC. [see Mar 8]
(MC, 1/8/02)
1856 Jan 8, Dr. John A. Veatch discovered borax in Tuscan Springs, Calif.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1862 Jan 8, Frank Nelson Doubleday, founder of Doubleday publishing house, was born.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1864 Jan 8, David O. Dodd (17), an Arkansas teenage spy, was hanged by Union forces the grounds of his former school. He reportedly chose to hang rather than betray the Confederate cause.
(AP, 10/14/12)
1867 Jan 8, Legislation gave suffrage to DC blacks, despite Pres. Johnson's veto.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1867 Jan 8, Japan’s Emperor Osahito died. The Tokugawa Shogunate gave up power as a revolutionary movement overthrew Shogun Iyesada. Rebels introduced a representative government under the name of Emperor Maiji (1852-1912). Ryoma Sakamoto, a samurai, helped topple the feudal government system. Ryoma means Dragon Horse.
(www.uq.net.au/~zzhsoszy/states/japan/japan.html)(ON, 11/04, p.12)(WSJ, 6/14/00, p.A1)
1868 Jan 8, Frank Dyson was born. He proved Einstein right that light is bent by gravity.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1871 Jan 8, Prussian troops began to bombard Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1878 Jan 8, [NS date] Russian poet Esenin died. He is credited with introducing into Russian poetry ternary meters and the technique of dramatic monologue.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Nekrasov)
1880 Jan 8, San Francisco’s Emperor Norton died on the corner of California and Grant. He had an elaborate funeral sponsored by the Pacific Union Club at a cost of $10,000. His remains were later moved from the Masonic Cemetery to Woodlawn Cemetery with a marble tombstone inscribed: Norton I...Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. Joshua A. Norton 1815-1880. Dr. Robert Burns Aird (d.2000) later composed a musical based on Norton's life. The organization E Clampus Vitus later proceeded to hold an annual memorial services at his Colma grave site.
(HFA, '96, p.65)(G&M, 7/30/97, p.A24)(SFC, 2/22/00, p.A20)(CHA, 1/2001)(SFC, 4/1/17, p.C2)
1889 Jan 8, Dr. Herman Hollerith (1860-1929), statistician for the US Census Bureau, received the 1st US patent for a tabulating machine. It resembled Charles Babagge’s Analytical Engine, but used electromagnetic relays instead of metal gears.
(www.answers.com/topic/herman-hollerith)(ON, 5/05, p.7)
1891 Jan 8, Walter Bothe, subatomic particle physicist (Nobel 1954), was born in Germany.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1892 Jan 8, Coal mine explosion killed 100 in McAlister, Okla.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1894 Jan 8, Fire caused serious damage at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1896 Jan 8, Jaromir Weinberger, composer (Bird's Opera, Schwanda der Duddelsacpfeifer), was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1896 Jan 8, Steponas Darius (d.1933), transatlantic pilot, was born in Rubiskis, Lithuania.
(LHC, 1/8/03)
1900 Jan 8, The Boers attacked Ladysmith, but are turned back by General White in South Africa.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1902 Jan 8, Georgy M. Malenkov, Stalin's successor as head of CPSU, PM (1953-55), was born.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1904 Jan 8, Pope Pius X banned low cut dresses in the presence of churchmen.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1906 Jan 8, Upton Sinclair signed a contract with Doubleday Page, which published "The Jungle." The hero was a newlywed Lithuanian immigrant who found work in a Chicago meatpacking plant. The novel that exposed the intolerable working conditions in the Chicago slaughterhouses. Early chapters were published serially in Appeal to Reason, a Midwestern socialist newspaper.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R25)(ON, 10/20/11, p.6)
1908 Jan 8, A subway linking New York’s Brooklyn and Manhattan opened.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1912 Jan 8, The South African Native National Congress was founded. It was renamed the African National Congress (ANC) in 1923.
(SFC, 5/7/03, p.A20)(AFP, 1/1/12)
1918 Jan 8, President Woodrow Wilson addressed a hastily convened joint session of Congress, publicly stating the Fourteen Points--his idealistic plan for a world forever free from conflict. Most of Wilson's Fourteen Points addressed specific European territorial concerns, but he also called for fair and generous treatment of Germany, absolute freedom of the seas, national boundaries determined on the basis of language, and the establishment of a general assembly of nations. When World War I ended in November 1918, Wilson personally attended the peace negotiations, believing that with his guidance, "peace without victory" was possible and a new world order was at hand. What he had not counted on was the bitterness and cynicism of his allies, who had lost much. As the negotiations progressed, more and more of the Fourteen Points were sacrificed to vengeance and a grab for land. The German magazine Simplicissimus remarked on Wilson's betrayal of his principles in June 1919 with God asking, "Woodrow Wilson, where are your 14 Points?" and Wilson responding, "Don't get excited, Lord, we didn't keep your Ten Commandments either!"
(AP, 1/8/98)(HNPD, 1/7/99)
1918 Jan 8, Mississippi became the first state to ratify the proposed 18th amendment to the US Constitution, which established Prohibition.
(AP, 1/8/08)
1920 Jan 8, Massachusetts’ Gov. Calvin Coolidge stated: "There is a limit to the taxing power of the state beyond which increased rates produce decreased revenues."
(www.calvin-coolidge.org/html/address_to_the_general_court_b.html)
1923 Jan 8, Joseph Wiezenbaum, artificial intelligence pioneer, was born.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1923 Jan 8, Giorgio Tozzi, basso (Met Opera, Boris, Don Giovanni), was born in Chicago, Illinois.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1926 Jan 8, Soupy Sales (d.2009), comedian (Soupy Sales Show), was born in Franklinton, North Carolina, as Milton Supman.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soupy_Sales)
1926 Jan 8, Bao Dai (1913-1997) began serving as king of Annam under French ‘protection’. During this period, Annam was a protectorate within French Indochina, covering the central two-thirds of the present-day Vietnam. His rule ended on Aug 25, 1945.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bao_Dai)
1929 Jan 8, The Dow Jones Industrials added National Cash Register as a replacement for Victor Talking Machine.
(WSJ, 4/8/04, p.C4)
1932 Jan 8, Joseph Kahahawai (21) was kidnapped and killed by a vigilante group following an alleged gang rape. Thalia Massie, her husband, mother, and 2 other suspects were convicted of manslaughter in the Kahahawai murder, but their sentences were commuted to one hour in the custody of Territorial Gov. Lawrence Judd. They then sailed to SF to avoid a new trial. In 2005 David E. Stannard authored “Honor Killing: How the Famous Masie Affair Transformed Hawaii."
(SFC, 5/28/05, p.E1)
1933 Jan 8, Charles Osgood, news anchor (CBS Weekend News), was born in NYC.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1935 Jan 8, Rock 'n' roll legend Elvis Presley, "The King," was born in Tupelo, Miss. The most popular singer of the 1950s and 60s. Best known for "Hound Dog," "Jailhouse Rock" and "Love Me tender." He also starred in over thirty films.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A1)(AP, 1/8/98)(HN, 1/8/99)
1935 Jan 8, AC Hardy patented the spectrophotometer.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1937 Jan 8, In San Francisco demonstrations took place in front of the German Consulate at 201 Sansome Street protesting the bombing of Madrid.
(SSFC, 1/8/12, p.42)
1937 Jan 8, Nash Motors, a component of the Dow Jones, changed its name to Nash Kelvinator.
(WSJ, 4/8/04, p.C4)
1940 Jan 8, Britain began rationing sugar, meat and butter.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1941 Jan 8, Robert Baden-Powell (83), founder of the Boy Scout movement, died.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1943 Jan 8, The British handed Madagascar over to the Free French.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1944 Jan 8, Sir Edmund Backhouse (b.1873), English Sinologist, died in Beijing. In 1977 Hugh Trevor-Roper authored “Hermit of Peking" an investigation into the life of Backhouse.
(WSJ, 8/18/07, p.P9)
1945 Jan 8, US Tech. Sgt. Russell Dunham (1920-2009) assaulted 3 German machine gun placements, killed 9 German soldiers and took 2 as prisoners near Kaysersberg, France. His bravery earned him the US Medal of Honor.
(SFC, 4/10/09, p.B5)
1946 Jan 8, President Truman vowed to stand by the Yalta accord on self-determination for the Balkans.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1946 Jan 8-9, The Baltic Camp University was founded in Germany by 40 Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian scientists in Hamburg and Pinneberg. It operated for 3 ½ years, with classes over 9 semesters.
(DrEE, 9/21/96, p.3)
1947 Jan 8, Gen. George Marshall became US Sec. of State.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1948 Jan 8, Richard Tauber (55), Austria-British tenor, composer (Lehar), died.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1950 Jan 8, Joseph A. Schumpeter (b.1883), Austrian-German-American economist, died in Connecticut. In 1911 while teaching at Czernowitz (now in the Ukraine), he wrote his “Theory of Economic Development," where he first outlined his famous theory of entrepreneurship. In 1942 he published his fifth book "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy." In 2007 Thomas K. McCraw authored “Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction."
(WSJ, 4/5/07, p.D7)(Econ, 4/28/07, p.94)
1951 Jan 8, A cahow, thought extinct since 1615, was rediscovered in Bermuda. David Wingate (15) helped 2 scientists discover the cahow, aka Bermuda petrel, a nocturnal seabird thought to have been extinct since the 17th century. Wingate proceeded to make a life time goal of saving the bird from extinction.
(WSJ, 12/19/00, p.A1)(MC, 1/8/02)
1952 Jan 8, Antonia Maury, discoverer of supergiant, giant & dwarf stars, died.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1954 Jan 8, President Dwight Eisenhower proposed stripping convicted Communists of their U.S. citizenship.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1958 Jan 8, Bobby Fisher won the United States Chess Championship for the first time at 14 years of age.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1959 Jan 8, Fidel Castro rolled into Havana a week after Batista fled. In 2002 Julia E. Sweig authored "Inside the Cuban Revolution."
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F3)(WSJ, 7/10/02, p.D8)
1959 Jan 8, Charles de Gaulle was inaugurated as president of France's Fifth Republic.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1963 Jan 8, President John F. Kennedy attended the unveiling of the Mona Lisa on loan at America's National Gallery of Art.
(HN, 1/8/99)(MC, 1/8/02)
1964 Jan 8, President Johnson declared a "War on Poverty" in his State of the Union address.
(AP, 1/8/08)
1965 Jan 8, the Star of India and other stolen gems were returned to the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
(AP, 1/8/05)
1968 Jan 8, Jacques Cousteau's 1st undersea special aired on US network TV.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0845400/)
1971 Jan 8, 29 pilot whales beached themselves and died at San Clemente Island, off Calif.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1972 Jan 8, Kenneth Patchen (b.1911), American poet, died in Palo Alto, Ca. He was bed-ridden in his later years from a debilitating spinal injury. His works included "Before the Brave" and "Hurrah for Anything."
(HN, 12/13/99)(SFC, 3/24/00, p.D6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Patchen)
1973 Jan 8, The trial of Watergate burglars began in Washington, DC. In 2006 Andreas Killen authored “1973 Nervous Breakdown: Watergate, Warhol and the Birth of Post-Sixties America."
(www.watergate.info/chronology/1973.shtml)(SSFC, 4/16/06, p.M3)
1973 Jan 8, Secret peace talks between the US and North Vietnam resumed near Paris.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1975 Jan 8, Judge John J. Sirica ordered the release of Watergate figures John W. Dean III, Herbert W. Kalmbach and Jeb Stuart Magruder from prison.
(AP, 1/8/06)
1975 Jan 8, Richard Tucker (b.1913), [Reuben Ticker], US tenor, cantor (La Gioconda), died.
(www.richardtucker.org/Richard_Tucker.html)
1976 Jan 8, In Pacifica, Ca., the body of Ronnie Cascio (18) was discovered at the Sharp Park Golf Course. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed 30 times. Over the next few months four more young women were found murdered, Tanya Blackwell (14) of Pacifica; Paula Baxter (17) of Millbrae; Denise Lampe (19) of Broadmoor; and Carol Lee Booth (26) of South San Francisco. In 2014 police linked the Feb 24, 1976, murder of Reno resident Michelle Mitchell (19) to the Bay Area murders. In 1979 Cathy Woods, a psychiatric patient at the Louisiana State Univ. Medical Center, told staff that she had killed a girl named Michelle in Reno. Woods was ultimately convicted of murder. In 2014 DNA evidence linked Rodney Halbower (66), an inmate at the Oregon State Penitentiary, to the murder of Mitchell and 5 women in the SF Bay Area.
(SFC, 3/7/14, p.D8)(SFC, 9/9/14, p.C1)
1976 Jan 8, Chou En-lai (78), Chinese premier (1949-1976), died in Beijing.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1977 Jan 8, In Florida Walter H. Scott (64), a former official with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, was killed. In 1980 William Claybourne Taylor (b.1949) was indicted for the murder and the shooting of Eugene T. Bailey, a former mayor of Williston, Fla. Taylor posted bond and disappeared until 2016 when he was arrested by federal agents in Reidsville, NC.
(http://tinyurl.com/j86f8z9)(SFC, 7/29/16, p.A6)
1978 Jan 8, The Israeli government voted to "strengthen" settlements in occupied Sinai.
(www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/1978)
1979 Jan 8, The US advised the Shah to get out of Iran.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1981 Jan 8, The "Pirates of Penzance" opened at the Uris Theater, NYC, for 772 performances. Linda Ronstadt (b.1946) debuted Mabel.
(http://www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4088)
1981 Jan 8, Terri Winchell (17) was beaten, raped and stabbed to death in San Joaquin County, Ca. Michael Morales (31) was convicted in the murder and was slated for execution in 2006. Morales said he was enlisted by his cousin, Ricky Ortega, who had learned that Winchell was having an affair with Ortega’s male lover. Morales' original execution date of February 21, 2006, was postponed as a result of two court-appointed anesthesiologists withdrawing from the procedure.
(SFC, 1/28/06, p.B2)(SFC, 2/7/06, p.B3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Morales)
1981 Jan 8, Resorts around Lake Tahoe offered limited skiing and businesses suffered from a late start in the skiing season. It was the latest start since the 1976-77 drought.
(SFC, 1/6/06, p.F2)
1982 Jan 8, American Telephone and Telegraph settled the Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit against it by agreeing to divest itself of the 22 Bell System companies. The ATT Bell System was ordered to be subdivided into 7 Baby Bells by the US government.
(I&I, Penzias, p.190) (HFA, '96, p.22)(AP, 1/8/98)
1982 Jan 8, The US Justice Dept withdrew an antitrust suit against IBM.
(http://tinyurl.com/3e2guh)
1983 Jan 8, In North Korea Kim Jong Il's third and youngest son Jong Un is believed to have been born.
(AP, 12/28/11)
1985 Jan 8, The Rev. Lawrence Martin Jenco was kidnapped in Lebanon. He was released 19 months later.
(AP, 1/8/05)
1987 Jan 8, For the first time, the Dow Jones industrial average closed above 2,000, ending the day at 2002.25.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1988 Jan 8, An Arizona state grand jury indicted Gov. Evan Mecham (1924-2008) and his brother, Willard, on charges of concealing a campaign loan. Both were later acquitted on these charges.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Mecham)(SFC, 2/23/08, p.B5)
1988 Jan 8, In San Francisco Art Agnos was inaugurated as the city’s 39th mayor. He promised not to rest as long as a single homeless person has to make a bed on the streets of the city.
(SSFC, 1/6/13, DB p.42)
1989 Jan 8, "42nd Street" closed at Winter Garden Theater, NYC, after 3,486 performances.
(www.theatermirror.com/TA42sbcp.htm)
1989 Jan 8, Forty-seven people were killed when a British Midland Boeing 737-400 carrying 126 passengers crashed in central England. The pilots shut down the good engine and tried to land with a bad one.
(AP, 1/8/99)(WSJ, 10/3/01, p.A20)
1989 Jan 8, Soviet Union promised to eliminate stockpiles of chemical weapons.
(www.fas.org/nuke/control/bwc/chron.htm)
1990 Jan 8, Terry Thomas (78), English comic (Heroes), died of Parkinson's disease.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry-Thomas)
1990 Jan 8, Military tribunals in Romania began trials of the country's dreaded security forces who stood accused of resisting the revolution that toppled Nicolae Ceausescu.
(AP, 1/8/00)
1991 Jan 8, Secretary of State James A. Baker the Third and Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz arrived in Geneva for the first high-level talks between their countries since the Persian Gulf crisis began.
(AP, 1/8/01)
1991 Jan 8, Pro Soviet demonstrators protested price rises and surrounded the parliament in Vilnius. Fresh Soviet troops began rolling across Baltic borders from Pskov, Russia, allegedly to deal with Baltic youth who have been evading the Soviet draft.
(www.balticsww.com/news/features/crackdown.htm)
1992 Jan 8, President Bush collapsed during a state dinner in Tokyo; White House officials said Bush was suffering from stomach flu.
(AP, 1/8/02)
1993 Jan 8, At post offices across America, commemorative Elvis Presley stamps went on sale on what would have been "the King's" 58th birthday.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1993 Jan 8, In Palatine, a suburb of Chicago, 7 people were shot to death at a fried chicken restaurant. The victims were forced into two walk-in coolers and shot a total of 24 times with a .38. Some were also stabbed and one had their throat slit. Their bodies were found the next day. On May 16, 2002, Juan Luna (28) and James Degorski (29) were arrested and confessed to the killings. "They just did it to do something big." In 2009 Degorski was convicted in the slayings of 7 people.
(AP, 1/9/03)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown's_Chicken_massacre)(SFC, 9/30/09, p.A8)
1993 Jan 8, Bosnian Prime Minister Hakija Turajlic was shot 7 times and killed by Serb gunmen in the presence of French peacekeepers while riding in a UN personnel carrier at a Serb checkpoint near the Serajevo airport.
(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A14)(AP, 1/8/98)
1993 Jan 8, Asif Nawaz Khan Janjua (56), Pakistan’s 10th Chief of Army, died under mysterious circumstances while jogging near his home in Rawalpindi. His widow later accused the government of poisoning her husband.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asif_Nawaz)(www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-14397943.html)
1993 Jan 8, Sicilian journalist Beppe Alfano (b.1945) was killed by the Mafia.
(SSFC, 12/19/10, p.D3)(http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beppe_Alfano)
1994 Jan 8, Tonya Harding won the ladies' U.S. Figure Skating Championship in Detroit, a day after Nancy Kerrigan dropped out because of a clubbing attack that injured her right knee. The U.S. Figure Skating Assn. later stripped Harding of the title because of her involvement in the attack.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1995 Jan 8, "Guys & Dolls" closed at Martin Beck Theater, NYC, after 1143 performances.
(www.theatredb.com/QShow.php?sid=s0398)
1995 Jan 8, The Inner City Church in Knoxville, Tenn., burned down. Arson was suspected and investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1995 Jan 8, Russian forces in Chechnya pounded the capital of Grozny with rocket and mortar fire in an attempt to scatter Chechen fighters defending the presidential palace.
(AP, 1/8/00)
1995 Jan 8, In Sri Lanka the Tigers and government agreed to a truce.
(SFC, 7/24/96, p.A9)
1996 Jan 8, Federal employees who had been out of work for weeks while the government was shut down began returning to their jobs; however, along the East Coast, many government workers were idled by a huge blizzard that had paralyzed the nation’s capital and caused at least 50 deaths.
(AP, 1/8/01)(MC, 1/8/02)
1996 Jan 8, In a low turnout for presidential elections in Guatemala, Alvaro Arzu, a conservative former foreign minister, beat Alfonso Portillo, backed by ex-dictator, Efrain Rios Montt, by less than 3 %.
(WSJ, 1/8/96, p.A-1)
1996 Jan 8, Francois Mitterrand (79), former Socialist president of France (1981-1995), died of prostate cancer. He had been in office for 14 years and helped to make France an engine of European unity and changed the face of Paris with his grand projects. In 2013 Philip Short authored “Mitterrand: A Study in Ambiguity."
(WSJ, 1/9/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 10/24/96, p.C3)(Econ, 11/30/13, p.83)
1996 Jan 8, Japan's Trade Minister Hashimoto was endorsed by the ruling coalition to become prime minister.
(WSJ, 1/9/96, p.A-1)
1996 Jan 8, A Russian-made Antonov-32 skidded into a crowded marketplace shortly after take-off in Kinshasa in Zaire (Congo) and killed at least 350 people. The twin-turboprop was owned by African Air and was overweight when it took off. At least 470 people were injured.
(WSJ, 1/9/96, p.A-1) (SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-14)(WSJ, 11/13/01, p.A14)
1997 Jan 8, Anne Galjour, San Francisco writer and performer, received the 13th annual Will Glickman Playwright Award for the best new play, "Mauvais Temps," produced in the Bay Area in 1996.
(SFC, 1/9/97, p.E2)
1997 Jan 8, The Supreme Court heard arguments on whether to allow physician-assisted suicide.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1997 Jan 8, The state of Arkansas put three men to death in the second triple execution since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1997 Jan 8, Russian President Boris Yeltsin was hospitalized with early signs of pneumonia.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1997 Jan 8, In Bulgaria the ruling party backed Nikolai Dobrev for premier.
(WSJ, 1/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Jan 8, From Israel warplanes were sent on 2 raids to Lebanon after a Katyusha rocket hit northern Israel.
(WSJ, 1/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Jan 8, In Pakistan gas cylinders aboard a truck leaked in Lahore and killed at least 30 people with 900 taken to hospitals. The gas was identified as either ammonia or chlorine.
(WSJ, 1/10/97, p.A1)
1998 Jan 8, At the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Philadelphia, Michelle Kwan received seven perfect presentation marks out of nine for her short program.
(AP, 1/7/99)
1998 Jan 8, Ramzi Yousef was sentenced in New York to life in prison for the 1994 bombing of a Philippines airliner and 240 years for masterminding the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
(www.courttv.com/news/flashback/January.html)
1998 Jan 8, Air traffic control over the Pacific broke down for 16 hours; officials said the outage posed no real danger.
(AP, 1/7/99)
1998 Jan 8, Walter Diemer (93), inventor (bubble gum 1928), died of heart failure.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1998 Jan 8, Sir Michael Tippett, British composer, died at age 93.
(SFC, 1/10/98, p.A19)
1998 Jan 8, The EU decided to send a fact-finding mission to Algeria. New reports said 30 more people were killed in the region of Relizane.
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 8, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin was forced to meet with protestors angry over the nation’s 12.4% unemployment.
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.A11)
1998 Jan 8, In Indonesia the currency and stock market dropped and panic buying hit retailers after the budget failed to address the nation’s urgent needs. The rupiah fell at one point to 10,550 to the dollar and the market dipping 19%.
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 8-9, The US Northeast and Canada were hit with a severe ice storm and at least 16 people were reported killed. Millions of people were left without power in upper New York, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire.
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.A3)(SFC, 1/10/98, p.A8)
1999 Jan 8, By a unanimous vote, the U.S. Senate formally ratified the rules for President Clinton's impeachment trial.
(AP, 1/8/00)
1999 Jan 8, Two top organizers of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt lake City resigned in a mushrooming bribery scandal amid disclosures that civic boosters had given cash to members of the International Olympic Committee.
(SFC, 1/9/99, p.A1)(AP, 1/8/00)
1999 Jan 8, In Bridgeport, Conn., Leroy Brown Jr. (8) and his mother Karen Clarke (30) were found murdered. The boy had witnessed a drive-by shooting and identified Russell Peeler as the gunman. Adrian Peeler (22) was arrested in North Carolina on Jan 21. He had escaped from a halfway house in April and was sought for questioning.
(SFC, 1/12/99, p.A2)(SFC, 1/22/99, p.A3)
1999 Jan 8, In Azerbaijan the first part of an oil pipeline across Georgia to the Black Sea was opened.
(SFC, 1/9/99, p.A14)
1999 Jan 8, George Skiadopoulos (25), a Greek seaman, murdered and mutilated his American girlfriend, former model Julie Scully (31) of Mansfield, N.J. Scully's body was found burned and beheaded. A Greek appeals court in 2002 reduced his life sentence to 23 years in prison.
(AP, 10/8/02)
1999 Jan 8, In Indonesia some 2,000 people rampaged in Karawang and 2 people were shot dead by police.
(SFC, 1/9/99, p.A9)
1999 Jan 8, In Kosovo ethnic Albanians killed 3 Serbian police officers in separate ambushes. Ethnic Albanians also seized 8 Yugoslav soldiers (Serbian policemen).
(SFC, 1/9/99, p.A9)(SFC, 1/12/99, p.A8)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 8, In Malaysia Prime Minister Mahathir named Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (59) as his heir apparent.
(SFC, 1/9/99, p.A14)
1999 Jan 8, In Mexico 5 dissident army officers of the Patriotic Command to Raise the People's Consciousness were arrested. They had tried to present Pres. Zedillo with a letter complaining of abuses of soldiers by army commanders.
(SFC, 1/9/99, p.A14)
1999 Jan 8, In Pakistan it was reported that some 50,000 Pakistanis were being kept as slaves by powerful landlords in the Sindh province. Gov. Moinuddin Haider acknowledged the problem and promised to investigate.
(SFC, 1/9/99, p.A14)
1999 Jan 8, In Sierra Leone Sam Bockarie of the rebel army rejected a cease-fire and pushed to the western parts of Freetown.
(SFC, 1/9/99, p.A9)
2000 Jan 8, During a debate in Johnston, Iowa, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley accused Al Gore of trying to scare voters by misrepresenting his health care proposal; for his part, the vice president said he had not been hiding in a Washington bunker but campaigning on "the front lines in the fight for our future."
(AP, 1/8/01)
2000 Jan 8, The US Dept. of Transportation cited safety standards and decided not to remove restrictions on Mexican trucks crossing the border despite unrestricted access granted in 1995 as part of NAFTA.
