U.S. Army General David Petraeus, the commander of the Iraq occupation, described the situation in Iraq as "the most complex and challenging I have ever seen" in his 30 years of service and "very tough." "It is an endeavor that clearly is going to require enormous commitment and commitment over time," he said.
U.S. Army Lt. Col. William H. Steele, the commander in charge of the detention facilities at Camp Cropper in Baghdad, Iraq, has been under arrest since last month and is being held in Kuwait with the charge of "aiding the enemy".
An internal review conducted by the U.S. Army said problems with care for injured soldiers extend beyond the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The review cited shortages and patient delays at 11 additional facilities. Army officials hope to make improvements by this June.
"White House officials conducted 20 private briefings on Republican electoral prospects in the last midterm election for senior officials in at least 15 government agencies covered by federal restrictions on partisan political activity." Such briefings potentially violated the Hatch Act of 1939.
World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz said the bank's board was treating him "shabbily and unfairly".
Alberto Gonzales is still Attorney General.
The Department of Justice asked a federal appeals court to impose more restrictions on lawyers who represent detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The DoJ claims the "lawyers have caused unrest among the detainees and have improperly served as a conduit to the news media" which all are "threats to security". The DoJ filing argues "that detainees have no right to lawyers". The hearing is scheduled May 15, 2007.
In his annual address, Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted that he will not seek a third term and blamed foreigners with money for meddling in Russian politics.
Putin also announced that Russia would suspend the 1990 treaty for Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. His announcement "underscored the Kremlin's anger at the United States for proposing a new missile-defense system." Defense Secretary Robert Gates was in Russia earlier this week trying to sell the shield.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice indicated that she will resist the subpoena authorized by the House Oversight Committee; however, she did not "respond when asked if she would absolutely refuse to testify under subpoena."
New Hampshire's Senate passed civil unions legislation "that will grant same-sex couples many of the same rights enjoyed by couples in traditional marriage." Governor John Lynch said he "will sign the bill as 'a matter of conscience,fairness and preventing discrimination.'"
AZ-01: "Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) failed to disclose a $200,000 payment he received from a business partner in 2005 in apparent violation of House ethics rules. Prosecutors could use the omission as evidence that Renzi intended to conceal a transaction he knew to be controversial or even improper."
The inventor of the PlayStation, Ken Kutaragi, is retiring from his executive role at Sony Computer Entertainment in June.
Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking took a zero-gravity flight. "It was amazing!" he said. Before the flight, Hawkings said "For someone like me, whose muscles don't work very well, it will be bliss to be weightless."
Riverbend, a blogger in Baghdad, is leaving Iraq. "On a personal note, we've finally decided to leave. I guess I've known we would be leaving for a while now. We discussed it as a family dozens of times."
Columbia had a nationwide blackout due to a technical problem.
The provincial government of Ontario, Canada has approved a plan to build North America's largest photovoltaic solar farm. "The government awarded the contract through the Standard Offer Program, which pays a premium for electricity from small-scale renewable energy providers."
Biochemist Joe DeRisi may have discovered the mysterious cause of the honeybee deaths. "Tests of genetic material taken from a 'collapsed colony' in Merced County point to a once-rare microbe that previously affected only Asian bees but might have evolved into a strain lethal to those in Europe and the United States." (Thanks cityduck.)
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego "have shown that it is possible to use solar energy, paired with the right catalyst, to convert carbon dioxide into a raw material for making a wide range of products, including plastics and gasoline." (Thanks dotcommodity.)
Roughly 35,000 ancient Buddhist stone carvings located in Pakistan's Indus River area will soon be flooded by a giant dam that is planned to yield 4,400 megawatts of electricity. The dam's "reservoir will flood 32 villages and force as many as 40,000 people to undergo evacuation in the name of progress" and will also flood "the witnesses of entire civilizations and ancient cultures along the Indus — mainly stony messages and images from Buddhist times, whose loss is fully comparable to that of the famous Buddhas of Bamyan, which were demolished with explosives by the Taliban in March 2001."
Just before Japan surrendered to the United States to end World War II, it rushed brothels "into operation as American forces poured into Japan beginning in August 1945." The brothels employed tens of thousands of women to provide "cheap sex" to American GIs and "create a breakwater to protect regular women and girls." The brothels existed with the tacit approval of the U.S. occupation authorities until General Douglas MacArthur shut them down in the spring of 1946.
By the numbers: Bush has 633 days left in power. 3334 U.S. deaths in Iraq. Over $420,605,000,000 spent on the war in Iraq.