Summary: Information about the H1N1 novel virus (swine flu) pandemic, including links to news reports and resources.
Summary: Iraq is falling fall far behind schedule in creating a system to maintain its own military equipment, costing American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to fill in the gaps, according to a new U.S. audit by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. … The death toll from twin car bomb blasts in a crowded Baghdad market rose to 51. The car bombs, which also wounded 76 people in the capital’s sprawling Sadr City slum, followed a series of other attacks in the past two weeks that have stirred fears of a return to broader sectarian bloodshed in Iraq.
Summary: Staff Sgt. Aaron Larson, who as an 11-year-old boy in St. Joseph was bicycling with his best friend Jacob Wetterling when Jacob was kidnapped by a masked gunman on Sunday, Oct. 22, 1989, has returned home to Minnesota after a year-long deployment in Iraq.
Iraq’s prime minister denounced a deadly U.S. raid as a “crime” that violated its security pact with Washington and demanded American commanders hand over those responsible to face possible trial in Iraqi courts.
Summary: Government officials have declared a public health emergency in connection with the H1N1 (swine flu) outbreak that has killed dozens in Mexico and sickened 20 in the U.S., said the nations director of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano.
Summary: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee created a Web site devoted to U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s controversial statements, intended as a virtual “truth squad” to expose Bachmann’s “fantastic claims and lies … that can quickly be disproven.”
Summary: Back-to-back suicide bombings have killed 60 people outside the most important Shiite shrine in Baghdad, a day after the country was rocked by its most deadly violence in more than a year. The bombings, in which nearly 80 people were killed, are the latest in a series of high-profile attacks blamed on Sunni insurgents. … A new review of available evidence compiled by The Associated Press suggests that more than 110,600 Iraqis have died in violence since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Summary: Suicide bombers struck a humanitarian aid distribution point and a crowded restaurant in separate attacks in Iraq, killing at least 78 people in the deadliest day of violence to strike the country thus far in 2009.
Summary: Taliban militants have extended their grip in northwestern Pakistan, pushing out from the Swat Valley where the government has agreed to impose Islamic law and patrolling villages as close as 60 miles from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.
The U.S. Senate confirmed President Barack Obama’s pick to be U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Christoper Hill, after debate over whether he mismanaged international disarmament talks with North Korea. … Suspected militants shelled Baghdad’s protected Green Zone in the first such bombardment in more than three months.