(SFEC, 1/9/00, p.A4)
2000 Jan 8, Uzbek Pres. Karimov was re-elected to a five-year term with more than 90 percent of the vote.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2001 Jan 8, Mike Dombeck, US Forest Service chief, outlined a policy to end the cutting of all old-growth trees in national forests.
(SFC, 1/9/01, p.A3)
2001 Jan 8, Pope John Paul II was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
(AP, 1/8/02)
2001 Jan 8, Former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards was sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined a quarter of a million dollars for extorting payoffs from businessmen applying for riverboat casino licenses.
(AP, 1/8/02)
2001 Jan 8, Donna Bailey (43), paralyzed from a Ford Explorer rollover crash, settled her suit with Ford and Firestone for a total in the range of $20-35 million along with the disclosure of internal memos and reports on tire safety and rollover issues.
(SFC, 1/9/01, p.A3)
2001 Jan 8, Advanced Micro Devices announced its new 850 MHz Duron chip.
(WSJ, 1/09/01, p.B7)
2001 Jan 8, In Afghanistan the Taliban ordered the death penalty for anyone who converts from Islam to a different religion.
(WSJ, 1/09/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 8, The Taliban massacred some 150-300 unarmed Hazaras, a Shiite Muslim minority group, in Yakalang.
(SFC, 2/19/01, p.A9)(SFC, 11/10/01, p.A4)
2001 Jan 8, It was reported that Britain was culling 20-30 thousand older cows per week in the mad cow crises and that it would take 3 years to catch up with the backlog for rendering their remains to powder.
(WSJ, 1/08/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 8, In Montenegro assassins killed a senior secret-service officer in Podgorica.
(WSJ, 1/09/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 8, Palestinian’s rejected Pres. Clinton’s formula for a permanent Mideast settlement.
(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.D2)
2002 Jan 8, Ozzie Smith, regarded as the finest-fielding shortstop ever, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on his first try.
(AP, 1/8/03)
2002 Jan 8, Pres. Bush signed an education bill that tied federal aid to test performance. It was the most far-reaching federal education bill in nearly 4 decades. Bush’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program decreed that all students should by reading and doing math at age-appropriate levels by 2014.
(WSJ, 1/9/02, p.A1)(AP, 1/8/03)(Econ, 8/13/11, p.28)
2002 Jan 8, The Bush administration sent a secret report to Congress, the "Nuclear Posture Review," that said the Pentagon needs to be prepared to use nuclear weapons against 7 nations: China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Syria, Iran, and Libya. A furor erupted when it was leaked to the press in March.
(SFC, 3/9/02, p.A1)(SFC, 3/11/02, p.A3)
2002 Jan 8, Dave Thomas (69), founder of Wendy’s hamburger chain, died in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
(SFC, 1/9/02, p.A1)(AP, 1/8/03)
2002 Jan 8, Cecilia Garcia (24) was found dead by her father in the shower of her home in Livermore. In 2010 Bryan Vulgamore (34) of Modesto was charged with her murder.
(SFC, 1/21/10, p.C2)
2002 Jan 8, US soldiers captured 14 suspected fighters at the Zhawar Kili cave and bunker complex near Khost. An al Qaeda fighter blew himself up with a grenade during an escape attempt at a Kandahar hospital. 2 senior al Qaeda leaders were reported caught with documents and laptops, while fleeing bombing in eastern Afghanistan. An intensified search was reported to be in progress for Abu Zubeida (Zain al-Abidin Muhammad Husain), the director of external affairs for al Qaeda.
(SFC, 1/9/02, p.A8)
2002 Jan 8, The Most Rev. George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, announced his retirement as spiritual leader of the world's 70 million Anglicans.
(AP, 1/8/03)
2002 Jan 8, India and Pakistan traded fire on their Kashmir border.
(WSJ, 1/9/02, p.A1)
2002 Jan 8, Iran’s Revolutionary Court began the closed door trial of 15 men charged with plotting to overthrow the Islamic system
(SFC, 1/9/02, p.A5)
2003 Jan 8, Pres. Bush signed an emergency extension of federal unemployment benefits following approval by the 108th Congress. It extended 26 weeks of state aid with 13 weeks of federal aid.
(SFC, 1/9/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/8/03, p.A1)
2003 Jan 8, A federal appeals court ruled that Pres. Bush could order U.S. citizens captured overseas indefinitely detained as enemy combatants without the rights normally afforded citizens charged in criminal cases.
(AP, 1/8/04)
2003 Jan 8, In Charlotte, NC, a US Airways Express Beech 1900 turboprop crashed on takeoff and all 21 aboard were killed.
(SFC, 1/9/03, p.A3)
2003 Jan 8, In Mali the 3rd annual Festival of the Desert ended in Essakane.
(SFC, 1/11/03, p.D1)
2003 Jan 8, Manuel Ciervides Lacayo, the Panamanian consul to Guayaquil, Ecuador, was shot and killed while vacationing in Panama.
(AP, 1/9/03)
2003 Jan 8, In Turkey the pilot of the British Aerospace RJ-100 missed the runway because of heavy fog in the southeastern city of Diayarbakir. 75 people were killed with 5 survivors.
(AP, 1/9/03)(WSJ, 1/9/03, p.A1)
2003 Jan 8, A UN team was reported to be investigating reports that Congolese rebel troops had killed and eaten Pygmies in northeastern Congo. UN authorities confirmed the reports Jan 15 and identified the rebel campaign as "Operation Clean Slate."
(AP, 1/8/03)(SFC, 1/16/03, p.A9)
2004 Jan 8, The journal Science reported high levels of dangerous chemicals in farmed salmon. Wild Pacific salmon had 10 times less than the farmed ones.
(SFC, 1/9/04, p.A2)
2004 Jan 8, Pressure in the Int'l. Space Station continued to drop.
(WSJ, 1/9/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 8, Queen Elizabeth II christened the world's largest ocean liner, the Queen Mary 2.
(AP, 1/8/04)
2004 Jan 8, Chinese state media reported that authorities had dismissed 44,701 police between August and November in 2003 for lacking job qualifications, corruption or other offenses in a campaign to raise policing standards.
(AP, 1/8/04)
2004 Jan 8, Authorities in Georgia's autonomous region of Adzharia imposed a state of emergency, fearing the newly elected Georgian president may try to rein in the province.
(AP, 1/8/04)
2004 Jan 8, India unveiled a broad range of tax cuts.
(WSJ, 1/9/04, p.A6)
2004 Jan 8, In Iraq a US Black Hawk medivac helicopter crashed near Fallujah killing all nine soldiers aboard.
(AP, 1/8/04)
2004 Jan 8, Libya agreed to compensate family members of victims of a 1989 bombing of a French passenger plane over the Niger desert that killed 170 people.
(AP, 1/8/05)
2004 Jan 8, In Kenya a new agreement, between the Ministry of Education and the country's largest and oldest orphanage for HIV-positive children, allowed a group of children infected with the virus that causes AIDS to attend public schools.
(AP, 1/10/04)
2004 Jan 8, Teams of Swiss police in 5 cantons arrested 8 suspected accomplices in the May 12 al Qaeda car bomb attack in Saudi Arabia.
(SFC, 1/10/04, p.A3)
2004 Jan 8, It was reported that Thailand's PM Thaksin Shinawatra had ordered the Finance Ministry and stock exchange to set up a task force to examine the balance sheets of listed companies.
(WSJ, 1/8/04, p.A14)
2004 Jan 8, Turkey and the US agreed to reopen the Incirlik air base for Iraq operations.
(WSJ, 1/9/04, p.A1)
2005 Jan 8, The official death toll from the Dec 26 tsunami rose above 150,000.
(AP, 1/8/05)
2005 Jan 8, An Army platoon sergeant who ordered his soldiers to throw Iraqis into the Tigris River was sentenced to six months in military prison; the jury in Fort Hood, Texas, also reduced the rank of Army Sgt. 1st Class Tracy Perkins by one grade.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2005 Jan 8, Richard P. Rodriguez (29) stabbed to death Angela M. Smith (51) in Tucson, Az. Rodriguez was found dead of a gunshot wound the next day in Blythe, Ca., near the Arizona border. He had grown up in the evangelical sex cult “Children of God" also known as the Family. Smith, a member of the cult, was involved in his upbringing. The cult was later linked to the San Diego based Family Care Foundation. In 2007 Don Lattin authored “Jesus Freaks: A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge."
(SFC, 1/11/05, p.B8)(SSFC, 2/6/05, p.A1)(SSFC, 10/20/07, p.M1)
2005 Jan 8, Hurricane-force winds swept across northern Europe, leaving at least 13 dead including 3 in Carlisle, England, 4 in Denmark and 6 in Sweden.
(AP, 1/9/05)
2005 Jan 8, Indian security forces killed the last rebel holed up inside a government office in Kashmir, ending a two-day battle during which guerrillas took over the building and set it on fire with dozens of employees inside.
(AP, 1/8/05)
2005 Jan 8, In Iraq officials said Militants had abducted three senior Iraqi officials, beheaded a man who worked for the U.S. military and killed at least four others.
(AP, 1/8/05)
2005 Jan 8, The US military acknowledged 5 people were killed when it bombed the wrong house during a search operation in northern Iraq. The owner of the house, Ali Yousef, said 14 people were killed when the 500-pound GPS-guided bomb hit at about 2 a.m. in the town of Aitha, 30 miles south of Mosul. An Associated Press photographer at the scene said seven children and seven adults died.
(AP, 1/9/05)
2005 Jan 8, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo flew to Sudan's troubled Darfur region to assess the crisis there following talks with his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Beshir.
(AP, 1/8/05)
2005 Jan 8, In northern Pakistan at least 11 people were killed, including six family members who were burned alive, during sectarian unrest after riots broke out following the shooting of a popular Shiite leader.
(AP, 1/8/05)
2005 Jan 8, In Pakistan’s SW Baluchistan province assailants fired rockets at wells and a gas pipeline, killing a woman and wounding 14 other people. The attacks followed the rape of Dr. Shazia Khalid (31) a week earlier by a government soldier.
(AP, 1/9/05)(SFC, 3/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 8, Former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry met with Syria's president and said he was hopeful that strained U.S.-Syrian relations could be improved.
(AP, 1/8/05)
2005 Jan 8, Russian troops killed 5 alleged militants hiding in a house in the city of Nazran, Ingushetia, in a firefight.
(AP, 1/8/05)(SSFC, 1/9/05, p.A3)
2005 Jan 8, Venezuela government officials escorted by troops and police descended on a privately owned cattle ranch to determine whether some lands may be turned over to poor farmers as part of an agrarian reform. The owner of the 32,000 acre El Charcote Ranch, Agropecuaria Flora C.A., is a subsidiary of the British-owned Vestey Group Ltd. and a major beef producer. The company insists that it can prove ownership back to 1830. A 1998 census found that 60 percent of Venezuelan farmland was owned by less than 1 percent of the population.
(AP, 1/8/05)
2006 Jan 8, The cost of a US 1st class postage stamp rose to 39 cents.
(WSJ, 1/7/06, p.A1)
2006 Jan 8, Wildfires in the southwest US spread to Arkansas and Colorado destroying 9 more homes. Over the last 2 weeks the fires in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas have destroyed 475 homes and left 5 people dead.
(SFC, 1/9/06, p.A3)
2006 Jan 8, In Washington DC David E. Rosenbaum (63), a recently retired journalist for the NY Times, died from injuries suffered in a robbery on Jan 6. Michael Hamlin (24) and Percy Jordan Jr. (42) were soon arrested and charged with felony murder. Both men were convicted of murder. In 2007 Hamlin was sentenced to 26 years in prison after he pleaded guilty and testified against his cousin.
(SFC, 1/14/06, p.A3)(SFC, 10/25/06, p.A3)(SFC, 1/4/07, p.A3)
2006 Jan 8, In Afghanistan suspected Taliban gunmen burned down a primary school in the southern city of Kandahar, the latest in a spate of attacks against teachers and institutions that educate girls.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, A car ploughed into a group of 12 cyclists in North Wales, killing four and leaving four others seriously injured.
(AFP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, State media said China will invest more than $3 billion over the next five years to clean up the Songhua River, a key source of drinking water for tens of millions of people that was polluted in November by a toxic spill that flowed into Russia.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, The Indian capital of Delhi saw its first winter frost in 70 years as a cold wave sweeping in from the frigid heights of the Himalayas. The death toll from the cold rose to 137 people in northern India.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, In Iraq 3 Marines were killed by small arms attacks in Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad. 5 people were killed in separate attacks in Baghdad, including a policeman killed by a suicide car bomber that targeted an Interior Ministry patrol. Seven others were wounded.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, Almost 500 would-be illegal immigrants have arrived on Italy's Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, between Sicily and North Africa, in the past 24 hours.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, Greenpeace claimed a Japanese whaling ship deliberately rammed its ship Arctic Sunrise, denting the ship's bow but causing no injuries. Greenpeace said it would continue hounding Japan's whaling fleet in Antarctic waters despite the damaging collision.
(AP, 1/9/06)
2006 Jan 8, Jordan's parliament approved a law that prevents Amman handing over US citizens accused of war crimes to the international criminal court (ICC).
(Reuters, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, The US and South Korea withdrew their last remaining staff from the site of two North Korean nuclear reactors, ending a decade-old construction project amid rekindled tension over the North's nuclear ambitions.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, In Morocco a senior official said Royal Air Maroc (RAM), encouraged by its majority shareholdings in the national airlines of Senegal and Gabon, is planning a major expansion of routes in Africa.
(AFP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, The UN envoy to Myanmar, Razali Ismail of Malaysia, said he had quit his post after being refused entry for the past 2 years to the military-ruled country where he pushed for reforms.
(AFP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, Nigeria's multi-billion-dollar liquefied natural gas company Nigeria NLNG said it had shipped the first cargo of gas from its fourth production plant to the US.
(AFP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, The Islamic militant group Hamas launched a TV station in the Gaza Strip as part of its expansion into Palestinian politics.
(AP, 1/9/06)
2006 Jan 8, In the Philippines fire raced through a dormitory in Manila's congested university district, killing at least eight people, including some clustered near a second-floor exit.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, In Tajikistan a fire swept through a home for mentally disabled children in the capital of Dushanbe, killing 13 children before firefighters arrived.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, In Turkey Anatolia news reported that a court has approved the release of Mehmet Ali Agca (46), the man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, saying he completed his prison term.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, Three Turks were reported to be infected with a deadly strain of bird flu in the capital Ankara.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, In Venezuela American singer and activist Harry Belafonte called President Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world" and said millions of Americans support the socialist revolution of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2007 Jan 8, USS Newport News nuclear-powered submarine collided with a Japanese oil tanker in the Straits of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world's oil supplies travel. The bow of the submarine was traveling submerged when it hit the stern of the supertanker Mogamigawa. Damage was light.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger proposed to extend medical insurance to all Californians, including illegal immigrants. He said the $12 billion cost would be spread among employers, individuals, insurers, government and health care providers.
(SFC, 1/9/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 8, Ron Dellums was sworn in as Oakland’s 48th mayor.
(SFC, 1/9/07, p.B1)
2007 Jan 8, A wildfire destroyed 5 multimillion dollar homes in Malibu, Ca.
(SFC, 1/10/07, p.B10)
2007 Jan 8, In NYC an unidentified rotten-egg smell wafted over the city.
(SFC, 1/10/07, p.A2)
2007 Jan 8, In Texas police shut down 10 blocks of businesses in the heart of downtown Austin after dozens of birds were found dead.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, General Electric Co. it agreed to buy oil services company Vetco Gray for $1.9 billion from a group of private equity funds.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, The San Francisco Hyatt Regency, opened in 1973, was sold by Strategic Hotel Capital LLC to Dune Capital Management and DiNapoli Capital Partners, privately held investment funds in a deal pegged at over $200 million.
(SFC, 1/9/07, p.E3)
2007 Jan 8, Yvonne De Carlo (84), TV and film star, died. She played Moses' wife in "The Ten Commandments," but achieved her greatest popularity on TV's "The Munsters" (1964-1966). In her 1987 book, "Yvonne: An Autobiography," she listed 22 of her lovers, who included Howard Hughes, Burt Lancaster, Robert Stack, Robert Taylor, Billy Wilder, Aly Khan and an Iranian prince.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 8, Iwao Takamoto (81), creator of the Scooby-Doo cartoon character, died in Los Angeles. He also assisted in the designs of some of the biggest animated features and television shows, including "Cinderella," "Peter Pan," "Lady and the Tramp" and "The Flintstones."
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, Austria's two main political parties, the Social Democrats and the People's Party, agreed to form a new coalition government.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, In Bangladesh riot police used tear gas, rubber bullets and batons to disperse thousands of stone-throwing protesters in Dhaka, who are demanding postponement of this month's elections and electoral reforms.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, Backers of leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales set fire to the Cochabamba state capitol in a protest to demand the resignation of state Gov. Manfred Reyes Villa, who is allied with the conservative opposition.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, In Finland 2 newspaper editors were fined for publishing a letter that said violence against Jews was justified and that the Holocaust was acceptable.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, In Germany Mounir el Motassadeq, a Moroccan man convicted of aiding three of the four suicide pilots who committed the Sept. 11 attacks, was sentenced to the maximum of 15 years in prison for his role in the terror plot.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, Thousands of poor migrant laborers fled India's remote northeast despite a government promise of protection after dozens were massacred at the weekend by a powerful rebel group.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, In Iraq 9 workers, primarily Shiite, were killed in an ambush near Baghdad's airport. 6 bodies found in a largely Sunni neighborhood in southern Baghdad.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, Israeli police arrested Yigal Saar, the US representative of the Israel Tax Authority, as part of a bribery and influence-peddling probe that has so far questioned the authority's top officials and an aide to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, Daniyal Akhmetov, the PM of oil-rich Kazakhstan, resigned in the wake of criticism of his performance by the heavy-handed president of the Central Asian country. Nazarbayev, who has ruled Kazakhstan as president since its independence in 1991, regularly replaced his prime ministers as he tried to secure his position and balance interests of various powerful elite groups.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, The Nigerian government withdrew a suit seeking to sack Vice President Atiku Abubakar for defecting to a party other than the one in which he was elected.
(AFP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, Fatah gunmen released the deputy mayor of Nablus unharmed, two days after kidnapping him. Fatah militants torched stores of Hamas supporters in Ramallah and shot at the house of a top Hamas official. Agence France-Presse expressed gratitude for the release of a photographer who had been held hostage by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, Rev. Janusz Bielanski, head priest of Krakow's prestigious Wawel Cathedral, left his post amid allegations he collaborated with secret services of the communist era, a day after Warsaw's newly-appointed archbishop resigned in a scandal that shocked the nation.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, A senior Russian official said that Russia has been forced to stop delivering oil to Europe via Belarus after disruptions to the flow of exports it blamed on Minsk.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, Venezuela’s Pres. Hugo Chavez announced plans to nationalize power and telecommunications companies and make other bold changes to increase state control as he promised a more radical push toward socialism. Chavez stated that he had been a “communist" since at least 2002.
(AP, 1/9/07)(Econ, 1/13/07, p.34)
2008 Jan 8, Pres. Bush met with Turkey’s Pres. Abdullah Gul to discuss US policy on Turkey's fight against Kurdish rebels. Bush prepared to leave later in the day on his first major trip to the Mideast to try to build momentum for peace.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, Pres. Bush signed legislation aimed at preventing the severely mentally ill from buying guns.
(WSJ, 1/9/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 8, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger in his 5th State of the State speech proposed a constitutional amendment to keep the state from spending more than it collects in taxes. He said the projected $14 billion deficit was driven by voter-approved mandates escalating faster than state income. The proposed cost cutting included the shutdown of 48 state parks.
(SFC, 1/9/08, p.A1)(SFC, 1/17/08, p.A12)
2008 Jan 8, In New Hampshire Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (39%) led Barack Obama (36%) and John McCain (37%) led Mitt Romney (32%), reviving their sagging campaigns.
(AP, 1/9/08)
2008 Jan 8, Gold futures surged above $880 an ounce and closed at $880.30, up $18.30.
(SFC, 1/9/08, p.C3)
2008 Jan 8, James "Jimmy" Cayne (73), Bear Stearns Cos. Chief Executive, said he will give up day-to-day control of the fifth-largest US investment bank amid unprecedented losses from the subprime mortgage crisis. He planned to remain as executive chairman, and will be succeeded as CEO by President Alan Schwartz, effective immediately.
(AP, 1/8/08)(Econ, 1/12/08, p.65)
2008 Jan 8, Google unveiled a strategy for its philanthropic arm, Google.org, under the leadership of Dr. Larry Brilliant. The program will be funded with 1% of the firm’s equity, annual profits and employee’s time and pursue 5 core initiatives in 3 areas: fighting climate change, economic development, and building an early warning system for pandemics and disasters.
(Econ, 1/19/08, p.75)
2008 Jan 8, Flooding in northern Indiana left 3 people dead.
(SFC, 1/10/08, p.A3)
2008 Jan 8, In Algeria an army commander and three members of the security forces were killed during an operation aimed at flushing out an Islamist group in scrubland in the north of the country. The sweep, aided by helicopters, was intended to flush out a group of 10-15 new recruits to the Al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb group, who were intent on launching attacks on Constantine.
(AP, 1/9/08)
2008 Jan 8, In Vienna, Austria, a court convicted an accountant of embezzling $1.8 million from the Helsinki Federation for Human Rights to support his mistress, a crime that forced the respected group to fold. The 43-year-old accountant to three years in jail, two of which were suspended. His 31-year-old girl friend was sentenced to two years, 16 months of which could be served on parole.
(AP, 1/9/08)
2008 Jan 8, Britain’s PM Gordon Brown said that he wants a 3-year public sector pay deal, rather than the traditional annual deals, to control inflation and maintain economic stability.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, Sohail Qureshi (29), a dentist, was jailed in London after admitting planning to travel to Pakistan to carry out unspecified acts of terrorism. Qureshi, who was sentenced to four and a half years, was detained at London Heathrow Airport in October 2006 carrying thousands of pounds in cash, as well as a night sight, medical supplies and computer material.
(AFP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, Britain's Royal Mail issued a set of stamps commemorating James Bond to mark 100 years since the birth of his creator, Ian Fleming.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, China posted a regulation dating from Dec 31 declaring war on the "white pollution" choking its cities, farms and waterways. China said it is banning free plastic shopping bags and called for a return to the cloth bags of old, steps largely welcomed by merchants and shoppers. The ban takes effect June 1.
(AP, 1/10/08)
2008 Jan 8, The US military said US and Iraqi forces have launched operation Phantom Phoenix to strike against al-Qaida in Iraq and other extremists, hoping to build on a recent reduction of violence and push militants from their strongholds. The head of the municipality of Baghdad's primarily Sunni neighborhood of Yarmouk was killed when a bomb attached to his car exploded. A suicide bomber detonated his explosives at a checkpoint manned by police special forces in the Madain area, about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, killing two members of the special forces and wounding five people. 3 US soldiers were killed and two wounded in an attack in Salahuddin province.
(AP, 1/8/08)(AP, 1/10/08)
2008 Jan 8, In northern Greece a group of female protesters locked in a land dispute with the Greek Orthodox Church defied a 1,000-year-old ban and entered the all-male Mount Athos monastic sanctuary.
(AP, 1/9/08)
2008 Jan 8, Two rockets fired from Lebanon struck northern Israel overnight, expanding the violence that has erupted on Israel's other borders ahead of President Bush's visit to the region. No injuries were reported.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, Some 60,000 tons of garbage were piled up in the streets of Naples.
(Econ, 1/12/08, p.44)
2008 Jan 8, Kenya's opposition leader rejected talks with the president, describing an invitation to meet as "public relations gimmickry" that would undermine attempts to end the ethnically-charged election standoff that has killed more than 500 people.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom (70), the Maldives president, survived an assassination attempt when boy scout Mohammed Jaisham Ibrahim (15) grabbed the knife of an attacker who jumped out of a crowd of people greeting the president.
(AP, 1/9/08)(AP, 1/10/08)
2008 Jan 8, In Mexico 3 US residents and seven others linked to the powerful Gulf drug cartel were arrested following a deadly shootout in Rio Bravo just across the border from Texas. In a second shootout, two federal agents were killed and three more injured when they clashed with a group of suspects in the nearby city of Reynosa.
(AP, 1/9/08)
2008 Jan 8, A human rights campaign group called on Morocco to stop "muzzling" independence campaigners in the vast disputed region of Western Sahara, as UN-brokered peace talks on the 32-year row got underway in New York.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, Nauru’s foreign minister said Australia's plans to close a much-criticized detention center for asylum seekers on Nauru will devastate its economy.
(AFP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, A Sri Lankan government minister died in a roadside bombing blamed on the Tamil Tiger rebels, the first successful assassination of a top Sri Lankan official in 19 months. The bomb tore through the car carrying Nation Building Minister D.M. Dassanayake as he traveled through the Ja-Ela area.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, A government spokeswoman said Taiwan cannot match China's reported $6 billion aid offer to Malawi, but hopes a legacy of goodwill can convince the African nation not to switch allegiance to its giant neighbor.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, The wife of ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra was handed an arrest warrant after she returned to Thailand to face corruption charges that could put her behind bars for 20 years.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2009 Jan 8, President-elect Barack Obama warned of dire and lasting consequences if Congress doesn't pump unprecedented dollars into the economy, making an urgent pitch for his mammoth spending proposal in his first speech since his election.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, The US Navy said a new international force to battle pirates off the Somali coast is being formed under American command in a bid to focus more military resources to protect one of the world's key shipping lanes.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, Dell Inc. announced that it is moving its Irish manufacturing operations to Poland by 2010, as part of a cost cutting measure that will result in the loss of some 1,900 Irish jobs.
(WSJ, 1/9/09, p.B4)
2009 Jan 8, Department-store operator Macy's Inc. said it will close 11 underperforming stores in nine states, affecting 960 employees, and lowered its forecast for the fourth quarter after one of the weakest holiday seasons in years.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, Flooding in the US Pacific Northwest led to mudslides and avalanches and closed 20 miles of I-5 between Olympia, Wa., and the Oregon line.
(SFC, 1/9/09, p.A2)
2009 Jan 8, Rev. Richard John Neuhaus (b.1936), Catholic priest and author, died. His book included “The Naked Public Square" (1984), which argued that religious values have a crucial place in American politics.
(WSJ, 1/10/09, p.A6)
2009 Jan 8, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office said that reports suggested 17 civilians, including women and children, were killed in the Jan 6 US raid in Laghman province. A suicide bomber struck US troops patrolling on foot in southern Afghanistan, killing three civilians, 2 Americans and wounding at least nine others. A coalition strike on a bomb-making network in Zabul killed five militants.
(AFP, 1/8/09)(AP, 1/8/09)(AP, 1/9/09)(SFC, 1/9/09, p.A10)
2009 Jan 8, The Bank of England cut interest rates from 2% to 1.5%, the lowest level since its founding in 1694, taking it into uncharted territory as it attempts to ward off a prolonged recession.
(AP, 1/8/09)(WSJ, 1/9/09, p.A5)(Econ, 1/10/09, p.49)
2009 Jan 8, Britain's Financial Services Authority fined insurance broker Aon Ltd. 5.25 million pounds ($8 million) for weak anti-bribery controls, the largest penalty of its kind.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, In eastern Congo Mai Mai militiamen attacked a group of seven rangers killing one in a government-controlled sector in the far north of Virunga National park.
(AP, 1/10/09)
2009 Jan 8, A magnitude 6.1 earthquake rocked Costa Rica killing at least 20 people with dozens still missing.
(AP, 1/9/09)(AP, 1/14/09)
2009 Jan 8, In Iraq 2 simultaneous roadside bombs tore through an Iraqi army patrol responding to a mortar attack north of Baghdad, killing six Iraqi soldiers. Two other Iraqi soldiers died in another blast near the city of Kirkuk.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, Israeli representatives arrived in Cairo for Egyptian-brokered talks on a cease-fire proposal after the UN Security Council failed to agree on action to end the crisis in Gaza.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, The UN halted aid deliveries to the besieged Gaza Strip, citing Israeli attacks on a UN truck that killed 2 Palestinian workers. For a 2nd straight day, Israel suspended its Gaza military operation for three hours to allow in humanitarian supplies. Israel killed at least 11 people, including three who were fleeing their homes, raising the death toll from its 13-day offensive to 699 Palestinians. 11 Israelis have died since the offensive began. Militants in Lebanon fired at least three rockets into Israel. UN figures said as many as 257 children have been killed and 1,080 wounded, about a third of the total casualties since Dec. 27.
(AP, 1/8/09)(SFC, 1/9/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 8, Kuwait’s top investment bank, Global Investment House, said it had defaulted on most of its $3 billion in debt, raising concerns that other Arab Gulf financial firms may follow as the global financial crises spreads through the region.
(WSJ, 1/9/09, p.C2)
2009 Jan 8, In Pakistan a fire swept through a slum in Karachi, killing 38 people, many of them children.
(AP, 1/9/09)
2009 Jan 8, Russia's state-controlled gas monopoly said it would restore supplies to Europe through Ukraine, cut off after a dispute between Moscow and Kiev, as soon as international monitors are in place.
(Reuters, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, In Somalia gunmen fatally shot a UN World Food program worker during a food distribution, the second staff member killed this week.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, In Spain Leonidas Vargas (60), a convicted Colombian drug baron with links to two major smuggling cartels, was shot dead in a Madrid hospital.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, Sri Lankan troops captured an important Tamil Tiger base and pounded the rebels with air attacks, forcing the insurgents to withdraw deeper into the dwindling area that remains under their control. Gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed Lasantha Wickrematunge, the editor of a Sri Lankan newspaper critical of the government, the second violent attack on media this week. Three days after he was gunned down execution-style, Wickrematunge's newspaper published a haunting, self-written obituary in which he says he was targeted for his writings and adds: "When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me."
(AP, 1/8/09)(AP, 1/12/09)
2009 Jan 8, Darfur rebels accused Sudan's army of bombing their positions over the last 24 hours, breaking a period of relative calm in the country's violent west.
(Reuters, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, In Zimbabwe opposition members accused of being involved in a bomb plot said they were tortured into making false confessions.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2010 Jan 8, In NYC 2 men linked to an alleged Al-Qaida associate were arrested after one of the men caused a traffic accident while under surveillance. Zarein Ahmedzay (24) and Adis Medunjanin (25), former classmates of Najibullah Zazi, were first publicly linked to an investigation of a plot to attack NYC with homemade bombs in September. Zazi was arrested in Denver on Sep 19 after investigators found evidence of a planned attack in his rented vehicle in NYC on Sep 10. On April 23 Ahmedzay pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. He said Al-Qaida leaders in Pakistan in 2008 had encouraged him and Zazi to target structures in NYC.
(SFC, 1/9/10, p.A9)(SFC, 4/24/10, p.A7)
2010 Jan 8, Lashonda Booker, a former Federal Emergency Management employee and her cousin, Peggy, Hilton were charged with stealing over $721,000 in Hurricane Katrina relief money. Booker had worked in FEMA’s Biloxi, Miss., office.
(SFC, 1/12/10, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/yer5crg)
2010 Jan 8, It was reported that YMax Corp., the company behind the magicJack, the cheap Internet phone gadget that's been heavily promoted on TV, has made a new version of the device that allows free calls from cell phones in the home, in a fashion that's sure to draw protest from cellular carriers.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, Art Clokey (88), American animator, died in Los Osos, Ca. His bendable creation Gumby became a pop culture phenomenon through decades of toys, revivals and satires. Gumby grew out of a student project Clokey produced at the University of Southern California in the early 1950s called "Gumbasia."
(AP, 1/9/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Afghanistan two local intelligence guards were killed at a dog fight in the provincial capital of Pul-e Alam in Logar province. A suspected suicide bomber had entered the dog fight and opened fire. Other intelligence officers killed the gunman, who never detonated his alleged cache.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Angola hooded gunmen sprayed the Togo soccer team’s bus with gunfire as it traveled through the restive northern Cabinda enclave. The bus driver was killed and 7 others were injured. The attack was claimed by the separatist Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC), which has been fighting for decades for the independence of the oil-rich territory. The next day media officer Stanislas Ocloo and assistant coach Amalete Abalo died from their wounds. Virgilio Santos, an official with the African Nations Cup local organizing committee COCAN, said teams had been told explicitly not to travel to the tournament by road.
(Reuters, 1/9/10)
2010 Jan 8, Australia angrily condemned an Indian newspaper cartoon likening its police to the Ku Klux Klan over their investigations into the recent murder of a young Indian man. 4 men reportedly poured an unidentified fluid on Jaspreet Singh (29), a man of Indian descent, and set him alight in a suburb of Melbourne, leaving him with 15% burns. Singh was later charged with making a false report to police and criminal damage with a view to gaining financial advantage over the incident, allegedly to make an insurance claim.
(AFP, 1/8/10)(AFP, 1/9/10)(AFP, 2/2/10)
2010 Jan 8, Virgin Money, part of Richard Branson's Virgin empire, took big strides towards becoming a major retail bank able to compete in a battered sector seeking to recover from the financial crisis.
(AFP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, The beleaguered Eurostar train service cancelled half of its trains between London and Paris because of freezing temperatures.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Canada Wiebo Ludvig (68), an anti-energy-industry activist was arrested in Grande Prairie, Alberta, in connection with the investigation into a series of pipeline bombings in northeastern British Columbia. Ludwig had been convicted a decade ago of bombing oil and gas wells. The next day Ludwig was released without charges.
(SFC, 1/9/10, p.A2)(Reuters, 1/10/10)
2010 Jan 8, Charles Massi (57) a former minister and head of the rebel Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP), died following the torture he was subjected to.
(AFP, 1/16/10)
2010 Jan 8, The China Passenger Car Association reported that China overtook the US as the biggest auto market in 2009 and automakers should see more strong growth this year.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, In southeastern China a fire in coal mine trapped and killed 12 workers in Xinyu city, Jiangxi province.
(AP, 1/9/10)
2010 Jan 8, The EU said it will pursue a new deal on global warming through the Group of 20, since last month's UN climate conference of nearly 200 nations led to unwieldy negotiations that didn't accomplish much.
(AP, 1/9/10)
2010 Jan 8, Officials said Guinea's No. 2 leader, Gen. Sekouba Konate, is going to Senegal for medical treatment for cirrhosis of the liver, heightening fears of a power vacuum since the country's president is already hospitalized in Morocco following an assassination attempt. Guinea's Health Minister denied reports that the nation's No. 2 leader was heading to Senegal to be hospitalized, rejecting rumors he was being evacuated for a medical emergency.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, Israeli airstrikes against targets in Gaza killed three men in a smuggling tunnel along the Gaza-Egypt border.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, Israeli cooks doubled the previous record for the world's biggest serving of hummus, set in October by cooks in Lebanon. An adjudicator sent from London by Guinness World Records, Jack Brockbank, confirmed that Israeli chefs now held the record for hummus. He put the exact amount of hummus in a giant satellite dish at 9,017 pounds (4,090 kg).
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Italy at least 37 people were wounded in Rosarno, following clashes between the migrants, police and local residents. The wounded included 5 migrants, 14 residents and 18 police officers.
(AP, 1/9/10)
2010 Jan 8, Government forces in Indian Kashmir killed two suspected rebels in a gunbattle. The fighting started after troops cordoned off a house in Khrew village after receiving a tip that suspected militants were hiding there.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Malaysia 3 churches were attacked with firebombs, causing extensive damage to one, as Muslims pledged to prevent Christians from using the word "Allah," escalating religious tensions in the multiracial country. On Aug 13 a Malaysian court sentenced two Muslim brothers to five years in prison for torching a Christian church during the height of the dispute.
(AP, 1/8/10)(AP, 8/13/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Mexico a major regional newspaper in the northern city of Saltillo announced it would stop covering drug violence altogether after the body of a reporter was found outside a motel with a threatening message. Valentin Valdes (28) had written about the Dec. 29 arrests at the Marbella Motel of five alleged members of the Gulf drug cartel. He also covered the arrests on Jan 6 of five others who barged into the same hotel and stole the surveillance tapes. All 60 policemen in the embattled town of Tancitaro were fired because they had failed to stop a series of killings and other crimes. Michoacan state police and soldiers planned to take over security duties in the town. In Ciudad Juarez a man's body was found on a street with its hands and head cut off. Another man's body, with its head cut off and eyes gouged out, was found elsewhere in the city and two women's bodies were found in a vacant lot. The body of a man whose legs had been surgically amputated some time ago was also found on a dirt road on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez. A man riding a bicycle was shot to death in the city. 5 people were killed in drive-by shootings and a group of 3 men were shot to death at a fast-food restaurant near a school.
(AP, 1/8/10)(AP, 1/9/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Nigeria a crude-oil pipeline operated by Chevron was attacked by unknown gunmen in the Niger Delta region.
(AFP, 1/9/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Pakistan a US missile strike killed 4 militants in North Waziristan, as US Senator John McCain, visiting Islamabad, defended the attacks which fuel anti-American sentiment in the Muslim nation. 8 suspected insurgents were killed when explosives intended for a bomb attack accidentally blew up, destroying a militant safe house in Karachi.
(AFP, 1/8/10)(SFC, 1/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Jan 8, Portugal's parliament passed a bill that would make the predominantly Catholic nation the sixth in Europe to permit gay marriage.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Puerto Rico officials said they have killed 800 monkeys blamed for scavenging crops and damaging natural resources in southwest region. Most of those killed were patas monkeys. About 200 rhesus monkeys were sent to the Caribbean Primate Research Center at the University of Puerto Rico and to other countries. The monkeys had escaped from research labs in the 1960s and '70s.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, An avalanche in Russia's southern Caucasus mountain range killed five climbers including an instructor. The novice climbers, all from Moscow or St. Petersburg had undergone an intensive, six-day training course in the climbing base of Bezengi, in the province of Kabardino-Balkaria. Four climbers in a party of nine survived the snow slide, which struck as they were ascending the Gedan-tau peak.
(AP, 1/9/10)
2010 Jan 8, Steven Lin of Hsinchu-based Heli-Ocean Technology, a Taiwanese company, said his company had agreed to a request from a firm in China to procure sensitive components with nuclear uses, then shipped them to Iran. Such transactions violate UN sanctions imposed on the Middle Eastern nation. Lin said he received an Internet order from a Chinese firm in January or February 2008 to obtain an unspecified number of pressure transducers, which convert pressure into analog electrical signals.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, Venezuela’s Pres. Chavez issued a presidential decree devaluing the currency by up to 50%.
(Econ, 1/16/10, p.39)
2010 Jan 8, Venezuela’s Pres. Chavez issued a presidential decree devaluing the currency by up to 50%. Finance minister Ali Rodriguez admitted that this would boost the inflation rate, 27% last year, by 3-5 percentage points.
(Econ, 1/16/10, p.39)
2011 Jan 8, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (40) of Arizona was shot in the head when an assailant opened fire outside a grocery store during a meeting with constituents in Tucson. The dead included US District Judge John Roll (63); Christina Greene (9); Giffords aide Gabe Zimmerman (30); Dorothy Morris (76); Dorwin Stoddard (76); and Phyllis Scheck (79). 9 others were wounded. Giffords underwent a two-hour surgery and remained unconscious. The shooter was in custody and was identified as Jared Loughner (22). On May 25 a federal judge declared that Loughner was incompetent to stand trial. Loughner, who has schizophrenia, was forcibly medicated at a Missouri prison medical facility so he can be competent to understand the charges against him. On Nov 8, 2012, he was ordered to serve the seven consecutive life sentences, plus 140 years in federal prison for the shootings.
(AP, 1/8/11)(AP, 1/9/11)(SFC, 5/26/11, p.A7) (AP, 11/8/12)
2011 Jan 8, The San Francisco Board of Supervisors picked Supervisor David Chiu to serve a 2nd term as board president.
(SSFC, 1/9/11, p.A1)
2011 Jan 8, In Los Angeles a 2nd suspect was arrested regarding videotaped sexual assaults of profoundly disabled women at a residential care facility. As many as 10 suspects were possibly involved.
(SFC, 1/10/11, p.A4)
2011 Jan 8, In South Dakota Republican Dennis Daugaard (b.1953) began serving as state governor. By Fall of 2014 he repealed 3,724 regulations.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Daugaard)(Econ, 8/30/14, p.27)
2011 Jan 8, In Afghanistan 3 civilians, including a child, were killed in crossfire as militants battled NATO forces in Helmand province. 2 civilians were killed and three wounded when a rocket struck their home in Helmand. A roadside bomb killed a coalition soldier in the east.
(AP, 1/9/11)(SSFC, 1/9/11, p.A5)
2011 Jan 8, In Algeria Fresh protests erupted against soaring food prices as the government considered measures to limit the cost of staple foodstuffs to quell the unrest. 2 people were already dead and 400 injured in protests across the country since Jan 6. The government announced that it will cut the cost of sugar and cooking oil.
(Reuters, 1/8/11)(SSFC, 1/9/11, p.A5)
2011 Jan 8, In Australia almost a foot of rain in just a few hours renewed flood fears in the already waterlogged Queensland state, sending a surging river over its banks and into another large town. Some 20 buildings in Maryborough, where about 22,000 people live, were expected to be flooded after the river burst its banks in the overnight downpour.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 8, Investigators told Brazil’s G1 news website that 2 brothers have been charged with killing their father, a local Afro-Brazilian religious leader, by knocking him out with sleeping pills and then burying him alive in Maranhao state. The brothers told police their father was a violent man who drank too much and didn't accept their homosexuality.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 8, Former Czech foreign minister Jiri Dienstbier (b.1937) died. The reporter turned dissident had joined Vaclav Havel to help topple one of East Europe's most repressive regimes, and then served under Havel in Czechoslovakia's first post-communist government.
(AP, 1/9/11)
2011 Jan 8, France’s Pres. Sarkozy said 2 French hostages, kidnapped a day earlier in the Niger capital Niamey, were killed by their captors despite a rescue attempt by French forces.
(SSFC, 1/9/11, p.A5)
2011 Jan 8, A spokesman for Germany's Agriculture Ministry said an overly high concentration of cancer-causing dioxin has for the first time been detected in samples of meat following the discovery that farm animals were fed contaminated feed.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 8, India said at least 22 people, many of them homeless, have died over the past three days in Uttar Pradesh state, pushing the death toll from two weeks of cold weather to 63.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 8, In India a 2-day cricket player auction for the Indian Premier League was watched by some 19 million people. 127 cricketers were sold for $62 million.
(Econ, 1/15/11, p.70)
2011 Jan 8, Iran hanged 4 convicted drug traffickers in a prison in the central city of Isfahan. At least 179 people were executed in 2010.
(AFP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 8, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian who tried to throw explosives at a West Bank checkpoint. A mortar attack from Gaza wounded 2 Thai workers in southern Israel.
(AP, 1/8/11)(SSFC, 1/9/11, p.A5)
2011 Jan 8, An Italian association for bird protection said that over 700 dead birds have been picked up since Jan. 1 from the streets of Faenza, about 30 miles (50 km) southeast of Bologna. They appeared to have overeaten sunflower seeds, which damage their livers and kidneys. The seeds were mostly waste from a nearby oil factory.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 8, Mexican police found the headless bodies of 14 men and a 15th intact corpse outside a shopping center in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco. Narco-messages indicated the Sinaloa cartel killed the 15 men for trying to intrude on the gang's turf and extort residents. Also killed in Acapulco were two police officers; six people shot dead and stuffed in a taxi, their hands and feet bound; and four others elsewhere in the city. 10 people were kidnapped from a local discotheque. 3 of their bodies were found the next day. In Mexico City four young men were killed in a drive by shooting outside a grocery store.
(AP, 1/8/11)(AP, 1/9/11)(AFP, 1/9/11)
2011 Jan 8, In Nigeria at least 11 people died around Jos from religious violence and a political rally gone awry.
(AP, 1/9/11)
2011 Jan 8, North Korea reiterated a proposal for unconditional talks with South Korea to ease tensions on the divided peninsula.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 8, In Spain tens of thousands of people marched in the Basque region to protest the government policy of shipping separatist prisoners convicted of terror to jails far from their homes.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 8, In Sudan 6 people were killed in clashes between rebel militias and south Sudan's army over the last 24 hours, a day before a referendum in which the south is expected to vote for independence. A spokesman for the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) said his forces ambushed fighters loyal to militia leader Galwak Gai in oil-producing Unity state on Jan 7 and Gai's men launched a counter-attack on Jan 8. Gai was among several southern militia leaders who rebelled after April elections, accusing the south's government of fraud. In Jonglei state deadly clashes between men commanded by militia leader David Yauyau and the southern military left at least one civilian dead.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 8, In Tunisia at least 10 people were killed in rioting in the western towns of Thala and Kasserine. 4 people died in the central-western town of Regueb. The opposition said at least 20 people were killed Thala and Kasserine.
(AP, 1/9/11)(AP, 1/10/11)
2012 Jan 8, In California animal rights arsonists destroyed 14 cattle trucks at the Harris Ranch of I-5.
(SFC, 1/11/12, p.C3)
2012 Jan 8, Brandy Fonteneaux (28), a US Army Specialist, was found dead in her room. She had been stabbed 74 times in her barracks on Fort Carson, Colorado, by fellow soldier Army Sgt. Vincinte Jackson (40). On Dec 13 Jackson was convicted of unpremeditated murder.
(http://tinyurl.com/b4g9rec)(SFC, 12/14/12, p.A11)
2012 Jan 8, In Mississippi 4 convicted killers were released from prison following reprieves of 198 inmates by outgoing Gov. Haley Barbour. Only 26 of those pardoned were still in prison. On march 8, 2012, the state Supreme Court upheld the pardons.
(SFC, 1/10/12, p.A5)(SFC, 1/12/12, p.A6)(Econ, 1/21/12, p.36)(SFC, 3/9/12, p.A6)
2012 Jan 8, The Consumer Electronics Show opened in Las Vegas. South Korea-based Samsung and LG introduced their new 55-inch organic light emitting diode (OLED) HDTVs.
(SFC, 3/15/12, p.D2)
2012 Jan 8, Wildlife officials said white-tailed deer populations in parts of eastern Montana and elsewhere in the Northern Plains could take years to recover from a devastating disease that killed thousands of the animals in recent months. The deaths were attributed to an outbreak of epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD), transmitted by biting midges.
(AP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, An Afghan soldier shot dead a NATO colleague and was himself killed when a dispute ended in a shoot-out.
(AFP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, Algeria said it is to buy a 51-percent stake in mobile phone operator Djezzy, after talks with Russian telecoms firm Vimpelcom, the main shareholder in the group's Egyptian parent company. Djezzy is the largest mobile operator in Algeria, claiming with over 16 million subscribers last August. It has been operating in Algeria since 2002.
(AFP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, The anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd said three Australian activists were being held as "prisoners" by the Japanese harpoon fleet after sneaking aboard one of their vessels overnight to protest. The activists were transferred to an Australian customs vessel on Jan 13.
(AFP, 1/8/12)(AP, 1/13/12)
2012 Jan 8, Britain’s PM David Cameron said he would veto a European-wide financial transaction tax unless it was imposed globally, deepening a confrontation with European Union heavyweights France and Germany. Cameron also suggested that legislation to curb excessive executive pay, including giving shareholders new voting powers, could be set out in the spring.
(Reuters, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, In Chile the family home of one of a top Indian leader was destroyed in a suspicious fire. Hours later, hooded gunmen attacked the home of a retired military official and set it ablaze in the southern Araucania region where Mapuche Indians and Chile's largest forestry companies have been mired in land conflicts.
(AP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, In China a monk named Sopa (42) died after drinking kerosene and throwing it over his body. His body exploded in pieces before police took it away in Dari county in Qinghai province. Xinhua News Agency identified the dead monk as Nyage Sonamdrugyu. The reason for the discrepancy in identification was not known.
(AP, 1/9/12)
2012 Jan 8, A leading Iranian hardline newspaper reported Iran has begun uranium enrichment at the Fordo facility near the holy city of Qom, well protected from possible airstrikes. Another newspaper quoted a senior commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guard force as saying Tehran's leadership has decided to order the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic oil route, if the country's petroleum exports are blocked.
(AP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, Iraq's Shiite-led government has formally demanded that authorities in the semiautonomous Kurdish region hand over the country's top Sunni official, who is wanted on terrorism charges. Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi has denied the allegations and says he cannot get a fair trial in Baghdad.
(AP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, Yair Lapid (48), one of Israel's most popular television personalities, quit the news business to start his own political party, a move that could shake up the Israeli political system by energizing opposition to PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
(AP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, Israeli police arrested 3 more men in a suspected pedophilia ring thought to have preyed on dozens of Jerusalem children. The ring is suspected of molesting 70 children between the ages of 2 and 7 in their religious Jewish neighborhood.
(AP, 1/9/12)
2012 Jan 8, Israel charged five alleged Jewish extremists over a December 12 raid on an army base, accusing them of gathering intelligence on the Israeli military and planning a riot.
(AFP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, Kuwait’s interior minister said in remarks published that Kuwait will start granting citizenship to some stateless people by early February.
(AFP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, In New Zealand the cargo ship Rena, which caused New Zealand's worst maritime pollution disaster when it ran aground three months ago, broke in two in a storm, raising fears of a fresh environmental crisis.
(AFP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, In Nigeria gunmen attacked a military vehicle in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state. The attack killed three civilians and wounded six civilians and one soldier.
(AP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, South Korean police detained a Chinese man (38) accused of throwing petrol bombs at the Japanese embassy in Seoul after claiming his grandmother was forced into wartime sex slavery.
(AFP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, In Sudan 3 people were killed and several injured during a stampede after police fired tear gas at an Independence Day celebration in the Sennar state capital of Singa.
(AFP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, Syrian security forces conducting raids on homes and pro-regime snipers on rooftops killed at least 10 civilians, including 2 teenagers, most of them in the central city of Homs. Fierce clashes in Basr al-Harir, southern Daraa province, between government troops and military defectors left 11 soldiers dead.
(AP, 1/8/12)(AP, 1/9/12)
2012 Jan 8, Yemeni troops clashed with Al-Qaeda linked militants overnight in a new attempt to regain control of Abyan province. A soldier and six militants were killed in the fighting.
(AFP, 1/8/12)
2013 Jan 8, In northern Afghanistan gunmen killed two local government officials in separate attacks in Kunduz province.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, A court in Algiers convicted Amar Gharbia (39) of taking part in the 2003 kidnapping of 15 European tourists, mainly German, in the Sahara Desert and sentenced him to life in prison. Youcef Ben Mohamed (25) of Mali was also convicted and imprisoned for seven years. Both belonged to the Salafist Group for Call and Combat which later transformed into al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, In London 2 former employees of HBOS were charged by UK prosecutors over business loans made through a high street bank for about 35 million pounds.
(Reuters, 1/9/13)
2013 Jan 8, Pro-British protesters pelted police with petrol bombs and fireworks in a sixth successive night of rioting in Northern Ireland's capital of Belfast.
(Reuters, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, A Canadian federal court ruled that 200,000 Metis and 400,000 First nations’ people living outside reserves should also be considered to be Indians under the constitution.
(Econ, 1/19/13, p.38)
2013 Jan 8, In China free-speech protesters in masks squared off against flag-waving communist loyalists in Guangzhou as a dispute over censorship at a newspaper spilled into the broader population, with authorities shutting microblog accounts of supporters of the paper.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, A European court ruled that Italy's woefully overcrowded prisons violate the basic rights of inmates, fined the government €100,000 ($131,000) and ordered it to make changes within a year. The finding came three years after Italy's government recognized the problem itself but failed to pass legislation designed to correct it.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, A Paris court convicted nine people for links to a militant group that the UN Security Council has described as an al-Qaida affiliate. Suspected ringleader, Irfan Demirtas (53), a Turkish-Dutch national, was given an eight-year sentence, €20,000 ($26,170) fine and barred from French territory after his sentence is up.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, A lawyer for former detainees of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq said 71 former detainees received a portion of a $5.28 million settlement involving US defense contractor Engility Holdings. The company’s L-3 Services subsidiary was accused of conspiring to torture the detainees.
(SFC, 1/9/13, p.A3)
2013 Jan 8, The Japanese government summoned China's ambassador to protest four Chinese maritime surveillance ships that spent about 13 hours in waters near disputed islands claimed by both countries.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, In Jordan Syrian refugees in a refugee camp attacked aid workers with sticks and stones, frustrated after cold, howling winds swept away their tents and torrential rains flooded muddy streets overnight.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, Kenya’s The National Police Service Commission suspended three senior police officers from the Rift Valley province where Joshua Waiganjo (34) operated as a fake officer extorting money from civilians. Commission Chairman Johnston Kavuludi said Waiganjo's case has prompted a detailed audit of all police to weed out "ghost" officers.
(AP, 1/9/13)
2013 Jan 8, An Indian army official said Pakistani soldiers crossed the cease-fire line in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir and attacked an army patrol, killing two Indian soldiers before retreating back into Pakistani-controlled territory.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, In Nigeria a massive fire tore through a waterfront slum in Lagos, burning down dozens of shack workshops and homes. There were no firefighters, trucks or emergency equipment seen in the neighborhood.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, Students at North Korea's premier university showed Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt how they look for information online: they Google it. Kim Su Hyang, a librarian, said students at Kim Il Sung University have had Internet access since the laboratory opened in April 2010.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, In Pakistan several missiles fired from American drones slammed into a compound near the town of Mir Ali in the North Waziristan tribal area, killing eight suspected militants.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, Palestinian factions in Syria called for a cease-fire after fighting flared at a refugee camp in the capital, Damascus. 5 people were killed on Yarmouk Street, four of them when a shell exploded and the fifth in sniper fire.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, Slovenia’s official anti-corruption commission said PM Janez Jansa and opposition leader Zoran Jankovic had questions to answer.
(Econ, 1/19/13, p.55)
2013 Jan 8, The UN World Food Program said it is unable to help 1 million Syrians who are going hungry.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2014 Jan 8, The US White House pushed back against harsh criticism in a new book “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary of War," by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates that questions President Barack Obama's war leadership and rips into VP Joe Biden.
(AP, 1/9/14)(SFC, 1/9/14, p.A4)
2014 Jan 8, The Obama administration pressed the nation’s schools to abandon overly zealous discipline policies that send students to court instead of to the principal’s office.
(SFC, 1/9/14, p.A4)
2014 Jan 8, Seventeen people related to the San Diego street gang BMS were arrested in California and New Jersey by police and FBI agents for operating a prostitution ring that spanned 46 cities in 23 states.
(SFC, 1/10/14, p.A5)
2014 Jan 8, Former Georgia banker Aubrey Lee Price (47) pleaded non guilty to stealing millions from investors before vanishing for 18 months. Prosecutors said he misspent, embezzled and lost some $21 million.
(SFC, 1/9/14, p.A40)
2014 Jan 8, Omaha police said an African-American toddler, who was cursed at buy adults and encouraged to curse in return in a posted video, has been placed in protective custody. Three other children were also removed from the same home.
(SFC, 1/10/14, p.A5)
2014 Jan 8, New Jersey officials released e-mails that appeared to show Gov. Chris Christie's staff plotting the lane closures in September to retaliate against the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, because he had not endorsed the governor's re-election campaign.
(Reuters, 1/10/14)
2014 Jan 8, The Utah governor’s office said that the state will not recognize more than 1,000 same-sex marriages performed over the past two weeks as it appeals a legal ruling that had overturned the state’s ban on such unions.
(SFC, 1/9/14, p.A4)
2014 Jan 8, A US navy helicopter went down in the Atlantic off of Virginia killing 2 crew members and wounding two others. A 5th remained missing.
(SFC, 1/9/14, p.A4)
2014 Jan 8, Dennis Rodman sang "Happy Birthday" to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un before leading a squad of former NBA stars in a friendly game as part of his "basketball diplomacy" that has been criticized in the US as naive and laughable. Tourists said Rodman singing "Happy Birthday" to Kim Jong-Un was akin to Marilyn Monroe performing for JFK.
(AFP, 1/8/14)(AP, 1/9/14)
2014 Jan 8, In Afghanistan US forces accidentally shot dead a four year old boy.
(Reuters, 1/10/14)
2014 Jan 8, A Bahraini court sentenced 22 Shiites to 15 years in prison over the killing of a policeman and the wounding of another in an attack outside Manama.
(AP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, In Belgium Emiel Pauwels (95), a European masters athletics champion, committed euthanasia because he suffered from cancer. Pauwels held the over-90 60 meters European title he won last year.
(AP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Britain’s Electoral Commission said voters should have to prove their identity at polling stations, as it launched a study into fraud concerns around ethnic South Asian communities.
(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Canada announced the first H5N1 avian flu death in North America, of a patient who had just returned from China.
(AFP, 1/9/14)
2014 Jan 8, China's foreign minister said Beijing was tackling illegal gold mining in Ghana, after hundreds of his compatriots were arrested and sent home for extracting the mineral without permission.
(AFP, 1/9/14)
2014 Jan 8, A Croatian court ruled that Josip Perkovic, a communist-era intelligence chief, could be extradited to Germany where he is wanted over a killing of a Yugoslav dissident in 1983. On Jan 24 Perkovic was flown to Germany.
(Reuters, 1/8/14)(Reuters, 1/24/14)
2014 Jan 8, German authorities said they have charged Werner C. (88), a former member of an SS armored division, with 25 counts of murder over allegations that he took part in the June 10, 1944, slaughter in Oradour-sur-Glane in southwestern France, the largest civilian massacre in Nazi-occupied France.
(AP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, A German court dropped the case against Siert Bruins (92), a former member of the Nazi SS, ruling that there are too many gaps in the evidence to deliver a verdict. Bruins was accused of killing resistance fighter Aldert Klaas Dijkema in September 1944 in Appingedam, near the German border in the northern Netherlands.
(AP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Greece formally assumed the European Union's rotating six-month presidency with a ceremony attended by EU commissioners.
(AP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Greek authorities charged 25 people and arrested three following an investigation into allegedly inadequately secured loans from the former Hellenic Postbank to local businessmen.
(AP, 1/9/14)
2014 Jan 8, India chipped away at America's diplomatic perks, ordering the envoys to obey local traffic laws and warning that a popular US Embassy club violates diplomatic law because it is open to outsiders.
(AP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, In India a fire on an overnight train killed at least nine people near Mumbai with sleeping victims overcome by flames and smoke as the blaze ripped through three carriages.
(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Iraq's PM al-Maliki urged al-Qaida-linked fighters who have overrun two cities west of Baghdad to give up the battle, vowing to press forward with a push to regain control of the mainly Sunni areas. NGOs said more than 13,000 families have fled Fallujah.
(AP, 1/8/14)(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Iraq's self-ruled northern Kurdish region said it has unilaterally started sending its crude to Turkey and is going ahead with plans to export oil despite objections by the central government in Baghdad. The flow of oil to Turkey started in early January.
(AP, 1/9/14)
2014 Jan 8, In Israel thousands of African migrants demanding to be recognized as refugees protested outside of Israel's parliament, part of a series of mass demonstrations over their status in Israel.
(AP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Libya's PM Ali Zeidan warned oil tankers trying to reach ports seized by armed protesters must stay away or they could be sunk by the navy. Libya said it will sue any foreign firms trying to buy oil from eastern ports seized by armed protesters and stop doing business with them.
(Reuters, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Nauru, the tiny Pacific island that hosts a controversial Australian immigration detention centre, was reported to be hiking visa costs for foreign journalists by 40 times, fuelling concerns over secrecy surrounding Australia's asylum seeker policy.
(Reuters, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Dutch pension asset manager PGGM, one of the largest in the country, said it was divesting from five Israeli banks because they finance Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Gaza's Hamas government freed seven imprisoned Fatah members, as part of efforts to mend relations between the Islamist movement and its West Bank-based Palestinian rival.
(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, An Islamic Jihad militant was killed near Gaza City in what medics and family said was an Israeli drone strike.
(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, In southern Russia the bodies of 6 men were found shot to death in four cars abandoned on the outskirts of Pyatigorsk.
(AP, 1/9/14)
2014 Jan 8, Officials in the semi-autonomous Somalia region of Puntland confirmed Abdiweli Mohammed Ali Gaas, a former Somali prime minister, as the region's new leader.
(AP, 1/8/14)(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, South Korean prosecutors arrested an IT contractor for stealing the personal information of around 20m credit card holders.
(Econ, 1/25/14, p.62)
2014 Jan 8, South Sudan's government and rebels were locked in fierce battles across the country, as peace talks taking place in neighboring Ethiopia appeared to flounder.
(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Syrian rebels seized control of a hospital used as a headquarters by an al-Qaida affiliate in the northern city of Aleppo, part of a widening campaign against the extremist group in the country's opposition-held north. Rebels overran the Aleppo headquarters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), as claims emerged that the Al-Qaeda linked group had massacred prisoners there in cold blood.
(AP, 1/8/14)(AFP, 1/9/14)
2014 Jan 8, In central Tunisia clashes broke out between police and demonstrators protesting economic hardship in Kasserine, as discontent mounts over new taxes and government failure to improve living conditions, three years after the revolution.
(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Turkey's deputy police chief was sacked overnight, the most senior commander yet targeted in a purge of a force heavily influenced by cleric Fethullah Gulen PM Tayyip Erdogan accuses of plotting to seize the levers of state power. The police chief of Izmir was among 16 senior police officials reassigned to new posts.
(Reuters, 1/8/14)(AP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, In Yemen 2 suspected al Qaeda militants were killed in a US drone strike in the southeastern province of Hadramout.
(Reuters, 1/8/14)
2015 Jan 8, The Pentagon said the US military will close a major air base in Britain and withdraw from more than a dozen installations across Europe as part of a reorganization of forces.
(AFP, 1/8/15)
2015 Jan 8, The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it has fined Honda $70 million for failing to submit reports of fatal accidents and injuries to the government.
(SFC, 1/9/15, p.C3)
2015 Jan 8, Schools in Chicago, Boston and other large cities closed as sub-zero temperatures and bitter winds gripped central and eastern United States for a third day.
(Reuters, 1/8/15)
2015 Jan 8, In Florida John Janchuck (25) tossed his daughter Phoebe (5) off the Sunshine Skyway Bridge and into Tampa Bay. Police said he had been acting strangely.
(SFC, 1/9/15, p.A8)
2015 Jan 8, Vermont lawmakers voted 110-69 to elect Gov. Peter Shumlin to a 3rd two-year term after he failed to win the popular vote last November.
(SFC, 1/9/15, p.A6)
2015 Jan 8, In central Afghanistan one policeman was killed and three were wounded when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Uruzgan province.
(AP, 1/8/15)
2015 Jan 8, In Costa Rica a catamaran carrying dozens of foreign tourists to Totuga Island capsized leaving 3 people dead.
(SFC, 1/9/15, p.A2)
2015 Jan 8, Cuba freed two more detainees, as Havana continued to release 53 people the US considers political prisoners, as part of an agreement between the two nations aimed at ending decades of hostility.
(Reuters, 1/8/15)
2015 Jan 8, Egypt’s military said the army is doubling the size of a buffer zone along the border with the Gaza Strip, an operation that will involve the destruction of 1,220 more homes and the eviction of residents.
(AP, 1/8/15)
2015 Jan 8, The European Union offered to lend Ukraine a further 1.8 billion euros ($2.12 billion) on the condition that Kiev respects the terms of an international bailout and continues its reform program.
(AP, 1/8/15)
2015 Jan 8, In France Amedy Coulibaly killed a policewoman on the southern edge of Paris, killing her and injuring a nearby street sweeper before fleeing. He later claimed to have coordinated with the two gunmen who attacked the Charlie Hebdo magazine on Jan 7.
(AP, 1/8/15)(AFP, 1/11/15)
2015 Jan 8, In northern France police and counter-terrorism officers searched for the two armed suspects, Said and Chérif Kouachi, who are brothers, the chief suspects in the deadly Jan 7 attack in Paris on the offices of Charlie Hebdo. A third suspect, Hamyd Mourad, turned himself in at a police station in a small town northeast of Paris after learning his name was linked to the attack.
(AP, 1/8/15)
2015 Jan 8, In Iraq a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a police checkpoint in Youssifiyah killing 3 police and 4 civilians. A suicide bomber driving a pickup loaded with explosives struck a checkpoint near Samarra, killing 8 people and wounding 23 others. A suicide bomber set off his explosives belt among Shiite worshippers who were leaving a mosque in western Baghdad, killing 8 worshippers and wounding 16.
(AP, 1/8/15)
2015 Jan 8, In Nepal hundreds of single mothers and rights activists demonstrated outside the parliament building, urging members of a special assembly drafting a new constitution not to weaken the citizenship rights of young Nepalis. A law being considered would give citizenship only to children of two Nepali parents.
(AP, 1/8/15)
2015 Jan 8, Sri Lanka held presidential elections. Mahinda Rajapakse, South Asia's longest-serving leader, was beaten by Maithripala Sirisena, who won 51.3% of the votes on a record turnout of 81.5%.
(AFP, 1/11/15)(Econ, 1/17/15, p.37)
2015 Jan 8, In southern Syria al-Qaida Nusra Front militants blew up the 13th century tomb of a revered Islamic scholar.
(Reuters, 1/8/15)
2016 Jan 8, The US Pentagon announced that Faez Mohammed al-Kandari, an alleged recruiter for the al-Qaida terrorist organization, has been released from the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and sent home to Kuwait. This reduced the Guantanamo prisoner population to 104.
(AP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said seven employees of an Oregon zoo contracted tuberculosis from three elephants in their care in 2013. Human-to-elephant transmission was first identified in 1996 and there have been a handful of cases in recent years in Tennessee and elsewhere.
(Reuters, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, In San Francisco Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow (56) was convicted of racketeering, murder and scores of other crimes in a major organized crime investigation in Chinatown.
(AP, 1/9/16)
2016 Jan 8, In Brazil police used tear gas, stun grenades and pepper spray to disperse sometimes violent demonstrations against bus fare increases in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
(AP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, British health officials said drinking any alcohol regularly increases the risk of cancer, and have issued tough new guidelines that could be hard to swallow in a nation where having a pint is a hallowed tradition.
(AP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, Two Britons, Trevor Brooks (40) and Simon Keeler (44) were jailed after being arrested in Hungary where they were suspected of heading to Syria, in breach of strict travel constraints because they had convictions for terrorism offences.
(Reuters, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, It was reported that a Chinese village has abruptly demolished a statue of communist China's founder, Mao Zedong, after images of the structure covered in gold paint and looming 37 meters (120 feet) high over farmland attracted heated discussion on social media.
(http://tinyurl.com/hmdubfp)(AP, 1/11/16)
2016 Jan 8, In Egypt an elderly Austrian couple and a young Swedish man were hospitalized after the assault at the Bella Vista hotel in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada. Police shot dead one of the knife-wielding attackers and wounded another. On Dec 25 Egypt sentenced to life two men linked to the Islamic State group for plotting the attack on the Red Sea resort hotel.
(AFP, 1/9/16)(AFP, 12/25/16)
2016 Jan 8, Human Rights Watch said at least 140 people have been killed in Ethiopia over the past two months in a crackdown on anti-government protests sparked by plans to expand the capital into farmland.
(AFP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, New copies of Hitler's "Mein Kampf" hit bookstores in Germany for the first time since World War II, unsettling some Jewish community leaders. The book fell into the public domain on January 1.
(AFP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, Iranians held mass protests across the Islamic Republic, angered by Saudi Arabia's execution of a Shiite cleric that has enflamed regional tensions between the Mideast rivals.
(AP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, Israeli police killed in a shootout an Arab citizen wanted for a January 1 gun rampage in Tel Aviv.
(Reuters, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, In Mali Beatrice Stockly, a Swiss missionary, was kidnapped from her home in Timbuktu, nearly four years after she was abducted by Islamist militants from the same house.
(Reuters, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, Mexico recaptured the world's top drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman in a pre-dawn shootout and chase through drains in Los Mochis, returning him to the same prison he escaped from six months ago, in a boost for the beleaguered government. At least 5 gunmen were killed in the operation dubbed “black swan."
(Reuters, 1/8/16)(SFC, 1/13/16, p.A3)
2016 Jan 8, Nigeria’s Health Minister Isaac Adewole said 40 people have died in a suspected outbreak of Lassa fever in 10 states across the country.
(AFP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, Portugal’s new Socialist government got Parliament's approval to discard one of the most unpopular legacies of a recent austerity drive and bring back four public holidays that were cut two years ago.
(AP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, South Korea resumed high-decibel propaganda broadcasts into North Korea as the United States ramped up pressure on China to bring Pyongyang to heel after its latest nuclear test.
(AFP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, South Sudan President Salva Kiir named 50 lawmakers from the rebel movement and agreed to share ministerial posts with his rivals in line with a peace deal aimed at ending a two-year civil war.
(AFP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, A South Sudan official said patients, including premature babies, have died in its main public hospital since early December because the Juba Teaching Hospital cannot afford fuel to run its generators.
(AP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, Turkish police detained six people including local officials from the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) in a raid on one of its Istanbul offices.
(Reuters, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, Turkey’s armed forces killed 16 PKK fighters in the town of Cizre, near the Syrian border. Another two rebels were killed in the historical Sur district of Diyarbakir.
(Reuters, 1/9/16)
2016 Jan 8, Two Zimbabwean journalists were arrested after they reported that the government secretly paid salaries and bonuses to intelligence staffers while other civil servants went unpaid in December. Nqaba Matshazi and Xolisani Ncube were released on $200 bail each.
(AP, 1/9/16)
2017 Jan 8, The US military vowed to increase the scope and complexity of its European training exercises to deter Russian aggression, as more US tanks, trucks and other equipment arrived in Germany for a big buildup on NATO's eastern flank.
(Reuters, 1/8/17)
2017 Jan 8, A US Navy destroyer fired three warning shots at four Iranian fast-attack vessels after they closed in at a high rate of speed near the Strait of Hormuz.
(Reuters, 1/9/17)
2017 Jan 8, SeaWorld in San Diego hosted its last killer whale performance, the culmination of its promise to phase out the decades-old show after criticism of its treatment of the captive marine mammals.
(Reuters, 1/8/17)
2017 Jan 8, In California the Pioneer Cabin Tree in Calaveras Big Tree State Park fell due to rain and soggy ground. A hole in the base of the giant sequoia had been enlarged in 1881 and cars began passing through in 1920. The 32-foot diameter tree was about two thousand years old.
(SFC, 1/10/17, p.A10)
2017 Jan 8, In the northeastern US a snowstorm dumped more than a foot of snow in areas of southern New England. 19.5 inches fell on East Bridgewater, Mass.
(SFC, 1/9/17, p.A5)
2017 Jan 8, Brazilian authorities confirmed that four more inmates have died in a penitentiary rebellion in the city of Manaus, as the overall death toll from a week of bloodshed in Brazilian prisons approached 100.
(AP, 1/8/17)
2017 Jan 8, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (82), former Iranian president (1989-1997) died in hospital in Tehran after suffering a heart attack. In 2003 Forbes magazine put his personal wealth at over $1 billion.
(Reuters, 1/8/17)(Econ, 1/14/17, p.82)
2017 Jan 8, In parts of Europe blizzards and dangerously low temperatures persisted, prompting Pope Francis to draw attention to the homeless suffering in freezing weather.
(AP, 1/8/17)
2017 Jan 8, In eastern France a bus skidded off a slippery stretch of Route 79, killing four Portuguese passengers and leaving more than a dozen injured.
(AP, 1/8/17)
2017 Jan 8, In Haiti 11 people died at the scene of a bus and truck crash outside of the northwestern town of Port-de-Paix. Another nine people were declared dead after being transported to hospitals in Gros Morne and Gonaives.
(AP, 1/9/17)
2017 Jan 8, Iraqi special forces battling Islamic State reached the eastern bank of the Tigris river in Mosul for the first time in a three-month, US-backed offensive to capture the city from the militants. In Baghdad, a suicide attacker killed 9 people when he drove an explosives-rigged car into vegetable market in the mainly Shi'ite Muslim eastern Jamila district. A few hours later, a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest blew himself up at a market in another mostly Shi'ite district, Baladiyat, killing seven. Three additional bombings around Baghdad killed seven more people.
(Reuters, 1/8/17)(SFC, 1/9/17, p.A2)
2017 Jan 8, Ivory Coast soldiers ended a two-day mutiny in the second city Bouake and other key areas after reaching a deal on their demands for pay rises, housing and faster promotion.
(AFP, 1/8/17)
2017 Jan 8, In Mexico police in Sonora state fought a pitched three-hour battle to free a border rail crossing at Nogales that had been blocked by people protesting a 20% gasoline price increase.
(AP, 1/9/17)
2017 Jan 8, In Nigeria five suicide bombers trying to infiltrate the northeastern city of Maiduguri and died in explosions that killed at least three civilians.
(AP, 1/9/17)
2017 Jan 8, Pakistani media said the country’s recently retired army chief Raheel Sharif has been appointed to lead a new Saudi-military alliance to fight terrorism.
(Reuters, 1/8/17)
2017 Jan 8, Pakistani police said 13 people have been killed in a head-on collision between a car and a passenger van in the eastern province of Punjab.
(AP, 1/8/17)
2017 Jan 8, A Palestinian rammed a truck into a group of Israeli soldiers visiting a popular tourist spot in Jerusalem, killing four and wounding at least 15 people. The driver was killed. An Israeli soldier fired on the attacker and distributed video of him saying he shot after realizing it was not an accident.
(AFP, 1/8/17)
2017 Jan 8, In Syria a car bomb exploded in a government-held area outside Damascus, killing at least five people and wounding 15. The al-Qaida-linked Fatah al-Sham Front claimed the attack.
(AP, 1/8/17)
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57 Jan 8, A tablet with this date, making it Britain's earliest dated hand-written document. Archeologists in 2016 said it was one among hundreds discovered during excavations in London's financial district for the new headquarters of media and data company Bloomberg. It was an IOU in which one freed slave promises to repay another "105 denarii from the price of the merchandise which has been sold and delivered."
(AP, 6/1/16)
871 Jan 8, Ethelred of Wessex defeated the Danish forces at Ashdown.
(PCh, 1992, p.72)(MC, 1/8/02)
1081 Jan 8, Henry V, Roman German king, emperor (1098/1111-25), was born.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1198 Jan 8, Lotario de Conti di Sengi became Pope Innocent III (d.1216). He raised the papacy to an acme of papal prestige and power, and Christian Europe came close to being a unified theocracy with no internal contradictions. He oversaw 2 crusades and established fees for indulgences to fatten the Church's treasury. He hired Italian merchant bankers to manage papal funds and sanctioned the new Franciscan and Dominican orders.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Innocent_III)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R6)
1324 Jan 8, Marco Polo, Venetian explorer, governor of Nanking, died.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1455 Jan 8, The Romanus Pontifex, a papal bull, was written by Pope Nicholas V to King Afonso V of Portugal. As a follow-up to the Dum Diversas, it confirmed to the Crown of Portugal dominion over all lands discovered or conquered during the Age of Discovery.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanus_Pontifex)
1547 Jan 8, The first Lithuanian book was printed in Konigsburg (Karaliauciuje) at the printing shop of H. Weinreich. It was a catechism titled: "Katekizmusa prasti Zadei, makslas skaitima raschta yr giesmes" by the Lithuanian student Martynas Mazvydas (200-300 copies). He had been specifically invited by Albrecht von Brandenberg to prepare a book in Lithuanian that would assist the priests in teaching the native language and help spread the ideas of the Reformation, i.e. Lutheranism. It was a small format book of 79 pages part of which was taken up by 11 hymns presented with music. The text was a faithful translation of J. Seklucian’s (1545) and J. Malecki’s (1546) Polish catechisms.
(Voruta #27-28, 7/1996, p.10)(DrEE, 9/14/96, p.4)(LHC, 1/7/03)
1587 Jan 8, Johannes Fabricius, astronomer who discovered sunspots, was born in Denmark.
(HN, 1/8/99)(MC, 1/8/02)
1593 Jan 8, War elephants of Ayutthaya King Naresuan engaged Burmese forces led by Mingyi Swa. One Siamese account held that there was a formal elephant duel between Naresuan and Swa. [O.S. 29 December 1592].
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naresuan)
1642 Jan 8, Astronomer Galileo Galilei (77) died in Arcetri, Italy. Galileo had 2 daughters consigned to a nunnery and one son, whom he got married into a rich Florentine family. In 1614, Father Tommaso Caccini denounced the opinions of Galileo on the motion of the Earth from the pulpit of Santa Maria Novella, judging them to be erroneous. Galileo went to Rome and defended himself against charges that had been made against him. In 1616, he was admonished by Cardinal Bellarmino and told that he could not defend Copernican astronomy because it went against the doctrine of the Church. Later, in 1632 he was summoned by the Holy Office to Rome. The tribunal passed a sentence condemning him and compelled Galileo to solemnly abjure his theory. He was sent to exile in Siena. Galileo spent his last years almost totally blind and poor. In 1999 Dava Sobel published "Galileo's Daughter."
(BHT, Hawking, p.180)(AP, 1/8/98)(WSJ, 10/19/99, p.A24)(MC, 1/8/02)
1598 Jan 8, Genoa, Italy, expelled its Jews.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1656 Jan 8, Oldest surviving commercial newspaper began in Haarlem, Netherlands.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1681 Jan 8, The treaty of Radzin ended a five year war between the Turks and the allied countries of Russia and Poland.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1705 Jan 8, Georg F. Handel's 1st opera "Almira," premiered in Hamburg.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1713 Jan 8, Arcangelo Corelli (59), composer, violinist (Concerti Grossi), died.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1745 Jan 8, England, Austria, Saxony and the Netherlands formed an alliance against Russia.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1746 Jan 8, Bonnie Prince Charlie's troops occupied Stirling.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1775 Jan 8, John Baskerville (68), English printer, type designer, died.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1786 Jan 8, Nicholas Biddle, head of the first United States bank, was born.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1790 Jan 8, President Washington delivered the 1st "State of the Union" address in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1790_State_of_the_Union_Address)
1796 Jan 8, Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois (46), French Revolution leader, died in exile. He was a member of the Committee of Public Safety that ruled during The Terror.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1798 Jan 8, The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was declared in effect by President John Adams nearly three years after its ratification by the states; it prohibited a citizen of one state from suing another state in federal court.
(AP, 1/8/08)
1800 Jan 8, Victor of Aveyron (~1785-1828), a feral child, emerged from French forests on his own. In 1797 he had been found wandering the woods near Saint-Sernin-sur-Rance, France, and was captured, but soon escaped. He was later portrayed in the 1969 movie, The Wild Child (L'Enfant sauvage), by François Truffaut.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_of_Aveyron)
1806 Jan 8, Lewis & Clark found the skeleton of 105' blue whale in Oregon.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1809 Oct 8, Hapsburg Emp. Francis I appointed Count Clemens von Metternich (36) foreign minister of Austria.
(PC, 1992 ed, p.371)(ON, 5/04, p.1)
1811 Jan 8, Charles Deslondes led several hundred poorly armed slaves towards New Orleans in the largest slave rebellion in US history.
(AH, 2/06, p.14)
1815 Jan 8, US forces led by Gen. Andrew Jackson and French pirate Jean Lafitte led some 3,100 backwoodsmen to victory against 7,500 British veterans at Chalmette in the Battle of New Orleans in the closing engagement of the War of 1812. A British army marched on New Orleans without knowing that the War of 1812 had ended on Christmas Eve of 1814. A massacre ensued, as 2,044 British troops, including three generals, fell dead, wounded or missing before General Andrew Jackson's well-prepared earthworks, compared with only 71 American casualties. Among the British victims were Gen. Sir Edward Pakenham and the Highlanders of the 93rd Regiment of Foot. In 2000 Robert V. Remini published "The Battle of New Orleans."
(AP, 1/8/98)(HN, 1/8/99)(WSJ, 1/26/00, p.A20)(AH, 2/05, p.16)
1824 Jan 8, William Wilkie Collins, English novelist (Woman in White), was born.
(www.qub.ac.uk/en/imperial/india/wilkie-background.htm)
1824 Jan 8, Tom Spring defeated Jack Langan in a British championship boxing match that lasted 2½ hours.
(SFC, 2/1/06, p.G6)(www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/spring-t.htm)
1830 Jan 8, Gouverneur Kemble Warren (d.1882), Major Gen (Union volunteers), was born.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1830 Jan 8, Hans von Bulow, pianist, virtuoso conductor, was born in Dresden.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1833 Jan 8, Boston Academy of Music, 1st US music school, was established.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1853 Jan 8, 1st US bronze equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson was unveiled in Wash. DC. [see Mar 8]
(MC, 1/8/02)
1856 Jan 8, Dr. John A. Veatch discovered borax in Tuscan Springs, Calif.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1862 Jan 8, Frank Nelson Doubleday, founder of Doubleday publishing house, was born.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1864 Jan 8, David O. Dodd (17), an Arkansas teenage spy, was hanged by Union forces the grounds of his former school. He reportedly chose to hang rather than betray the Confederate cause.
(AP, 10/14/12)
1867 Jan 8, Legislation gave suffrage to DC blacks, despite Pres. Johnson's veto.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1867 Jan 8, Japan’s Emperor Osahito died. The Tokugawa Shogunate gave up power as a revolutionary movement overthrew Shogun Iyesada. Rebels introduced a representative government under the name of Emperor Maiji (1852-1912). Ryoma Sakamoto, a samurai, helped topple the feudal government system. Ryoma means Dragon Horse.
(www.uq.net.au/~zzhsoszy/states/japan/japan.html)(ON, 11/04, p.12)(WSJ, 6/14/00, p.A1)
1868 Jan 8, Frank Dyson was born. He proved Einstein right that light is bent by gravity.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1871 Jan 8, Prussian troops began to bombard Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1878 Jan 8, [NS date] Russian poet Esenin died. He is credited with introducing into Russian poetry ternary meters and the technique of dramatic monologue.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Nekrasov)
1880 Jan 8, San Francisco’s Emperor Norton died on the corner of California and Grant. He had an elaborate funeral sponsored by the Pacific Union Club at a cost of $10,000. His remains were later moved from the Masonic Cemetery to Woodlawn Cemetery with a marble tombstone inscribed: Norton I...Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. Joshua A. Norton 1815-1880. Dr. Robert Burns Aird (d.2000) later composed a musical based on Norton's life. The organization E Clampus Vitus later proceeded to hold an annual memorial services at his Colma grave site.
(HFA, '96, p.65)(G&M, 7/30/97, p.A24)(SFC, 2/22/00, p.A20)(CHA, 1/2001)(SFC, 4/1/17, p.C2)
1889 Jan 8, Dr. Herman Hollerith (1860-1929), statistician for the US Census Bureau, received the 1st US patent for a tabulating machine. It resembled Charles Babagge’s Analytical Engine, but used electromagnetic relays instead of metal gears.
(www.answers.com/topic/herman-hollerith)(ON, 5/05, p.7)
1891 Jan 8, Walter Bothe, subatomic particle physicist (Nobel 1954), was born in Germany.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1892 Jan 8, Coal mine explosion killed 100 in McAlister, Okla.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1894 Jan 8, Fire caused serious damage at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1896 Jan 8, Jaromir Weinberger, composer (Bird's Opera, Schwanda der Duddelsacpfeifer), was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1896 Jan 8, Steponas Darius (d.1933), transatlantic pilot, was born in Rubiskis, Lithuania.
(LHC, 1/8/03)
1900 Jan 8, The Boers attacked Ladysmith, but are turned back by General White in South Africa.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1902 Jan 8, Georgy M. Malenkov, Stalin's successor as head of CPSU, PM (1953-55), was born.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1904 Jan 8, Pope Pius X banned low cut dresses in the presence of churchmen.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1906 Jan 8, Upton Sinclair signed a contract with Doubleday Page, which published "The Jungle." The hero was a newlywed Lithuanian immigrant who found work in a Chicago meatpacking plant. The novel that exposed the intolerable working conditions in the Chicago slaughterhouses. Early chapters were published serially in Appeal to Reason, a Midwestern socialist newspaper.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R25)(ON, 10/20/11, p.6)
1908 Jan 8, A subway linking New York’s Brooklyn and Manhattan opened.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1912 Jan 8, The South African Native National Congress was founded. It was renamed the African National Congress (ANC) in 1923.
(SFC, 5/7/03, p.A20)(AFP, 1/1/12)
1918 Jan 8, President Woodrow Wilson addressed a hastily convened joint session of Congress, publicly stating the Fourteen Points--his idealistic plan for a world forever free from conflict. Most of Wilson's Fourteen Points addressed specific European territorial concerns, but he also called for fair and generous treatment of Germany, absolute freedom of the seas, national boundaries determined on the basis of language, and the establishment of a general assembly of nations. When World War I ended in November 1918, Wilson personally attended the peace negotiations, believing that with his guidance, "peace without victory" was possible and a new world order was at hand. What he had not counted on was the bitterness and cynicism of his allies, who had lost much. As the negotiations progressed, more and more of the Fourteen Points were sacrificed to vengeance and a grab for land. The German magazine Simplicissimus remarked on Wilson's betrayal of his principles in June 1919 with God asking, "Woodrow Wilson, where are your 14 Points?" and Wilson responding, "Don't get excited, Lord, we didn't keep your Ten Commandments either!"
(AP, 1/8/98)(HNPD, 1/7/99)
1918 Jan 8, Mississippi became the first state to ratify the proposed 18th amendment to the US Constitution, which established Prohibition.
(AP, 1/8/08)
1920 Jan 8, Massachusetts’ Gov. Calvin Coolidge stated: "There is a limit to the taxing power of the state beyond which increased rates produce decreased revenues."
(www.calvin-coolidge.org/html/address_to_the_general_court_b.html)
1923 Jan 8, Joseph Wiezenbaum, artificial intelligence pioneer, was born.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1923 Jan 8, Giorgio Tozzi, basso (Met Opera, Boris, Don Giovanni), was born in Chicago, Illinois.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1926 Jan 8, Soupy Sales (d.2009), comedian (Soupy Sales Show), was born in Franklinton, North Carolina, as Milton Supman.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soupy_Sales)
1926 Jan 8, Bao Dai (1913-1997) began serving as king of Annam under French ‘protection’. During this period, Annam was a protectorate within French Indochina, covering the central two-thirds of the present-day Vietnam. His rule ended on Aug 25, 1945.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bao_Dai)
1929 Jan 8, The Dow Jones Industrials added National Cash Register as a replacement for Victor Talking Machine.
(WSJ, 4/8/04, p.C4)
1932 Jan 8, Joseph Kahahawai (21) was kidnapped and killed by a vigilante group following an alleged gang rape. Thalia Massie, her husband, mother, and 2 other suspects were convicted of manslaughter in the Kahahawai murder, but their sentences were commuted to one hour in the custody of Territorial Gov. Lawrence Judd. They then sailed to SF to avoid a new trial. In 2005 David E. Stannard authored “Honor Killing: How the Famous Masie Affair Transformed Hawaii."
(SFC, 5/28/05, p.E1)
1933 Jan 8, Charles Osgood, news anchor (CBS Weekend News), was born in NYC.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1935 Jan 8, Rock 'n' roll legend Elvis Presley, "The King," was born in Tupelo, Miss. The most popular singer of the 1950s and 60s. Best known for "Hound Dog," "Jailhouse Rock" and "Love Me tender." He also starred in over thirty films.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A1)(AP, 1/8/98)(HN, 1/8/99)
1935 Jan 8, AC Hardy patented the spectrophotometer.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1937 Jan 8, In San Francisco demonstrations took place in front of the German Consulate at 201 Sansome Street protesting the bombing of Madrid.
(SSFC, 1/8/12, p.42)
1937 Jan 8, Nash Motors, a component of the Dow Jones, changed its name to Nash Kelvinator.
(WSJ, 4/8/04, p.C4)
1940 Jan 8, Britain began rationing sugar, meat and butter.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1941 Jan 8, Robert Baden-Powell (83), founder of the Boy Scout movement, died.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1943 Jan 8, The British handed Madagascar over to the Free French.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1944 Jan 8, Sir Edmund Backhouse (b.1873), English Sinologist, died in Beijing. In 1977 Hugh Trevor-Roper authored “Hermit of Peking" an investigation into the life of Backhouse.
(WSJ, 8/18/07, p.P9)
1945 Jan 8, US Tech. Sgt. Russell Dunham (1920-2009) assaulted 3 German machine gun placements, killed 9 German soldiers and took 2 as prisoners near Kaysersberg, France. His bravery earned him the US Medal of Honor.
(SFC, 4/10/09, p.B5)
1946 Jan 8, President Truman vowed to stand by the Yalta accord on self-determination for the Balkans.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1946 Jan 8-9, The Baltic Camp University was founded in Germany by 40 Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian scientists in Hamburg and Pinneberg. It operated for 3 ½ years, with classes over 9 semesters.
(DrEE, 9/21/96, p.3)
1947 Jan 8, Gen. George Marshall became US Sec. of State.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1948 Jan 8, Richard Tauber (55), Austria-British tenor, composer (Lehar), died.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1950 Jan 8, Joseph A. Schumpeter (b.1883), Austrian-German-American economist, died in Connecticut. In 1911 while teaching at Czernowitz (now in the Ukraine), he wrote his “Theory of Economic Development," where he first outlined his famous theory of entrepreneurship. In 1942 he published his fifth book "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy." In 2007 Thomas K. McCraw authored “Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction."
(WSJ, 4/5/07, p.D7)(Econ, 4/28/07, p.94)
1951 Jan 8, A cahow, thought extinct since 1615, was rediscovered in Bermuda. David Wingate (15) helped 2 scientists discover the cahow, aka Bermuda petrel, a nocturnal seabird thought to have been extinct since the 17th century. Wingate proceeded to make a life time goal of saving the bird from extinction.
(WSJ, 12/19/00, p.A1)(MC, 1/8/02)
1952 Jan 8, Antonia Maury, discoverer of supergiant, giant & dwarf stars, died.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1954 Jan 8, President Dwight Eisenhower proposed stripping convicted Communists of their U.S. citizenship.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1958 Jan 8, Bobby Fisher won the United States Chess Championship for the first time at 14 years of age.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1959 Jan 8, Fidel Castro rolled into Havana a week after Batista fled. In 2002 Julia E. Sweig authored "Inside the Cuban Revolution."
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F3)(WSJ, 7/10/02, p.D8)
1959 Jan 8, Charles de Gaulle was inaugurated as president of France's Fifth Republic.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1963 Jan 8, President John F. Kennedy attended the unveiling of the Mona Lisa on loan at America's National Gallery of Art.
(HN, 1/8/99)(MC, 1/8/02)
1964 Jan 8, President Johnson declared a "War on Poverty" in his State of the Union address.
(AP, 1/8/08)
1965 Jan 8, the Star of India and other stolen gems were returned to the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
(AP, 1/8/05)
1968 Jan 8, Jacques Cousteau's 1st undersea special aired on US network TV.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0845400/)
1971 Jan 8, 29 pilot whales beached themselves and died at San Clemente Island, off Calif.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1972 Jan 8, Kenneth Patchen (b.1911), American poet, died in Palo Alto, Ca. He was bed-ridden in his later years from a debilitating spinal injury. His works included "Before the Brave" and "Hurrah for Anything."
(HN, 12/13/99)(SFC, 3/24/00, p.D6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Patchen)
1973 Jan 8, The trial of Watergate burglars began in Washington, DC. In 2006 Andreas Killen authored “1973 Nervous Breakdown: Watergate, Warhol and the Birth of Post-Sixties America."
(www.watergate.info/chronology/1973.shtml)(SSFC, 4/16/06, p.M3)
1973 Jan 8, Secret peace talks between the US and North Vietnam resumed near Paris.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1975 Jan 8, Judge John J. Sirica ordered the release of Watergate figures John W. Dean III, Herbert W. Kalmbach and Jeb Stuart Magruder from prison.
(AP, 1/8/06)
1975 Jan 8, Richard Tucker (b.1913), [Reuben Ticker], US tenor, cantor (La Gioconda), died.
(www.richardtucker.org/Richard_Tucker.html)
1976 Jan 8, In Pacifica, Ca., the body of Ronnie Cascio (18) was discovered at the Sharp Park Golf Course. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed 30 times. Over the next few months four more young women were found murdered, Tanya Blackwell (14) of Pacifica; Paula Baxter (17) of Millbrae; Denise Lampe (19) of Broadmoor; and Carol Lee Booth (26) of South San Francisco. In 2014 police linked the Feb 24, 1976, murder of Reno resident Michelle Mitchell (19) to the Bay Area murders. In 1979 Cathy Woods, a psychiatric patient at the Louisiana State Univ. Medical Center, told staff that she had killed a girl named Michelle in Reno. Woods was ultimately convicted of murder. In 2014 DNA evidence linked Rodney Halbower (66), an inmate at the Oregon State Penitentiary, to the murder of Mitchell and 5 women in the SF Bay Area.
(SFC, 3/7/14, p.D8)(SFC, 9/9/14, p.C1)
1976 Jan 8, Chou En-lai (78), Chinese premier (1949-1976), died in Beijing.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1977 Jan 8, In Florida Walter H. Scott (64), a former official with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, was killed. In 1980 William Claybourne Taylor (b.1949) was indicted for the murder and the shooting of Eugene T. Bailey, a former mayor of Williston, Fla. Taylor posted bond and disappeared until 2016 when he was arrested by federal agents in Reidsville, NC.
(http://tinyurl.com/j86f8z9)(SFC, 7/29/16, p.A6)
1978 Jan 8, The Israeli government voted to "strengthen" settlements in occupied Sinai.
(www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/1978)
1979 Jan 8, The US advised the Shah to get out of Iran.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1981 Jan 8, The "Pirates of Penzance" opened at the Uris Theater, NYC, for 772 performances. Linda Ronstadt (b.1946) debuted Mabel.
(http://www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4088)
1981 Jan 8, Terri Winchell (17) was beaten, raped and stabbed to death in San Joaquin County, Ca. Michael Morales (31) was convicted in the murder and was slated for execution in 2006. Morales said he was enlisted by his cousin, Ricky Ortega, who had learned that Winchell was having an affair with Ortega’s male lover. Morales' original execution date of February 21, 2006, was postponed as a result of two court-appointed anesthesiologists withdrawing from the procedure.
(SFC, 1/28/06, p.B2)(SFC, 2/7/06, p.B3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Morales)
1981 Jan 8, Resorts around Lake Tahoe offered limited skiing and businesses suffered from a late start in the skiing season. It was the latest start since the 1976-77 drought.
(SFC, 1/6/06, p.F2)
1982 Jan 8, American Telephone and Telegraph settled the Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit against it by agreeing to divest itself of the 22 Bell System companies. The ATT Bell System was ordered to be subdivided into 7 Baby Bells by the US government.
(I&I, Penzias, p.190) (HFA, '96, p.22)(AP, 1/8/98)
1982 Jan 8, The US Justice Dept withdrew an antitrust suit against IBM.
(http://tinyurl.com/3e2guh)
1983 Jan 8, In North Korea Kim Jong Il's third and youngest son Jong Un is believed to have been born.
(AP, 12/28/11)
1985 Jan 8, The Rev. Lawrence Martin Jenco was kidnapped in Lebanon. He was released 19 months later.
(AP, 1/8/05)
1987 Jan 8, For the first time, the Dow Jones industrial average closed above 2,000, ending the day at 2002.25.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1988 Jan 8, An Arizona state grand jury indicted Gov. Evan Mecham (1924-2008) and his brother, Willard, on charges of concealing a campaign loan. Both were later acquitted on these charges.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Mecham)(SFC, 2/23/08, p.B5)
1988 Jan 8, In San Francisco Art Agnos was inaugurated as the city’s 39th mayor. He promised not to rest as long as a single homeless person has to make a bed on the streets of the city.
(SSFC, 1/6/13, DB p.42)
1989 Jan 8, "42nd Street" closed at Winter Garden Theater, NYC, after 3,486 performances.
(www.theatermirror.com/TA42sbcp.htm)
1989 Jan 8, Forty-seven people were killed when a British Midland Boeing 737-400 carrying 126 passengers crashed in central England. The pilots shut down the good engine and tried to land with a bad one.
(AP, 1/8/99)(WSJ, 10/3/01, p.A20)
1989 Jan 8, Soviet Union promised to eliminate stockpiles of chemical weapons.
(www.fas.org/nuke/control/bwc/chron.htm)
1990 Jan 8, Terry Thomas (78), English comic (Heroes), died of Parkinson's disease.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry-Thomas)
1990 Jan 8, Military tribunals in Romania began trials of the country's dreaded security forces who stood accused of resisting the revolution that toppled Nicolae Ceausescu.
(AP, 1/8/00)
1991 Jan 8, Secretary of State James A. Baker the Third and Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz arrived in Geneva for the first high-level talks between their countries since the Persian Gulf crisis began.
(AP, 1/8/01)
1991 Jan 8, Pro Soviet demonstrators protested price rises and surrounded the parliament in Vilnius. Fresh Soviet troops began rolling across Baltic borders from Pskov, Russia, allegedly to deal with Baltic youth who have been evading the Soviet draft.
(www.balticsww.com/news/features/crackdown.htm)
1992 Jan 8, President Bush collapsed during a state dinner in Tokyo; White House officials said Bush was suffering from stomach flu.
(AP, 1/8/02)
1993 Jan 8, At post offices across America, commemorative Elvis Presley stamps went on sale on what would have been "the King's" 58th birthday.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1993 Jan 8, In Palatine, a suburb of Chicago, 7 people were shot to death at a fried chicken restaurant. The victims were forced into two walk-in coolers and shot a total of 24 times with a .38. Some were also stabbed and one had their throat slit. Their bodies were found the next day. On May 16, 2002, Juan Luna (28) and James Degorski (29) were arrested and confessed to the killings. "They just did it to do something big." In 2009 Degorski was convicted in the slayings of 7 people.
(AP, 1/9/03)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown's_Chicken_massacre)(SFC, 9/30/09, p.A8)
1993 Jan 8, Bosnian Prime Minister Hakija Turajlic was shot 7 times and killed by Serb gunmen in the presence of French peacekeepers while riding in a UN personnel carrier at a Serb checkpoint near the Serajevo airport.
(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A14)(AP, 1/8/98)
1993 Jan 8, Asif Nawaz Khan Janjua (56), Pakistan’s 10th Chief of Army, died under mysterious circumstances while jogging near his home in Rawalpindi. His widow later accused the government of poisoning her husband.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asif_Nawaz)(www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-14397943.html)
1993 Jan 8, Sicilian journalist Beppe Alfano (b.1945) was killed by the Mafia.
(SSFC, 12/19/10, p.D3)(http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beppe_Alfano)
1994 Jan 8, Tonya Harding won the ladies' U.S. Figure Skating Championship in Detroit, a day after Nancy Kerrigan dropped out because of a clubbing attack that injured her right knee. The U.S. Figure Skating Assn. later stripped Harding of the title because of her involvement in the attack.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1995 Jan 8, "Guys & Dolls" closed at Martin Beck Theater, NYC, after 1143 performances.
(www.theatredb.com/QShow.php?sid=s0398)
1995 Jan 8, The Inner City Church in Knoxville, Tenn., burned down. Arson was suspected and investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1995 Jan 8, Russian forces in Chechnya pounded the capital of Grozny with rocket and mortar fire in an attempt to scatter Chechen fighters defending the presidential palace.
(AP, 1/8/00)
1995 Jan 8, In Sri Lanka the Tigers and government agreed to a truce.
(SFC, 7/24/96, p.A9)
1996 Jan 8, Federal employees who had been out of work for weeks while the government was shut down began returning to their jobs; however, along the East Coast, many government workers were idled by a huge blizzard that had paralyzed the nation’s capital and caused at least 50 deaths.
(AP, 1/8/01)(MC, 1/8/02)
1996 Jan 8, In a low turnout for presidential elections in Guatemala, Alvaro Arzu, a conservative former foreign minister, beat Alfonso Portillo, backed by ex-dictator, Efrain Rios Montt, by less than 3 %.
(WSJ, 1/8/96, p.A-1)
1996 Jan 8, Francois Mitterrand (79), former Socialist president of France (1981-1995), died of prostate cancer. He had been in office for 14 years and helped to make France an engine of European unity and changed the face of Paris with his grand projects. In 2013 Philip Short authored “Mitterrand: A Study in Ambiguity."
(WSJ, 1/9/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 10/24/96, p.C3)(Econ, 11/30/13, p.83)
1996 Jan 8, Japan's Trade Minister Hashimoto was endorsed by the ruling coalition to become prime minister.
(WSJ, 1/9/96, p.A-1)
1996 Jan 8, A Russian-made Antonov-32 skidded into a crowded marketplace shortly after take-off in Kinshasa in Zaire (Congo) and killed at least 350 people. The twin-turboprop was owned by African Air and was overweight when it took off. At least 470 people were injured.
(WSJ, 1/9/96, p.A-1) (SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-14)(WSJ, 11/13/01, p.A14)
1997 Jan 8, Anne Galjour, San Francisco writer and performer, received the 13th annual Will Glickman Playwright Award for the best new play, "Mauvais Temps," produced in the Bay Area in 1996.
(SFC, 1/9/97, p.E2)
1997 Jan 8, The Supreme Court heard arguments on whether to allow physician-assisted suicide.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1997 Jan 8, The state of Arkansas put three men to death in the second triple execution since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1997 Jan 8, Russian President Boris Yeltsin was hospitalized with early signs of pneumonia.
(AP, 1/8/98)
1997 Jan 8, In Bulgaria the ruling party backed Nikolai Dobrev for premier.
(WSJ, 1/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Jan 8, From Israel warplanes were sent on 2 raids to Lebanon after a Katyusha rocket hit northern Israel.
(WSJ, 1/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Jan 8, In Pakistan gas cylinders aboard a truck leaked in Lahore and killed at least 30 people with 900 taken to hospitals. The gas was identified as either ammonia or chlorine.
(WSJ, 1/10/97, p.A1)
1998 Jan 8, At the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Philadelphia, Michelle Kwan received seven perfect presentation marks out of nine for her short program.
(AP, 1/7/99)
1998 Jan 8, Ramzi Yousef was sentenced in New York to life in prison for the 1994 bombing of a Philippines airliner and 240 years for masterminding the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
(www.courttv.com/news/flashback/January.html)
1998 Jan 8, Air traffic control over the Pacific broke down for 16 hours; officials said the outage posed no real danger.
(AP, 1/7/99)
1998 Jan 8, Walter Diemer (93), inventor (bubble gum 1928), died of heart failure.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1998 Jan 8, Sir Michael Tippett, British composer, died at age 93.
(SFC, 1/10/98, p.A19)
1998 Jan 8, The EU decided to send a fact-finding mission to Algeria. New reports said 30 more people were killed in the region of Relizane.
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 8, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin was forced to meet with protestors angry over the nation’s 12.4% unemployment.
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.A11)
1998 Jan 8, In Indonesia the currency and stock market dropped and panic buying hit retailers after the budget failed to address the nation’s urgent needs. The rupiah fell at one point to 10,550 to the dollar and the market dipping 19%.
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 8-9, The US Northeast and Canada were hit with a severe ice storm and at least 16 people were reported killed. Millions of people were left without power in upper New York, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire.
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.A3)(SFC, 1/10/98, p.A8)
1999 Jan 8, By a unanimous vote, the U.S. Senate formally ratified the rules for President Clinton's impeachment trial.
(AP, 1/8/00)
1999 Jan 8, Two top organizers of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt lake City resigned in a mushrooming bribery scandal amid disclosures that civic boosters had given cash to members of the International Olympic Committee.
(SFC, 1/9/99, p.A1)(AP, 1/8/00)
1999 Jan 8, In Bridgeport, Conn., Leroy Brown Jr. (8) and his mother Karen Clarke (30) were found murdered. The boy had witnessed a drive-by shooting and identified Russell Peeler as the gunman. Adrian Peeler (22) was arrested in North Carolina on Jan 21. He had escaped from a halfway house in April and was sought for questioning.
(SFC, 1/12/99, p.A2)(SFC, 1/22/99, p.A3)
1999 Jan 8, In Azerbaijan the first part of an oil pipeline across Georgia to the Black Sea was opened.
(SFC, 1/9/99, p.A14)
1999 Jan 8, George Skiadopoulos (25), a Greek seaman, murdered and mutilated his American girlfriend, former model Julie Scully (31) of Mansfield, N.J. Scully's body was found burned and beheaded. A Greek appeals court in 2002 reduced his life sentence to 23 years in prison.
(AP, 10/8/02)
1999 Jan 8, In Indonesia some 2,000 people rampaged in Karawang and 2 people were shot dead by police.
(SFC, 1/9/99, p.A9)
1999 Jan 8, In Kosovo ethnic Albanians killed 3 Serbian police officers in separate ambushes. Ethnic Albanians also seized 8 Yugoslav soldiers (Serbian policemen).
(SFC, 1/9/99, p.A9)(SFC, 1/12/99, p.A8)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 8, In Malaysia Prime Minister Mahathir named Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (59) as his heir apparent.
(SFC, 1/9/99, p.A14)
1999 Jan 8, In Mexico 5 dissident army officers of the Patriotic Command to Raise the People's Consciousness were arrested. They had tried to present Pres. Zedillo with a letter complaining of abuses of soldiers by army commanders.
(SFC, 1/9/99, p.A14)
1999 Jan 8, In Pakistan it was reported that some 50,000 Pakistanis were being kept as slaves by powerful landlords in the Sindh province. Gov. Moinuddin Haider acknowledged the problem and promised to investigate.
(SFC, 1/9/99, p.A14)
1999 Jan 8, In Sierra Leone Sam Bockarie of the rebel army rejected a cease-fire and pushed to the western parts of Freetown.
(SFC, 1/9/99, p.A9)
2000 Jan 8, During a debate in Johnston, Iowa, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley accused Al Gore of trying to scare voters by misrepresenting his health care proposal; for his part, the vice president said he had not been hiding in a Washington bunker but campaigning on "the front lines in the fight for our future."
(AP, 1/8/01)
2000 Jan 8, The US Dept. of Transportation cited safety standards and decided not to remove restrictions on Mexican trucks crossing the border despite unrestricted access granted in 1995 as part of NAFTA.
(SFEC, 1/9/00, p.A4)
2000 Jan 8, Uzbek Pres. Karimov was re-elected to a five-year term with more than 90 percent of the vote.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2001 Jan 8, Mike Dombeck, US Forest Service chief, outlined a policy to end the cutting of all old-growth trees in national forests.
(SFC, 1/9/01, p.A3)
2001 Jan 8, Pope John Paul II was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
(AP, 1/8/02)
2001 Jan 8, Former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards was sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined a quarter of a million dollars for extorting payoffs from businessmen applying for riverboat casino licenses.
(AP, 1/8/02)
2001 Jan 8, Donna Bailey (43), paralyzed from a Ford Explorer rollover crash, settled her suit with Ford and Firestone for a total in the range of $20-35 million along with the disclosure of internal memos and reports on tire safety and rollover issues.
(SFC, 1/9/01, p.A3)
2001 Jan 8, Advanced Micro Devices announced its new 850 MHz Duron chip.
(WSJ, 1/09/01, p.B7)
2001 Jan 8, In Afghanistan the Taliban ordered the death penalty for anyone who converts from Islam to a different religion.
(WSJ, 1/09/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 8, The Taliban massacred some 150-300 unarmed Hazaras, a Shiite Muslim minority group, in Yakalang.
(SFC, 2/19/01, p.A9)(SFC, 11/10/01, p.A4)
2001 Jan 8, It was reported that Britain was culling 20-30 thousand older cows per week in the mad cow crises and that it would take 3 years to catch up with the backlog for rendering their remains to powder.
(WSJ, 1/08/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 8, In Montenegro assassins killed a senior secret-service officer in Podgorica.
(WSJ, 1/09/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 8, Palestinian’s rejected Pres. Clinton’s formula for a permanent Mideast settlement.
(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.D2)
2002 Jan 8, Ozzie Smith, regarded as the finest-fielding shortstop ever, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on his first try.
(AP, 1/8/03)
2002 Jan 8, Pres. Bush signed an education bill that tied federal aid to test performance. It was the most far-reaching federal education bill in nearly 4 decades. Bush’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program decreed that all students should by reading and doing math at age-appropriate levels by 2014.
(WSJ, 1/9/02, p.A1)(AP, 1/8/03)(Econ, 8/13/11, p.28)
2002 Jan 8, The Bush administration sent a secret report to Congress, the "Nuclear Posture Review," that said the Pentagon needs to be prepared to use nuclear weapons against 7 nations: China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Syria, Iran, and Libya. A furor erupted when it was leaked to the press in March.
(SFC, 3/9/02, p.A1)(SFC, 3/11/02, p.A3)
2002 Jan 8, Dave Thomas (69), founder of Wendy’s hamburger chain, died in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
(SFC, 1/9/02, p.A1)(AP, 1/8/03)
2002 Jan 8, Cecilia Garcia (24) was found dead by her father in the shower of her home in Livermore. In 2010 Bryan Vulgamore (34) of Modesto was charged with her murder.
(SFC, 1/21/10, p.C2)
2002 Jan 8, US soldiers captured 14 suspected fighters at the Zhawar Kili cave and bunker complex near Khost. An al Qaeda fighter blew himself up with a grenade during an escape attempt at a Kandahar hospital. 2 senior al Qaeda leaders were reported caught with documents and laptops, while fleeing bombing in eastern Afghanistan. An intensified search was reported to be in progress for Abu Zubeida (Zain al-Abidin Muhammad Husain), the director of external affairs for al Qaeda.
(SFC, 1/9/02, p.A8)
2002 Jan 8, The Most Rev. George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, announced his retirement as spiritual leader of the world's 70 million Anglicans.
(AP, 1/8/03)
2002 Jan 8, India and Pakistan traded fire on their Kashmir border.
(WSJ, 1/9/02, p.A1)
2002 Jan 8, Iran’s Revolutionary Court began the closed door trial of 15 men charged with plotting to overthrow the Islamic system
(SFC, 1/9/02, p.A5)
2003 Jan 8, Pres. Bush signed an emergency extension of federal unemployment benefits following approval by the 108th Congress. It extended 26 weeks of state aid with 13 weeks of federal aid.
(SFC, 1/9/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/8/03, p.A1)
2003 Jan 8, A federal appeals court ruled that Pres. Bush could order U.S. citizens captured overseas indefinitely detained as enemy combatants without the rights normally afforded citizens charged in criminal cases.
(AP, 1/8/04)
2003 Jan 8, In Charlotte, NC, a US Airways Express Beech 1900 turboprop crashed on takeoff and all 21 aboard were killed.
(SFC, 1/9/03, p.A3)
2003 Jan 8, In Mali the 3rd annual Festival of the Desert ended in Essakane.
(SFC, 1/11/03, p.D1)
2003 Jan 8, Manuel Ciervides Lacayo, the Panamanian consul to Guayaquil, Ecuador, was shot and killed while vacationing in Panama.
(AP, 1/9/03)
2003 Jan 8, In Turkey the pilot of the British Aerospace RJ-100 missed the runway because of heavy fog in the southeastern city of Diayarbakir. 75 people were killed with 5 survivors.
(AP, 1/9/03)(WSJ, 1/9/03, p.A1)
2003 Jan 8, A UN team was reported to be investigating reports that Congolese rebel troops had killed and eaten Pygmies in northeastern Congo. UN authorities confirmed the reports Jan 15 and identified the rebel campaign as "Operation Clean Slate."
(AP, 1/8/03)(SFC, 1/16/03, p.A9)
2004 Jan 8, The journal Science reported high levels of dangerous chemicals in farmed salmon. Wild Pacific salmon had 10 times less than the farmed ones.
(SFC, 1/9/04, p.A2)
2004 Jan 8, Pressure in the Int'l. Space Station continued to drop.
(WSJ, 1/9/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 8, Queen Elizabeth II christened the world's largest ocean liner, the Queen Mary 2.
(AP, 1/8/04)
2004 Jan 8, Chinese state media reported that authorities had dismissed 44,701 police between August and November in 2003 for lacking job qualifications, corruption or other offenses in a campaign to raise policing standards.
(AP, 1/8/04)
2004 Jan 8, Authorities in Georgia's autonomous region of Adzharia imposed a state of emergency, fearing the newly elected Georgian president may try to rein in the province.
(AP, 1/8/04)
2004 Jan 8, India unveiled a broad range of tax cuts.
(WSJ, 1/9/04, p.A6)
2004 Jan 8, In Iraq a US Black Hawk medivac helicopter crashed near Fallujah killing all nine soldiers aboard.
(AP, 1/8/04)
2004 Jan 8, Libya agreed to compensate family members of victims of a 1989 bombing of a French passenger plane over the Niger desert that killed 170 people.
(AP, 1/8/05)
2004 Jan 8, In Kenya a new agreement, between the Ministry of Education and the country's largest and oldest orphanage for HIV-positive children, allowed a group of children infected with the virus that causes AIDS to attend public schools.
(AP, 1/10/04)
2004 Jan 8, Teams of Swiss police in 5 cantons arrested 8 suspected accomplices in the May 12 al Qaeda car bomb attack in Saudi Arabia.
(SFC, 1/10/04, p.A3)
2004 Jan 8, It was reported that Thailand's PM Thaksin Shinawatra had ordered the Finance Ministry and stock exchange to set up a task force to examine the balance sheets of listed companies.
(WSJ, 1/8/04, p.A14)
2004 Jan 8, Turkey and the US agreed to reopen the Incirlik air base for Iraq operations.
(WSJ, 1/9/04, p.A1)
2005 Jan 8, The official death toll from the Dec 26 tsunami rose above 150,000.
(AP, 1/8/05)
2005 Jan 8, An Army platoon sergeant who ordered his soldiers to throw Iraqis into the Tigris River was sentenced to six months in military prison; the jury in Fort Hood, Texas, also reduced the rank of Army Sgt. 1st Class Tracy Perkins by one grade.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2005 Jan 8, Richard P. Rodriguez (29) stabbed to death Angela M. Smith (51) in Tucson, Az. Rodriguez was found dead of a gunshot wound the next day in Blythe, Ca., near the Arizona border. He had grown up in the evangelical sex cult “Children of God" also known as the Family. Smith, a member of the cult, was involved in his upbringing. The cult was later linked to the San Diego based Family Care Foundation. In 2007 Don Lattin authored “Jesus Freaks: A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge."
(SFC, 1/11/05, p.B8)(SSFC, 2/6/05, p.A1)(SSFC, 10/20/07, p.M1)
2005 Jan 8, Hurricane-force winds swept across northern Europe, leaving at least 13 dead including 3 in Carlisle, England, 4 in Denmark and 6 in Sweden.
(AP, 1/9/05)
2005 Jan 8, Indian security forces killed the last rebel holed up inside a government office in Kashmir, ending a two-day battle during which guerrillas took over the building and set it on fire with dozens of employees inside.
(AP, 1/8/05)
2005 Jan 8, In Iraq officials said Militants had abducted three senior Iraqi officials, beheaded a man who worked for the U.S. military and killed at least four others.
(AP, 1/8/05)
2005 Jan 8, The US military acknowledged 5 people were killed when it bombed the wrong house during a search operation in northern Iraq. The owner of the house, Ali Yousef, said 14 people were killed when the 500-pound GPS-guided bomb hit at about 2 a.m. in the town of Aitha, 30 miles south of Mosul. An Associated Press photographer at the scene said seven children and seven adults died.
(AP, 1/9/05)
2005 Jan 8, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo flew to Sudan's troubled Darfur region to assess the crisis there following talks with his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Beshir.
(AP, 1/8/05)
2005 Jan 8, In northern Pakistan at least 11 people were killed, including six family members who were burned alive, during sectarian unrest after riots broke out following the shooting of a popular Shiite leader.
(AP, 1/8/05)
2005 Jan 8, In Pakistan’s SW Baluchistan province assailants fired rockets at wells and a gas pipeline, killing a woman and wounding 14 other people. The attacks followed the rape of Dr. Shazia Khalid (31) a week earlier by a government soldier.
(AP, 1/9/05)(SFC, 3/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 8, Former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry met with Syria's president and said he was hopeful that strained U.S.-Syrian relations could be improved.
(AP, 1/8/05)
2005 Jan 8, Russian troops killed 5 alleged militants hiding in a house in the city of Nazran, Ingushetia, in a firefight.
(AP, 1/8/05)(SSFC, 1/9/05, p.A3)
2005 Jan 8, Venezuela government officials escorted by troops and police descended on a privately owned cattle ranch to determine whether some lands may be turned over to poor farmers as part of an agrarian reform. The owner of the 32,000 acre El Charcote Ranch, Agropecuaria Flora C.A., is a subsidiary of the British-owned Vestey Group Ltd. and a major beef producer. The company insists that it can prove ownership back to 1830. A 1998 census found that 60 percent of Venezuelan farmland was owned by less than 1 percent of the population.
(AP, 1/8/05)
2006 Jan 8, The cost of a US 1st class postage stamp rose to 39 cents.
(WSJ, 1/7/06, p.A1)
2006 Jan 8, Wildfires in the southwest US spread to Arkansas and Colorado destroying 9 more homes. Over the last 2 weeks the fires in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas have destroyed 475 homes and left 5 people dead.
(SFC, 1/9/06, p.A3)
2006 Jan 8, In Washington DC David E. Rosenbaum (63), a recently retired journalist for the NY Times, died from injuries suffered in a robbery on Jan 6. Michael Hamlin (24) and Percy Jordan Jr. (42) were soon arrested and charged with felony murder. Both men were convicted of murder. In 2007 Hamlin was sentenced to 26 years in prison after he pleaded guilty and testified against his cousin.
(SFC, 1/14/06, p.A3)(SFC, 10/25/06, p.A3)(SFC, 1/4/07, p.A3)
2006 Jan 8, In Afghanistan suspected Taliban gunmen burned down a primary school in the southern city of Kandahar, the latest in a spate of attacks against teachers and institutions that educate girls.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, A car ploughed into a group of 12 cyclists in North Wales, killing four and leaving four others seriously injured.
(AFP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, State media said China will invest more than $3 billion over the next five years to clean up the Songhua River, a key source of drinking water for tens of millions of people that was polluted in November by a toxic spill that flowed into Russia.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, The Indian capital of Delhi saw its first winter frost in 70 years as a cold wave sweeping in from the frigid heights of the Himalayas. The death toll from the cold rose to 137 people in northern India.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, In Iraq 3 Marines were killed by small arms attacks in Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad. 5 people were killed in separate attacks in Baghdad, including a policeman killed by a suicide car bomber that targeted an Interior Ministry patrol. Seven others were wounded.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, Almost 500 would-be illegal immigrants have arrived on Italy's Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, between Sicily and North Africa, in the past 24 hours.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, Greenpeace claimed a Japanese whaling ship deliberately rammed its ship Arctic Sunrise, denting the ship's bow but causing no injuries. Greenpeace said it would continue hounding Japan's whaling fleet in Antarctic waters despite the damaging collision.
(AP, 1/9/06)
2006 Jan 8, Jordan's parliament approved a law that prevents Amman handing over US citizens accused of war crimes to the international criminal court (ICC).
(Reuters, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, The US and South Korea withdrew their last remaining staff from the site of two North Korean nuclear reactors, ending a decade-old construction project amid rekindled tension over the North's nuclear ambitions.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, In Morocco a senior official said Royal Air Maroc (RAM), encouraged by its majority shareholdings in the national airlines of Senegal and Gabon, is planning a major expansion of routes in Africa.
(AFP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, The UN envoy to Myanmar, Razali Ismail of Malaysia, said he had quit his post after being refused entry for the past 2 years to the military-ruled country where he pushed for reforms.
(AFP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, Nigeria's multi-billion-dollar liquefied natural gas company Nigeria NLNG said it had shipped the first cargo of gas from its fourth production plant to the US.
(AFP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, The Islamic militant group Hamas launched a TV station in the Gaza Strip as part of its expansion into Palestinian politics.
(AP, 1/9/06)
2006 Jan 8, In the Philippines fire raced through a dormitory in Manila's congested university district, killing at least eight people, including some clustered near a second-floor exit.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, In Tajikistan a fire swept through a home for mentally disabled children in the capital of Dushanbe, killing 13 children before firefighters arrived.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, In Turkey Anatolia news reported that a court has approved the release of Mehmet Ali Agca (46), the man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, saying he completed his prison term.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, Three Turks were reported to be infected with a deadly strain of bird flu in the capital Ankara.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 8, In Venezuela American singer and activist Harry Belafonte called President Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world" and said millions of Americans support the socialist revolution of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2007 Jan 8, USS Newport News nuclear-powered submarine collided with a Japanese oil tanker in the Straits of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world's oil supplies travel. The bow of the submarine was traveling submerged when it hit the stern of the supertanker Mogamigawa. Damage was light.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger proposed to extend medical insurance to all Californians, including illegal immigrants. He said the $12 billion cost would be spread among employers, individuals, insurers, government and health care providers.
(SFC, 1/9/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 8, Ron Dellums was sworn in as Oakland’s 48th mayor.
(SFC, 1/9/07, p.B1)
2007 Jan 8, A wildfire destroyed 5 multimillion dollar homes in Malibu, Ca.
(SFC, 1/10/07, p.B10)
2007 Jan 8, In NYC an unidentified rotten-egg smell wafted over the city.
(SFC, 1/10/07, p.A2)
2007 Jan 8, In Texas police shut down 10 blocks of businesses in the heart of downtown Austin after dozens of birds were found dead.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, General Electric Co. it agreed to buy oil services company Vetco Gray for $1.9 billion from a group of private equity funds.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, The San Francisco Hyatt Regency, opened in 1973, was sold by Strategic Hotel Capital LLC to Dune Capital Management and DiNapoli Capital Partners, privately held investment funds in a deal pegged at over $200 million.
(SFC, 1/9/07, p.E3)
2007 Jan 8, Yvonne De Carlo (84), TV and film star, died. She played Moses' wife in "The Ten Commandments," but achieved her greatest popularity on TV's "The Munsters" (1964-1966). In her 1987 book, "Yvonne: An Autobiography," she listed 22 of her lovers, who included Howard Hughes, Burt Lancaster, Robert Stack, Robert Taylor, Billy Wilder, Aly Khan and an Iranian prince.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 8, Iwao Takamoto (81), creator of the Scooby-Doo cartoon character, died in Los Angeles. He also assisted in the designs of some of the biggest animated features and television shows, including "Cinderella," "Peter Pan," "Lady and the Tramp" and "The Flintstones."
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, Austria's two main political parties, the Social Democrats and the People's Party, agreed to form a new coalition government.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, In Bangladesh riot police used tear gas, rubber bullets and batons to disperse thousands of stone-throwing protesters in Dhaka, who are demanding postponement of this month's elections and electoral reforms.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, Backers of leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales set fire to the Cochabamba state capitol in a protest to demand the resignation of state Gov. Manfred Reyes Villa, who is allied with the conservative opposition.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, In Finland 2 newspaper editors were fined for publishing a letter that said violence against Jews was justified and that the Holocaust was acceptable.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, In Germany Mounir el Motassadeq, a Moroccan man convicted of aiding three of the four suicide pilots who committed the Sept. 11 attacks, was sentenced to the maximum of 15 years in prison for his role in the terror plot.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, Thousands of poor migrant laborers fled India's remote northeast despite a government promise of protection after dozens were massacred at the weekend by a powerful rebel group.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, In Iraq 9 workers, primarily Shiite, were killed in an ambush near Baghdad's airport. 6 bodies found in a largely Sunni neighborhood in southern Baghdad.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, Israeli police arrested Yigal Saar, the US representative of the Israel Tax Authority, as part of a bribery and influence-peddling probe that has so far questioned the authority's top officials and an aide to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, Daniyal Akhmetov, the PM of oil-rich Kazakhstan, resigned in the wake of criticism of his performance by the heavy-handed president of the Central Asian country. Nazarbayev, who has ruled Kazakhstan as president since its independence in 1991, regularly replaced his prime ministers as he tried to secure his position and balance interests of various powerful elite groups.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, The Nigerian government withdrew a suit seeking to sack Vice President Atiku Abubakar for defecting to a party other than the one in which he was elected.
(AFP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 8, Fatah gunmen released the deputy mayor of Nablus unharmed, two days after kidnapping him. Fatah militants torched stores of Hamas supporters in Ramallah and shot at the house of a top Hamas official. Agence France-Presse expressed gratitude for the release of a photographer who had been held hostage by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, Rev. Janusz Bielanski, head priest of Krakow's prestigious Wawel Cathedral, left his post amid allegations he collaborated with secret services of the communist era, a day after Warsaw's newly-appointed archbishop resigned in a scandal that shocked the nation.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, A senior Russian official said that Russia has been forced to stop delivering oil to Europe via Belarus after disruptions to the flow of exports it blamed on Minsk.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 8, Venezuela’s Pres. Hugo Chavez announced plans to nationalize power and telecommunications companies and make other bold changes to increase state control as he promised a more radical push toward socialism. Chavez stated that he had been a “communist" since at least 2002.
(AP, 1/9/07)(Econ, 1/13/07, p.34)
2008 Jan 8, Pres. Bush met with Turkey’s Pres. Abdullah Gul to discuss US policy on Turkey's fight against Kurdish rebels. Bush prepared to leave later in the day on his first major trip to the Mideast to try to build momentum for peace.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, Pres. Bush signed legislation aimed at preventing the severely mentally ill from buying guns.
(WSJ, 1/9/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 8, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger in his 5th State of the State speech proposed a constitutional amendment to keep the state from spending more than it collects in taxes. He said the projected $14 billion deficit was driven by voter-approved mandates escalating faster than state income. The proposed cost cutting included the shutdown of 48 state parks.
(SFC, 1/9/08, p.A1)(SFC, 1/17/08, p.A12)
2008 Jan 8, In New Hampshire Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (39%) led Barack Obama (36%) and John McCain (37%) led Mitt Romney (32%), reviving their sagging campaigns.
(AP, 1/9/08)
2008 Jan 8, Gold futures surged above $880 an ounce and closed at $880.30, up $18.30.
(SFC, 1/9/08, p.C3)
2008 Jan 8, James "Jimmy" Cayne (73), Bear Stearns Cos. Chief Executive, said he will give up day-to-day control of the fifth-largest US investment bank amid unprecedented losses from the subprime mortgage crisis. He planned to remain as executive chairman, and will be succeeded as CEO by President Alan Schwartz, effective immediately.
(AP, 1/8/08)(Econ, 1/12/08, p.65)
2008 Jan 8, Google unveiled a strategy for its philanthropic arm, Google.org, under the leadership of Dr. Larry Brilliant. The program will be funded with 1% of the firm’s equity, annual profits and employee’s time and pursue 5 core initiatives in 3 areas: fighting climate change, economic development, and building an early warning system for pandemics and disasters.
(Econ, 1/19/08, p.75)
2008 Jan 8, Flooding in northern Indiana left 3 people dead.
(SFC, 1/10/08, p.A3)
2008 Jan 8, In Algeria an army commander and three members of the security forces were killed during an operation aimed at flushing out an Islamist group in scrubland in the north of the country. The sweep, aided by helicopters, was intended to flush out a group of 10-15 new recruits to the Al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb group, who were intent on launching attacks on Constantine.
(AP, 1/9/08)
2008 Jan 8, In Vienna, Austria, a court convicted an accountant of embezzling $1.8 million from the Helsinki Federation for Human Rights to support his mistress, a crime that forced the respected group to fold. The 43-year-old accountant to three years in jail, two of which were suspended. His 31-year-old girl friend was sentenced to two years, 16 months of which could be served on parole.
(AP, 1/9/08)
2008 Jan 8, Britain’s PM Gordon Brown said that he wants a 3-year public sector pay deal, rather than the traditional annual deals, to control inflation and maintain economic stability.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, Sohail Qureshi (29), a dentist, was jailed in London after admitting planning to travel to Pakistan to carry out unspecified acts of terrorism. Qureshi, who was sentenced to four and a half years, was detained at London Heathrow Airport in October 2006 carrying thousands of pounds in cash, as well as a night sight, medical supplies and computer material.
(AFP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, Britain's Royal Mail issued a set of stamps commemorating James Bond to mark 100 years since the birth of his creator, Ian Fleming.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, China posted a regulation dating from Dec 31 declaring war on the "white pollution" choking its cities, farms and waterways. China said it is banning free plastic shopping bags and called for a return to the cloth bags of old, steps largely welcomed by merchants and shoppers. The ban takes effect June 1.
(AP, 1/10/08)
2008 Jan 8, The US military said US and Iraqi forces have launched operation Phantom Phoenix to strike against al-Qaida in Iraq and other extremists, hoping to build on a recent reduction of violence and push militants from their strongholds. The head of the municipality of Baghdad's primarily Sunni neighborhood of Yarmouk was killed when a bomb attached to his car exploded. A suicide bomber detonated his explosives at a checkpoint manned by police special forces in the Madain area, about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, killing two members of the special forces and wounding five people. 3 US soldiers were killed and two wounded in an attack in Salahuddin province.
(AP, 1/8/08)(AP, 1/10/08)
2008 Jan 8, In northern Greece a group of female protesters locked in a land dispute with the Greek Orthodox Church defied a 1,000-year-old ban and entered the all-male Mount Athos monastic sanctuary.
(AP, 1/9/08)
2008 Jan 8, Two rockets fired from Lebanon struck northern Israel overnight, expanding the violence that has erupted on Israel's other borders ahead of President Bush's visit to the region. No injuries were reported.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, Some 60,000 tons of garbage were piled up in the streets of Naples.
(Econ, 1/12/08, p.44)
2008 Jan 8, Kenya's opposition leader rejected talks with the president, describing an invitation to meet as "public relations gimmickry" that would undermine attempts to end the ethnically-charged election standoff that has killed more than 500 people.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom (70), the Maldives president, survived an assassination attempt when boy scout Mohammed Jaisham Ibrahim (15) grabbed the knife of an attacker who jumped out of a crowd of people greeting the president.
(AP, 1/9/08)(AP, 1/10/08)
2008 Jan 8, In Mexico 3 US residents and seven others linked to the powerful Gulf drug cartel were arrested following a deadly shootout in Rio Bravo just across the border from Texas. In a second shootout, two federal agents were killed and three more injured when they clashed with a group of suspects in the nearby city of Reynosa.
(AP, 1/9/08)
2008 Jan 8, A human rights campaign group called on Morocco to stop "muzzling" independence campaigners in the vast disputed region of Western Sahara, as UN-brokered peace talks on the 32-year row got underway in New York.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, Nauru’s foreign minister said Australia's plans to close a much-criticized detention center for asylum seekers on Nauru will devastate its economy.
(AFP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, A Sri Lankan government minister died in a roadside bombing blamed on the Tamil Tiger rebels, the first successful assassination of a top Sri Lankan official in 19 months. The bomb tore through the car carrying Nation Building Minister D.M. Dassanayake as he traveled through the Ja-Ela area.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, A government spokeswoman said Taiwan cannot match China's reported $6 billion aid offer to Malawi, but hopes a legacy of goodwill can convince the African nation not to switch allegiance to its giant neighbor.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, The wife of ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra was handed an arrest warrant after she returned to Thailand to face corruption charges that could put her behind bars for 20 years.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2009 Jan 8, President-elect Barack Obama warned of dire and lasting consequences if Congress doesn't pump unprecedented dollars into the economy, making an urgent pitch for his mammoth spending proposal in his first speech since his election.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, The US Navy said a new international force to battle pirates off the Somali coast is being formed under American command in a bid to focus more military resources to protect one of the world's key shipping lanes.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, Dell Inc. announced that it is moving its Irish manufacturing operations to Poland by 2010, as part of a cost cutting measure that will result in the loss of some 1,900 Irish jobs.
(WSJ, 1/9/09, p.B4)
2009 Jan 8, Department-store operator Macy's Inc. said it will close 11 underperforming stores in nine states, affecting 960 employees, and lowered its forecast for the fourth quarter after one of the weakest holiday seasons in years.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, Flooding in the US Pacific Northwest led to mudslides and avalanches and closed 20 miles of I-5 between Olympia, Wa., and the Oregon line.
(SFC, 1/9/09, p.A2)
2009 Jan 8, Rev. Richard John Neuhaus (b.1936), Catholic priest and author, died. His book included “The Naked Public Square" (1984), which argued that religious values have a crucial place in American politics.
(WSJ, 1/10/09, p.A6)
2009 Jan 8, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office said that reports suggested 17 civilians, including women and children, were killed in the Jan 6 US raid in Laghman province. A suicide bomber struck US troops patrolling on foot in southern Afghanistan, killing three civilians, 2 Americans and wounding at least nine others. A coalition strike on a bomb-making network in Zabul killed five militants.
(AFP, 1/8/09)(AP, 1/8/09)(AP, 1/9/09)(SFC, 1/9/09, p.A10)
2009 Jan 8, The Bank of England cut interest rates from 2% to 1.5%, the lowest level since its founding in 1694, taking it into uncharted territory as it attempts to ward off a prolonged recession.
(AP, 1/8/09)(WSJ, 1/9/09, p.A5)(Econ, 1/10/09, p.49)
2009 Jan 8, Britain's Financial Services Authority fined insurance broker Aon Ltd. 5.25 million pounds ($8 million) for weak anti-bribery controls, the largest penalty of its kind.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, In eastern Congo Mai Mai militiamen attacked a group of seven rangers killing one in a government-controlled sector in the far north of Virunga National park.
(AP, 1/10/09)
2009 Jan 8, A magnitude 6.1 earthquake rocked Costa Rica killing at least 20 people with dozens still missing.
(AP, 1/9/09)(AP, 1/14/09)
2009 Jan 8, In Iraq 2 simultaneous roadside bombs tore through an Iraqi army patrol responding to a mortar attack north of Baghdad, killing six Iraqi soldiers. Two other Iraqi soldiers died in another blast near the city of Kirkuk.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, Israeli representatives arrived in Cairo for Egyptian-brokered talks on a cease-fire proposal after the UN Security Council failed to agree on action to end the crisis in Gaza.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, The UN halted aid deliveries to the besieged Gaza Strip, citing Israeli attacks on a UN truck that killed 2 Palestinian workers. For a 2nd straight day, Israel suspended its Gaza military operation for three hours to allow in humanitarian supplies. Israel killed at least 11 people, including three who were fleeing their homes, raising the death toll from its 13-day offensive to 699 Palestinians. 11 Israelis have died since the offensive began. Militants in Lebanon fired at least three rockets into Israel. UN figures said as many as 257 children have been killed and 1,080 wounded, about a third of the total casualties since Dec. 27.
(AP, 1/8/09)(SFC, 1/9/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 8, Kuwait’s top investment bank, Global Investment House, said it had defaulted on most of its $3 billion in debt, raising concerns that other Arab Gulf financial firms may follow as the global financial crises spreads through the region.
(WSJ, 1/9/09, p.C2)
2009 Jan 8, In Pakistan a fire swept through a slum in Karachi, killing 38 people, many of them children.
(AP, 1/9/09)
2009 Jan 8, Russia's state-controlled gas monopoly said it would restore supplies to Europe through Ukraine, cut off after a dispute between Moscow and Kiev, as soon as international monitors are in place.
(Reuters, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, In Somalia gunmen fatally shot a UN World Food program worker during a food distribution, the second staff member killed this week.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, In Spain Leonidas Vargas (60), a convicted Colombian drug baron with links to two major smuggling cartels, was shot dead in a Madrid hospital.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, Sri Lankan troops captured an important Tamil Tiger base and pounded the rebels with air attacks, forcing the insurgents to withdraw deeper into the dwindling area that remains under their control. Gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed Lasantha Wickrematunge, the editor of a Sri Lankan newspaper critical of the government, the second violent attack on media this week. Three days after he was gunned down execution-style, Wickrematunge's newspaper published a haunting, self-written obituary in which he says he was targeted for his writings and adds: "When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me."
(AP, 1/8/09)(AP, 1/12/09)
2009 Jan 8, Darfur rebels accused Sudan's army of bombing their positions over the last 24 hours, breaking a period of relative calm in the country's violent west.
(Reuters, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, In Zimbabwe opposition members accused of being involved in a bomb plot said they were tortured into making false confessions.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2010 Jan 8, In NYC 2 men linked to an alleged Al-Qaida associate were arrested after one of the men caused a traffic accident while under surveillance. Zarein Ahmedzay (24) and Adis Medunjanin (25), former classmates of Najibullah Zazi, were first publicly linked to an investigation of a plot to attack NYC with homemade bombs in September. Zazi was arrested in Denver on Sep 19 after investigators found evidence of a planned attack in his rented vehicle in NYC on Sep 10. On April 23 Ahmedzay pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. He said Al-Qaida leaders in Pakistan in 2008 had encouraged him and Zazi to target structures in NYC.
(SFC, 1/9/10, p.A9)(SFC, 4/24/10, p.A7)
2010 Jan 8, Lashonda Booker, a former Federal Emergency Management employee and her cousin, Peggy, Hilton were charged with stealing over $721,000 in Hurricane Katrina relief money. Booker had worked in FEMA’s Biloxi, Miss., office.
(SFC, 1/12/10, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/yer5crg)
2010 Jan 8, It was reported that YMax Corp., the company behind the magicJack, the cheap Internet phone gadget that's been heavily promoted on TV, has made a new version of the device that allows free calls from cell phones in the home, in a fashion that's sure to draw protest from cellular carriers.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, Art Clokey (88), American animator, died in Los Osos, Ca. His bendable creation Gumby became a pop culture phenomenon through decades of toys, revivals and satires. Gumby grew out of a student project Clokey produced at the University of Southern California in the early 1950s called "Gumbasia."
(AP, 1/9/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Afghanistan two local intelligence guards were killed at a dog fight in the provincial capital of Pul-e Alam in Logar province. A suspected suicide bomber had entered the dog fight and opened fire. Other intelligence officers killed the gunman, who never detonated his alleged cache.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Angola hooded gunmen sprayed the Togo soccer team’s bus with gunfire as it traveled through the restive northern Cabinda enclave. The bus driver was killed and 7 others were injured. The attack was claimed by the separatist Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC), which has been fighting for decades for the independence of the oil-rich territory. The next day media officer Stanislas Ocloo and assistant coach Amalete Abalo died from their wounds. Virgilio Santos, an official with the African Nations Cup local organizing committee COCAN, said teams had been told explicitly not to travel to the tournament by road.
(Reuters, 1/9/10)
2010 Jan 8, Australia angrily condemned an Indian newspaper cartoon likening its police to the Ku Klux Klan over their investigations into the recent murder of a young Indian man. 4 men reportedly poured an unidentified fluid on Jaspreet Singh (29), a man of Indian descent, and set him alight in a suburb of Melbourne, leaving him with 15% burns. Singh was later charged with making a false report to police and criminal damage with a view to gaining financial advantage over the incident, allegedly to make an insurance claim.
(AFP, 1/8/10)(AFP, 1/9/10)(AFP, 2/2/10)
2010 Jan 8, Virgin Money, part of Richard Branson's Virgin empire, took big strides towards becoming a major retail bank able to compete in a battered sector seeking to recover from the financial crisis.
(AFP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, The beleaguered Eurostar train service cancelled half of its trains between London and Paris because of freezing temperatures.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Canada Wiebo Ludvig (68), an anti-energy-industry activist was arrested in Grande Prairie, Alberta, in connection with the investigation into a series of pipeline bombings in northeastern British Columbia. Ludwig had been convicted a decade ago of bombing oil and gas wells. The next day Ludwig was released without charges.
(SFC, 1/9/10, p.A2)(Reuters, 1/10/10)
2010 Jan 8, Charles Massi (57) a former minister and head of the rebel Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP), died following the torture he was subjected to.
(AFP, 1/16/10)
2010 Jan 8, The China Passenger Car Association reported that China overtook the US as the biggest auto market in 2009 and automakers should see more strong growth this year.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, In southeastern China a fire in coal mine trapped and killed 12 workers in Xinyu city, Jiangxi province.
(AP, 1/9/10)
2010 Jan 8, The EU said it will pursue a new deal on global warming through the Group of 20, since last month's UN climate conference of nearly 200 nations led to unwieldy negotiations that didn't accomplish much.
(AP, 1/9/10)
2010 Jan 8, Officials said Guinea's No. 2 leader, Gen. Sekouba Konate, is going to Senegal for medical treatment for cirrhosis of the liver, heightening fears of a power vacuum since the country's president is already hospitalized in Morocco following an assassination attempt. Guinea's Health Minister denied reports that the nation's No. 2 leader was heading to Senegal to be hospitalized, rejecting rumors he was being evacuated for a medical emergency.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, Israeli airstrikes against targets in Gaza killed three men in a smuggling tunnel along the Gaza-Egypt border.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, Israeli cooks doubled the previous record for the world's biggest serving of hummus, set in October by cooks in Lebanon. An adjudicator sent from London by Guinness World Records, Jack Brockbank, confirmed that Israeli chefs now held the record for hummus. He put the exact amount of hummus in a giant satellite dish at 9,017 pounds (4,090 kg).
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Italy at least 37 people were wounded in Rosarno, following clashes between the migrants, police and local residents. The wounded included 5 migrants, 14 residents and 18 police officers.
(AP, 1/9/10)
2010 Jan 8, Government forces in Indian Kashmir killed two suspected rebels in a gunbattle. The fighting started after troops cordoned off a house in Khrew village after receiving a tip that suspected militants were hiding there.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Malaysia 3 churches were attacked with firebombs, causing extensive damage to one, as Muslims pledged to prevent Christians from using the word "Allah," escalating religious tensions in the multiracial country. On Aug 13 a Malaysian court sentenced two Muslim brothers to five years in prison for torching a Christian church during the height of the dispute.
(AP, 1/8/10)(AP, 8/13/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Mexico a major regional newspaper in the northern city of Saltillo announced it would stop covering drug violence altogether after the body of a reporter was found outside a motel with a threatening message. Valentin Valdes (28) had written about the Dec. 29 arrests at the Marbella Motel of five alleged members of the Gulf drug cartel. He also covered the arrests on Jan 6 of five others who barged into the same hotel and stole the surveillance tapes. All 60 policemen in the embattled town of Tancitaro were fired because they had failed to stop a series of killings and other crimes. Michoacan state police and soldiers planned to take over security duties in the town. In Ciudad Juarez a man's body was found on a street with its hands and head cut off. Another man's body, with its head cut off and eyes gouged out, was found elsewhere in the city and two women's bodies were found in a vacant lot. The body of a man whose legs had been surgically amputated some time ago was also found on a dirt road on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez. A man riding a bicycle was shot to death in the city. 5 people were killed in drive-by shootings and a group of 3 men were shot to death at a fast-food restaurant near a school.
(AP, 1/8/10)(AP, 1/9/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Nigeria a crude-oil pipeline operated by Chevron was attacked by unknown gunmen in the Niger Delta region.
(AFP, 1/9/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Pakistan a US missile strike killed 4 militants in North Waziristan, as US Senator John McCain, visiting Islamabad, defended the attacks which fuel anti-American sentiment in the Muslim nation. 8 suspected insurgents were killed when explosives intended for a bomb attack accidentally blew up, destroying a militant safe house in Karachi.
(AFP, 1/8/10)(SFC, 1/9/10, p.A2)
2010 Jan 8, Portugal's parliament passed a bill that would make the predominantly Catholic nation the sixth in Europe to permit gay marriage.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Puerto Rico officials said they have killed 800 monkeys blamed for scavenging crops and damaging natural resources in southwest region. Most of those killed were patas monkeys. About 200 rhesus monkeys were sent to the Caribbean Primate Research Center at the University of Puerto Rico and to other countries. The monkeys had escaped from research labs in the 1960s and '70s.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, An avalanche in Russia's southern Caucasus mountain range killed five climbers including an instructor. The novice climbers, all from Moscow or St. Petersburg had undergone an intensive, six-day training course in the climbing base of Bezengi, in the province of Kabardino-Balkaria. Four climbers in a party of nine survived the snow slide, which struck as they were ascending the Gedan-tau peak.
(AP, 1/9/10)
2010 Jan 8, Steven Lin of Hsinchu-based Heli-Ocean Technology, a Taiwanese company, said his company had agreed to a request from a firm in China to procure sensitive components with nuclear uses, then shipped them to Iran. Such transactions violate UN sanctions imposed on the Middle Eastern nation. Lin said he received an Internet order from a Chinese firm in January or February 2008 to obtain an unspecified number of pressure transducers, which convert pressure into analog electrical signals.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, Venezuela’s Pres. Chavez issued a presidential decree devaluing the currency by up to 50%.
(Econ, 1/16/10, p.39)
2010 Jan 8, Venezuela’s Pres. Chavez issued a presidential decree devaluing the currency by up to 50%. Finance minister Ali Rodriguez admitted that this would boost the inflation rate, 27% last year, by 3-5 percentage points.
(Econ, 1/16/10, p.39)
2011 Jan 8, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (40) of Arizona was shot in the head when an assailant opened fire outside a grocery store during a meeting with constituents in Tucson. The dead included US District Judge John Roll (63); Christina Greene (9); Giffords aide Gabe Zimmerman (30); Dorothy Morris (76); Dorwin Stoddard (76); and Phyllis Scheck (79). 9 others were wounded. Giffords underwent a two-hour surgery and remained unconscious. The shooter was in custody and was identified as Jared Loughner (22). On May 25 a federal judge declared that Loughner was incompetent to stand trial. Loughner, who has schizophrenia, was forcibly medicated at a Missouri prison medical facility so he can be competent to understand the charges against him. On Nov 8, 2012, he was ordered to serve the seven consecutive life sentences, plus 140 years in federal prison for the shootings.
(AP, 1/8/11)(AP, 1/9/11)(SFC, 5/26/11, p.A7) (AP, 11/8/12)
2011 Jan 8, The San Francisco Board of Supervisors picked Supervisor David Chiu to serve a 2nd term as board president.
(SSFC, 1/9/11, p.A1)
2011 Jan 8, In Los Angeles a 2nd suspect was arrested regarding videotaped sexual assaults of profoundly disabled women at a residential care facility. As many as 10 suspects were possibly involved.
(SFC, 1/10/11, p.A4)
2011 Jan 8, In South Dakota Republican Dennis Daugaard (b.1953) began serving as state governor. By Fall of 2014 he repealed 3,724 regulations.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Daugaard)(Econ, 8/30/14, p.27)
2011 Jan 8, In Afghanistan 3 civilians, including a child, were killed in crossfire as militants battled NATO forces in Helmand province. 2 civilians were killed and three wounded when a rocket struck their home in Helmand. A roadside bomb killed a coalition soldier in the east.
(AP, 1/9/11)(SSFC, 1/9/11, p.A5)
2011 Jan 8, In Algeria Fresh protests erupted against soaring food prices as the government considered measures to limit the cost of staple foodstuffs to quell the unrest. 2 people were already dead and 400 injured in protests across the country since Jan 6. The government announced that it will cut the cost of sugar and cooking oil.
(Reuters, 1/8/11)(SSFC, 1/9/11, p.A5)
2011 Jan 8, In Australia almost a foot of rain in just a few hours renewed flood fears in the already waterlogged Queensland state, sending a surging river over its banks and into another large town. Some 20 buildings in Maryborough, where about 22,000 people live, were expected to be flooded after the river burst its banks in the overnight downpour.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 8, Investigators told Brazil’s G1 news website that 2 brothers have been charged with killing their father, a local Afro-Brazilian religious leader, by knocking him out with sleeping pills and then burying him alive in Maranhao state. The brothers told police their father was a violent man who drank too much and didn't accept their homosexuality.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 8, Former Czech foreign minister Jiri Dienstbier (b.1937) died. The reporter turned dissident had joined Vaclav Havel to help topple one of East Europe's most repressive regimes, and then served under Havel in Czechoslovakia's first post-communist government.
(AP, 1/9/11)
2011 Jan 8, France’s Pres. Sarkozy said 2 French hostages, kidnapped a day earlier in the Niger capital Niamey, were killed by their captors despite a rescue attempt by French forces.
(SSFC, 1/9/11, p.A5)
2011 Jan 8, A spokesman for Germany's Agriculture Ministry said an overly high concentration of cancer-causing dioxin has for the first time been detected in samples of meat following the discovery that farm animals were fed contaminated feed.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 8, India said at least 22 people, many of them homeless, have died over the past three days in Uttar Pradesh state, pushing the death toll from two weeks of cold weather to 63.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 8, In India a 2-day cricket player auction for the Indian Premier League was watched by some 19 million people. 127 cricketers were sold for $62 million.
(Econ, 1/15/11, p.70)
2011 Jan 8, Iran hanged 4 convicted drug traffickers in a prison in the central city of Isfahan. At least 179 people were executed in 2010.
(AFP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 8, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian who tried to throw explosives at a West Bank checkpoint. A mortar attack from Gaza wounded 2 Thai workers in southern Israel.
(AP, 1/8/11)(SSFC, 1/9/11, p.A5)
2011 Jan 8, An Italian association for bird protection said that over 700 dead birds have been picked up since Jan. 1 from the streets of Faenza, about 30 miles (50 km) southeast of Bologna. They appeared to have overeaten sunflower seeds, which damage their livers and kidneys. The seeds were mostly waste from a nearby oil factory.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 8, Mexican police found the headless bodies of 14 men and a 15th intact corpse outside a shopping center in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco. Narco-messages indicated the Sinaloa cartel killed the 15 men for trying to intrude on the gang's turf and extort residents. Also killed in Acapulco were two police officers; six people shot dead and stuffed in a taxi, their hands and feet bound; and four others elsewhere in the city. 10 people were kidnapped from a local discotheque. 3 of their bodies were found the next day. In Mexico City four young men were killed in a drive by shooting outside a grocery store.
(AP, 1/8/11)(AP, 1/9/11)(AFP, 1/9/11)
2011 Jan 8, In Nigeria at least 11 people died around Jos from religious violence and a political rally gone awry.
(AP, 1/9/11)
2011 Jan 8, North Korea reiterated a proposal for unconditional talks with South Korea to ease tensions on the divided peninsula.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 8, In Spain tens of thousands of people marched in the Basque region to protest the government policy of shipping separatist prisoners convicted of terror to jails far from their homes.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 8, In Sudan 6 people were killed in clashes between rebel militias and south Sudan's army over the last 24 hours, a day before a referendum in which the south is expected to vote for independence. A spokesman for the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) said his forces ambushed fighters loyal to militia leader Galwak Gai in oil-producing Unity state on Jan 7 and Gai's men launched a counter-attack on Jan 8. Gai was among several southern militia leaders who rebelled after April elections, accusing the south's government of fraud. In Jonglei state deadly clashes between men commanded by militia leader David Yauyau and the southern military left at least one civilian dead.
(AP, 1/8/11)
2011 Jan 8, In Tunisia at least 10 people were killed in rioting in the western towns of Thala and Kasserine. 4 people died in the central-western town of Regueb. The opposition said at least 20 people were killed Thala and Kasserine.
(AP, 1/9/11)(AP, 1/10/11)
2012 Jan 8, In California animal rights arsonists destroyed 14 cattle trucks at the Harris Ranch of I-5.
(SFC, 1/11/12, p.C3)
2012 Jan 8, Brandy Fonteneaux (28), a US Army Specialist, was found dead in her room. She had been stabbed 74 times in her barracks on Fort Carson, Colorado, by fellow soldier Army Sgt. Vincinte Jackson (40). On Dec 13 Jackson was convicted of unpremeditated murder.
(http://tinyurl.com/b4g9rec)(SFC, 12/14/12, p.A11)
2012 Jan 8, In Mississippi 4 convicted killers were released from prison following reprieves of 198 inmates by outgoing Gov. Haley Barbour. Only 26 of those pardoned were still in prison. On march 8, 2012, the state Supreme Court upheld the pardons.
(SFC, 1/10/12, p.A5)(SFC, 1/12/12, p.A6)(Econ, 1/21/12, p.36)(SFC, 3/9/12, p.A6)
2012 Jan 8, The Consumer Electronics Show opened in Las Vegas. South Korea-based Samsung and LG introduced their new 55-inch organic light emitting diode (OLED) HDTVs.
(SFC, 3/15/12, p.D2)
2012 Jan 8, Wildlife officials said white-tailed deer populations in parts of eastern Montana and elsewhere in the Northern Plains could take years to recover from a devastating disease that killed thousands of the animals in recent months. The deaths were attributed to an outbreak of epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD), transmitted by biting midges.
(AP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, An Afghan soldier shot dead a NATO colleague and was himself killed when a dispute ended in a shoot-out.
(AFP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, Algeria said it is to buy a 51-percent stake in mobile phone operator Djezzy, after talks with Russian telecoms firm Vimpelcom, the main shareholder in the group's Egyptian parent company. Djezzy is the largest mobile operator in Algeria, claiming with over 16 million subscribers last August. It has been operating in Algeria since 2002.
(AFP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, The anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd said three Australian activists were being held as "prisoners" by the Japanese harpoon fleet after sneaking aboard one of their vessels overnight to protest. The activists were transferred to an Australian customs vessel on Jan 13.
(AFP, 1/8/12)(AP, 1/13/12)
2012 Jan 8, Britain’s PM David Cameron said he would veto a European-wide financial transaction tax unless it was imposed globally, deepening a confrontation with European Union heavyweights France and Germany. Cameron also suggested that legislation to curb excessive executive pay, including giving shareholders new voting powers, could be set out in the spring.
(Reuters, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, In Chile the family home of one of a top Indian leader was destroyed in a suspicious fire. Hours later, hooded gunmen attacked the home of a retired military official and set it ablaze in the southern Araucania region where Mapuche Indians and Chile's largest forestry companies have been mired in land conflicts.
(AP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, In China a monk named Sopa (42) died after drinking kerosene and throwing it over his body. His body exploded in pieces before police took it away in Dari county in Qinghai province. Xinhua News Agency identified the dead monk as Nyage Sonamdrugyu. The reason for the discrepancy in identification was not known.
(AP, 1/9/12)
2012 Jan 8, A leading Iranian hardline newspaper reported Iran has begun uranium enrichment at the Fordo facility near the holy city of Qom, well protected from possible airstrikes. Another newspaper quoted a senior commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guard force as saying Tehran's leadership has decided to order the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic oil route, if the country's petroleum exports are blocked.
(AP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, Iraq's Shiite-led government has formally demanded that authorities in the semiautonomous Kurdish region hand over the country's top Sunni official, who is wanted on terrorism charges. Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi has denied the allegations and says he cannot get a fair trial in Baghdad.
(AP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, Yair Lapid (48), one of Israel's most popular television personalities, quit the news business to start his own political party, a move that could shake up the Israeli political system by energizing opposition to PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
(AP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, Israeli police arrested 3 more men in a suspected pedophilia ring thought to have preyed on dozens of Jerusalem children. The ring is suspected of molesting 70 children between the ages of 2 and 7 in their religious Jewish neighborhood.
(AP, 1/9/12)
2012 Jan 8, Israel charged five alleged Jewish extremists over a December 12 raid on an army base, accusing them of gathering intelligence on the Israeli military and planning a riot.
(AFP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, Kuwait’s interior minister said in remarks published that Kuwait will start granting citizenship to some stateless people by early February.
(AFP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, In New Zealand the cargo ship Rena, which caused New Zealand's worst maritime pollution disaster when it ran aground three months ago, broke in two in a storm, raising fears of a fresh environmental crisis.
(AFP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, In Nigeria gunmen attacked a military vehicle in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state. The attack killed three civilians and wounded six civilians and one soldier.
(AP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, South Korean police detained a Chinese man (38) accused of throwing petrol bombs at the Japanese embassy in Seoul after claiming his grandmother was forced into wartime sex slavery.
(AFP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, In Sudan 3 people were killed and several injured during a stampede after police fired tear gas at an Independence Day celebration in the Sennar state capital of Singa.
(AFP, 1/8/12)
2012 Jan 8, Syrian security forces conducting raids on homes and pro-regime snipers on rooftops killed at least 10 civilians, including 2 teenagers, most of them in the central city of Homs. Fierce clashes in Basr al-Harir, southern Daraa province, between government troops and military defectors left 11 soldiers dead.
(AP, 1/8/12)(AP, 1/9/12)
2012 Jan 8, Yemeni troops clashed with Al-Qaeda linked militants overnight in a new attempt to regain control of Abyan province. A soldier and six militants were killed in the fighting.
(AFP, 1/8/12)
2013 Jan 8, In northern Afghanistan gunmen killed two local government officials in separate attacks in Kunduz province.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, A court in Algiers convicted Amar Gharbia (39) of taking part in the 2003 kidnapping of 15 European tourists, mainly German, in the Sahara Desert and sentenced him to life in prison. Youcef Ben Mohamed (25) of Mali was also convicted and imprisoned for seven years. Both belonged to the Salafist Group for Call and Combat which later transformed into al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, In London 2 former employees of HBOS were charged by UK prosecutors over business loans made through a high street bank for about 35 million pounds.
(Reuters, 1/9/13)
2013 Jan 8, Pro-British protesters pelted police with petrol bombs and fireworks in a sixth successive night of rioting in Northern Ireland's capital of Belfast.
(Reuters, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, A Canadian federal court ruled that 200,000 Metis and 400,000 First nations’ people living outside reserves should also be considered to be Indians under the constitution.
(Econ, 1/19/13, p.38)
2013 Jan 8, In China free-speech protesters in masks squared off against flag-waving communist loyalists in Guangzhou as a dispute over censorship at a newspaper spilled into the broader population, with authorities shutting microblog accounts of supporters of the paper.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, A European court ruled that Italy's woefully overcrowded prisons violate the basic rights of inmates, fined the government €100,000 ($131,000) and ordered it to make changes within a year. The finding came three years after Italy's government recognized the problem itself but failed to pass legislation designed to correct it.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, A Paris court convicted nine people for links to a militant group that the UN Security Council has described as an al-Qaida affiliate. Suspected ringleader, Irfan Demirtas (53), a Turkish-Dutch national, was given an eight-year sentence, €20,000 ($26,170) fine and barred from French territory after his sentence is up.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, A lawyer for former detainees of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq said 71 former detainees received a portion of a $5.28 million settlement involving US defense contractor Engility Holdings. The company’s L-3 Services subsidiary was accused of conspiring to torture the detainees.
(SFC, 1/9/13, p.A3)
2013 Jan 8, The Japanese government summoned China's ambassador to protest four Chinese maritime surveillance ships that spent about 13 hours in waters near disputed islands claimed by both countries.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, In Jordan Syrian refugees in a refugee camp attacked aid workers with sticks and stones, frustrated after cold, howling winds swept away their tents and torrential rains flooded muddy streets overnight.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, Kenya’s The National Police Service Commission suspended three senior police officers from the Rift Valley province where Joshua Waiganjo (34) operated as a fake officer extorting money from civilians. Commission Chairman Johnston Kavuludi said Waiganjo's case has prompted a detailed audit of all police to weed out "ghost" officers.
(AP, 1/9/13)
2013 Jan 8, An Indian army official said Pakistani soldiers crossed the cease-fire line in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir and attacked an army patrol, killing two Indian soldiers before retreating back into Pakistani-controlled territory.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, In Nigeria a massive fire tore through a waterfront slum in Lagos, burning down dozens of shack workshops and homes. There were no firefighters, trucks or emergency equipment seen in the neighborhood.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, Students at North Korea's premier university showed Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt how they look for information online: they Google it. Kim Su Hyang, a librarian, said students at Kim Il Sung University have had Internet access since the laboratory opened in April 2010.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, In Pakistan several missiles fired from American drones slammed into a compound near the town of Mir Ali in the North Waziristan tribal area, killing eight suspected militants.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, Palestinian factions in Syria called for a cease-fire after fighting flared at a refugee camp in the capital, Damascus. 5 people were killed on Yarmouk Street, four of them when a shell exploded and the fifth in sniper fire.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2013 Jan 8, Slovenia’s official anti-corruption commission said PM Janez Jansa and opposition leader Zoran Jankovic had questions to answer.
(Econ, 1/19/13, p.55)
2013 Jan 8, The UN World Food Program said it is unable to help 1 million Syrians who are going hungry.
(AP, 1/8/13)
2014 Jan 8, The US White House pushed back against harsh criticism in a new book “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary of War," by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates that questions President Barack Obama's war leadership and rips into VP Joe Biden.
(AP, 1/9/14)(SFC, 1/9/14, p.A4)
2014 Jan 8, The Obama administration pressed the nation’s schools to abandon overly zealous discipline policies that send students to court instead of to the principal’s office.
(SFC, 1/9/14, p.A4)
2014 Jan 8, Seventeen people related to the San Diego street gang BMS were arrested in California and New Jersey by police and FBI agents for operating a prostitution ring that spanned 46 cities in 23 states.
(SFC, 1/10/14, p.A5)
2014 Jan 8, Former Georgia banker Aubrey Lee Price (47) pleaded non guilty to stealing millions from investors before vanishing for 18 months. Prosecutors said he misspent, embezzled and lost some $21 million.
(SFC, 1/9/14, p.A40)
2014 Jan 8, Omaha police said an African-American toddler, who was cursed at buy adults and encouraged to curse in return in a posted video, has been placed in protective custody. Three other children were also removed from the same home.
(SFC, 1/10/14, p.A5)
2014 Jan 8, New Jersey officials released e-mails that appeared to show Gov. Chris Christie's staff plotting the lane closures in September to retaliate against the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, because he had not endorsed the governor's re-election campaign.
(Reuters, 1/10/14)
2014 Jan 8, The Utah governor’s office said that the state will not recognize more than 1,000 same-sex marriages performed over the past two weeks as it appeals a legal ruling that had overturned the state’s ban on such unions.
(SFC, 1/9/14, p.A4)
2014 Jan 8, A US navy helicopter went down in the Atlantic off of Virginia killing 2 crew members and wounding two others. A 5th remained missing.
(SFC, 1/9/14, p.A4)
2014 Jan 8, Dennis Rodman sang "Happy Birthday" to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un before leading a squad of former NBA stars in a friendly game as part of his "basketball diplomacy" that has been criticized in the US as naive and laughable. Tourists said Rodman singing "Happy Birthday" to Kim Jong-Un was akin to Marilyn Monroe performing for JFK.
(AFP, 1/8/14)(AP, 1/9/14)
2014 Jan 8, In Afghanistan US forces accidentally shot dead a four year old boy.
(Reuters, 1/10/14)
2014 Jan 8, A Bahraini court sentenced 22 Shiites to 15 years in prison over the killing of a policeman and the wounding of another in an attack outside Manama.
(AP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, In Belgium Emiel Pauwels (95), a European masters athletics champion, committed euthanasia because he suffered from cancer. Pauwels held the over-90 60 meters European title he won last year.
(AP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Britain’s Electoral Commission said voters should have to prove their identity at polling stations, as it launched a study into fraud concerns around ethnic South Asian communities.
(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Canada announced the first H5N1 avian flu death in North America, of a patient who had just returned from China.
(AFP, 1/9/14)
2014 Jan 8, China's foreign minister said Beijing was tackling illegal gold mining in Ghana, after hundreds of his compatriots were arrested and sent home for extracting the mineral without permission.
(AFP, 1/9/14)
2014 Jan 8, A Croatian court ruled that Josip Perkovic, a communist-era intelligence chief, could be extradited to Germany where he is wanted over a killing of a Yugoslav dissident in 1983. On Jan 24 Perkovic was flown to Germany.
(Reuters, 1/8/14)(Reuters, 1/24/14)
2014 Jan 8, German authorities said they have charged Werner C. (88), a former member of an SS armored division, with 25 counts of murder over allegations that he took part in the June 10, 1944, slaughter in Oradour-sur-Glane in southwestern France, the largest civilian massacre in Nazi-occupied France.
(AP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, A German court dropped the case against Siert Bruins (92), a former member of the Nazi SS, ruling that there are too many gaps in the evidence to deliver a verdict. Bruins was accused of killing resistance fighter Aldert Klaas Dijkema in September 1944 in Appingedam, near the German border in the northern Netherlands.
(AP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Greece formally assumed the European Union's rotating six-month presidency with a ceremony attended by EU commissioners.
(AP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Greek authorities charged 25 people and arrested three following an investigation into allegedly inadequately secured loans from the former Hellenic Postbank to local businessmen.
(AP, 1/9/14)
2014 Jan 8, India chipped away at America's diplomatic perks, ordering the envoys to obey local traffic laws and warning that a popular US Embassy club violates diplomatic law because it is open to outsiders.
(AP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, In India a fire on an overnight train killed at least nine people near Mumbai with sleeping victims overcome by flames and smoke as the blaze ripped through three carriages.
(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Iraq's PM al-Maliki urged al-Qaida-linked fighters who have overrun two cities west of Baghdad to give up the battle, vowing to press forward with a push to regain control of the mainly Sunni areas. NGOs said more than 13,000 families have fled Fallujah.
(AP, 1/8/14)(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Iraq's self-ruled northern Kurdish region said it has unilaterally started sending its crude to Turkey and is going ahead with plans to export oil despite objections by the central government in Baghdad. The flow of oil to Turkey started in early January.
(AP, 1/9/14)
2014 Jan 8, In Israel thousands of African migrants demanding to be recognized as refugees protested outside of Israel's parliament, part of a series of mass demonstrations over their status in Israel.
(AP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Libya's PM Ali Zeidan warned oil tankers trying to reach ports seized by armed protesters must stay away or they could be sunk by the navy. Libya said it will sue any foreign firms trying to buy oil from eastern ports seized by armed protesters and stop doing business with them.
(Reuters, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Nauru, the tiny Pacific island that hosts a controversial Australian immigration detention centre, was reported to be hiking visa costs for foreign journalists by 40 times, fuelling concerns over secrecy surrounding Australia's asylum seeker policy.
(Reuters, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Dutch pension asset manager PGGM, one of the largest in the country, said it was divesting from five Israeli banks because they finance Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Gaza's Hamas government freed seven imprisoned Fatah members, as part of efforts to mend relations between the Islamist movement and its West Bank-based Palestinian rival.
(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, An Islamic Jihad militant was killed near Gaza City in what medics and family said was an Israeli drone strike.
(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, In southern Russia the bodies of 6 men were found shot to death in four cars abandoned on the outskirts of Pyatigorsk.
(AP, 1/9/14)
2014 Jan 8, Officials in the semi-autonomous Somalia region of Puntland confirmed Abdiweli Mohammed Ali Gaas, a former Somali prime minister, as the region's new leader.
(AP, 1/8/14)(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, South Korean prosecutors arrested an IT contractor for stealing the personal information of around 20m credit card holders.
(Econ, 1/25/14, p.62)
2014 Jan 8, South Sudan's government and rebels were locked in fierce battles across the country, as peace talks taking place in neighboring Ethiopia appeared to flounder.
(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Syrian rebels seized control of a hospital used as a headquarters by an al-Qaida affiliate in the northern city of Aleppo, part of a widening campaign against the extremist group in the country's opposition-held north. Rebels overran the Aleppo headquarters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), as claims emerged that the Al-Qaeda linked group had massacred prisoners there in cold blood.
(AP, 1/8/14)(AFP, 1/9/14)
2014 Jan 8, In central Tunisia clashes broke out between police and demonstrators protesting economic hardship in Kasserine, as discontent mounts over new taxes and government failure to improve living conditions, three years after the revolution.
(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, Turkey's deputy police chief was sacked overnight, the most senior commander yet targeted in a purge of a force heavily influenced by cleric Fethullah Gulen PM Tayyip Erdogan accuses of plotting to seize the levers of state power. The police chief of Izmir was among 16 senior police officials reassigned to new posts.
(Reuters, 1/8/14)(AP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 8, In Yemen 2 suspected al Qaeda militants were killed in a US drone strike in the southeastern province of Hadramout.
(Reuters, 1/8/14)
2015 Jan 8, The Pentagon said the US military will close a major air base in Britain and withdraw from more than a dozen installations across Europe as part of a reorganization of forces.
(AFP, 1/8/15)
2015 Jan 8, The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it has fined Honda $70 million for failing to submit reports of fatal accidents and injuries to the government.
(SFC, 1/9/15, p.C3)
2015 Jan 8, Schools in Chicago, Boston and other large cities closed as sub-zero temperatures and bitter winds gripped central and eastern United States for a third day.
(Reuters, 1/8/15)
2015 Jan 8, In Florida John Janchuck (25) tossed his daughter Phoebe (5) off the Sunshine Skyway Bridge and into Tampa Bay. Police said he had been acting strangely.
(SFC, 1/9/15, p.A8)
2015 Jan 8, Vermont lawmakers voted 110-69 to elect Gov. Peter Shumlin to a 3rd two-year term after he failed to win the popular vote last November.
(SFC, 1/9/15, p.A6)
2015 Jan 8, In central Afghanistan one policeman was killed and three were wounded when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Uruzgan province.
(AP, 1/8/15)
2015 Jan 8, In Costa Rica a catamaran carrying dozens of foreign tourists to Totuga Island capsized leaving 3 people dead.
(SFC, 1/9/15, p.A2)
2015 Jan 8, Cuba freed two more detainees, as Havana continued to release 53 people the US considers political prisoners, as part of an agreement between the two nations aimed at ending decades of hostility.
(Reuters, 1/8/15)
2015 Jan 8, Egypt’s military said the army is doubling the size of a buffer zone along the border with the Gaza Strip, an operation that will involve the destruction of 1,220 more homes and the eviction of residents.
(AP, 1/8/15)
2015 Jan 8, The European Union offered to lend Ukraine a further 1.8 billion euros ($2.12 billion) on the condition that Kiev respects the terms of an international bailout and continues its reform program.
(AP, 1/8/15)
2015 Jan 8, In France Amedy Coulibaly killed a policewoman on the southern edge of Paris, killing her and injuring a nearby street sweeper before fleeing. He later claimed to have coordinated with the two gunmen who attacked the Charlie Hebdo magazine on Jan 7.
(AP, 1/8/15)(AFP, 1/11/15)
2015 Jan 8, In northern France police and counter-terrorism officers searched for the two armed suspects, Said and Chérif Kouachi, who are brothers, the chief suspects in the deadly Jan 7 attack in Paris on the offices of Charlie Hebdo. A third suspect, Hamyd Mourad, turned himself in at a police station in a small town northeast of Paris after learning his name was linked to the attack.
(AP, 1/8/15)
2015 Jan 8, In Iraq a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a police checkpoint in Youssifiyah killing 3 police and 4 civilians. A suicide bomber driving a pickup loaded with explosives struck a checkpoint near Samarra, killing 8 people and wounding 23 others. A suicide bomber set off his explosives belt among Shiite worshippers who were leaving a mosque in western Baghdad, killing 8 worshippers and wounding 16.
(AP, 1/8/15)
2015 Jan 8, In Nepal hundreds of single mothers and rights activists demonstrated outside the parliament building, urging members of a special assembly drafting a new constitution not to weaken the citizenship rights of young Nepalis. A law being considered would give citizenship only to children of two Nepali parents.
(AP, 1/8/15)
2015 Jan 8, Sri Lanka held presidential elections. Mahinda Rajapakse, South Asia's longest-serving leader, was beaten by Maithripala Sirisena, who won 51.3% of the votes on a record turnout of 81.5%.
(AFP, 1/11/15)(Econ, 1/17/15, p.37)
2015 Jan 8, In southern Syria al-Qaida Nusra Front militants blew up the 13th century tomb of a revered Islamic scholar.
(Reuters, 1/8/15)
2016 Jan 8, The US Pentagon announced that Faez Mohammed al-Kandari, an alleged recruiter for the al-Qaida terrorist organization, has been released from the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and sent home to Kuwait. This reduced the Guantanamo prisoner population to 104.
(AP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said seven employees of an Oregon zoo contracted tuberculosis from three elephants in their care in 2013. Human-to-elephant transmission was first identified in 1996 and there have been a handful of cases in recent years in Tennessee and elsewhere.
(Reuters, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, In San Francisco Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow (56) was convicted of racketeering, murder and scores of other crimes in a major organized crime investigation in Chinatown.
(AP, 1/9/16)
2016 Jan 8, In Brazil police used tear gas, stun grenades and pepper spray to disperse sometimes violent demonstrations against bus fare increases in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
(AP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, British health officials said drinking any alcohol regularly increases the risk of cancer, and have issued tough new guidelines that could be hard to swallow in a nation where having a pint is a hallowed tradition.
(AP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, Two Britons, Trevor Brooks (40) and Simon Keeler (44) were jailed after being arrested in Hungary where they were suspected of heading to Syria, in breach of strict travel constraints because they had convictions for terrorism offences.
(Reuters, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, It was reported that a Chinese village has abruptly demolished a statue of communist China's founder, Mao Zedong, after images of the structure covered in gold paint and looming 37 meters (120 feet) high over farmland attracted heated discussion on social media.
(http://tinyurl.com/hmdubfp)(AP, 1/11/16)
2016 Jan 8, In Egypt an elderly Austrian couple and a young Swedish man were hospitalized after the assault at the Bella Vista hotel in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada. Police shot dead one of the knife-wielding attackers and wounded another. On Dec 25 Egypt sentenced to life two men linked to the Islamic State group for plotting the attack on the Red Sea resort hotel.
(AFP, 1/9/16)(AFP, 12/25/16)
2016 Jan 8, Human Rights Watch said at least 140 people have been killed in Ethiopia over the past two months in a crackdown on anti-government protests sparked by plans to expand the capital into farmland.
(AFP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, New copies of Hitler's "Mein Kampf" hit bookstores in Germany for the first time since World War II, unsettling some Jewish community leaders. The book fell into the public domain on January 1.
(AFP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, Iranians held mass protests across the Islamic Republic, angered by Saudi Arabia's execution of a Shiite cleric that has enflamed regional tensions between the Mideast rivals.
(AP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, Israeli police killed in a shootout an Arab citizen wanted for a January 1 gun rampage in Tel Aviv.
(Reuters, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, In Mali Beatrice Stockly, a Swiss missionary, was kidnapped from her home in Timbuktu, nearly four years after she was abducted by Islamist militants from the same house.
(Reuters, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, Mexico recaptured the world's top drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman in a pre-dawn shootout and chase through drains in Los Mochis, returning him to the same prison he escaped from six months ago, in a boost for the beleaguered government. At least 5 gunmen were killed in the operation dubbed “black swan."
(Reuters, 1/8/16)(SFC, 1/13/16, p.A3)
2016 Jan 8, Nigeria’s Health Minister Isaac Adewole said 40 people have died in a suspected outbreak of Lassa fever in 10 states across the country.
(AFP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, Portugal’s new Socialist government got Parliament's approval to discard one of the most unpopular legacies of a recent austerity drive and bring back four public holidays that were cut two years ago.
(AP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, South Korea resumed high-decibel propaganda broadcasts into North Korea as the United States ramped up pressure on China to bring Pyongyang to heel after its latest nuclear test.
(AFP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, South Sudan President Salva Kiir named 50 lawmakers from the rebel movement and agreed to share ministerial posts with his rivals in line with a peace deal aimed at ending a two-year civil war.
(AFP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, A South Sudan official said patients, including premature babies, have died in its main public hospital since early December because the Juba Teaching Hospital cannot afford fuel to run its generators.
(AP, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, Turkish police detained six people including local officials from the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) in a raid on one of its Istanbul offices.
(Reuters, 1/8/16)
2016 Jan 8, Turkey’s armed forces killed 16 PKK fighters in the town of Cizre, near the Syrian border. Another two rebels were killed in the historical Sur district of Diyarbakir.
(Reuters, 1/9/16)
2016 Jan 8, Two Zimbabwean journalists were arrested after they reported that the government secretly paid salaries and bonuses to intelligence staffers while other civil servants went unpaid in December. Nqaba Matshazi and Xolisani Ncube were released on $200 bail each.
(AP, 1/9/16)
2017 Jan 8, The US military vowed to increase the scope and complexity of its European training exercises to deter Russian aggression, as more US tanks, trucks and other equipment arrived in Germany for a big buildup on NATO's eastern flank.
(Reuters, 1/8/17)
2017 Jan 8, A US Navy destroyer fired three warning shots at four Iranian fast-attack vessels after they closed in at a high rate of speed near the Strait of Hormuz.
(Reuters, 1/9/17)
2017 Jan 8, SeaWorld in San Diego hosted its last killer whale performance, the culmination of its promise to phase out the decades-old show after criticism of its treatment of the captive marine mammals.
(Reuters, 1/8/17)
2017 Jan 8, In California the Pioneer Cabin Tree in Calaveras Big Tree State Park fell due to rain and soggy ground. A hole in the base of the giant sequoia had been enlarged in 1881 and cars began passing through in 1920. The 32-foot diameter tree was about two thousand years old.
(SFC, 1/10/17, p.A10)
2017 Jan 8, In the northeastern US a snowstorm dumped more than a foot of snow in areas of southern New England. 19.5 inches fell on East Bridgewater, Mass.
(SFC, 1/9/17, p.A5)
2017 Jan 8, Brazilian authorities confirmed that four more inmates have died in a penitentiary rebellion in the city of Manaus, as the overall death toll from a week of bloodshed in Brazilian prisons approached 100.
(AP, 1/8/17)
2017 Jan 8, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (82), former Iranian president (1989-1997) died in hospital in Tehran after suffering a heart attack. In 2003 Forbes magazine put his personal wealth at over $1 billion.
(Reuters, 1/8/17)(Econ, 1/14/17, p.82)
2017 Jan 8, In parts of Europe blizzards and dangerously low temperatures persisted, prompting Pope Francis to draw attention to the homeless suffering in freezing weather.
(AP, 1/8/17)
2017 Jan 8, In eastern France a bus skidded off a slippery stretch of Route 79, killing four Portuguese passengers and leaving more than a dozen injured.
(AP, 1/8/17)
2017 Jan 8, In Haiti 11 people died at the scene of a bus and truck crash outside of the northwestern town of Port-de-Paix. Another nine people were declared dead after being transported to hospitals in Gros Morne and Gonaives.
(AP, 1/9/17)
2017 Jan 8, Iraqi special forces battling Islamic State reached the eastern bank of the Tigris river in Mosul for the first time in a three-month, US-backed offensive to capture the city from the militants. In Baghdad, a suicide attacker killed 9 people when he drove an explosives-rigged car into vegetable market in the mainly Shi'ite Muslim eastern Jamila district. A few hours later, a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest blew himself up at a market in another mostly Shi'ite district, Baladiyat, killing seven. Three additional bombings around Baghdad killed seven more people.
(Reuters, 1/8/17)(SFC, 1/9/17, p.A2)
2017 Jan 8, Ivory Coast soldiers ended a two-day mutiny in the second city Bouake and other key areas after reaching a deal on their demands for pay rises, housing and faster promotion.
(AFP, 1/8/17)
2017 Jan 8, In Mexico police in Sonora state fought a pitched three-hour battle to free a border rail crossing at Nogales that had been blocked by people protesting a 20% gasoline price increase.
(AP, 1/9/17)
2017 Jan 8, In Nigeria five suicide bombers trying to infiltrate the northeastern city of Maiduguri and died in explosions that killed at least three civilians.
(AP, 1/9/17)
2017 Jan 8, Pakistani media said the country’s recently retired army chief Raheel Sharif has been appointed to lead a new Saudi-military alliance to fight terrorism.
(Reuters, 1/8/17)
2017 Jan 8, Pakistani police said 13 people have been killed in a head-on collision between a car and a passenger van in the eastern province of Punjab.
(AP, 1/8/17)
2017 Jan 8, A Palestinian rammed a truck into a group of Israeli soldiers visiting a popular tourist spot in Jerusalem, killing four and wounding at least 15 people. The driver was killed. An Israeli soldier fired on the attacker and distributed video of him saying he shot after realizing it was not an accident.
(AFP, 1/8/17)
2017 Jan 8, In Syria a car bomb exploded in a government-held area outside Damascus, killing at least five people and wounding 15. The al-Qaida-linked Fatah al-Sham Front claimed the attack.
(AP, 1/8/17)
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