, Dec. 12 (UPI) -- Today is Monday, Dec. 18, the 352nd day of 2006 with 13 to go.

The moon is waning. The morning stars are Mercury, Mars, Pluto, Jupiter and Saturn. The evening stars are Venus, Uranus and Neptune.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Sagittarius. They include Joseph Grimaldi, known as the "greatest clown in history," in 1778; English physicist Joseph Thompson, discoverer of the electron, in 1856; British short story writer Saki (H.H.

Munro) in 1870; Swiss modernist painter Paul Klee in 1879; baseball star Tyrus "Ty" Cobb in 1886; film director George Stevens ("Shane," "A Place in the Sun," "Giant") in 1904; actress Betty Grable in 1916; West German statesman Willy Brandt in 1913; actor Ossie Davis in 1917; Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards in 1943 (age 63); film director Steven Spielberg ("Jaws,""E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," "Schindler s List") in 1946 (age 60); movie critic/historian Leonard Maltin in 1950 (age 56); actors Ray Liotta in 1955 (age 51), Brad Pitt in 1963 (age 43) and Katie Holmes in 1978 (age 28); and singer Christina Aguilera in 1980 (age 26).

In 1865, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery in the United States.
In 1912, after three years of digging in the Piltdown gravel pit in Sussex, England, amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson announced the discovery of two skulls that appeared to belong to a primitive hominid and ancestor of man. The find turned out to be a hoax.

In 1915, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, a widower for one year, married the widow Edith Bolling Galt.

In 1972, the United States resumed heavy bombing and mining operations against North Vietnam after the communists refused to agree to end the war.
In 1985, the U.S.

Congress approved the biggest overhaul of farm legislation since the Depression, trimming price supports.
In 1989, a pipe bomb killed Savannah, Ga., City Councilman Robert Robinson, hours after a bomb was discovered at the Atlanta federal courthouse.

A racial motive was cited in a rash of bomb incidents.
Also in 1989, the Romanian government sealed the borders amid reports of a deadly crackdown on dissidents.
In 1990, Moldavia became the sixth Soviet republic to refuse to participate in a 10-day meeting in a mounting affront to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

In 1991, General Motors announced it would close 21 plants and eliminate 74,000 jobs in the next four years to offset record losses.
In 1997, South Koreans elected longtime leftist opposition leader Kim Dae-jong president, marking the first time in the nation s history that a member of the opposition had defeated a candidate of the New Korea Party and its predecessors.
Also in 1997, the 6-mile-long Tokyo Bay tunnel connecting the cities of Kawasaki and Kisarazu opened.

The project took 8 1/2 years to complete and cost $17 billion.
In 2002, insurance giant Conseco filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, third-largest such action in U.S.

history behind only Enron and Worldcom.
In 2003, teenager Lee Malvo was convicted of murder in the Washington area sniper attacks. His adult companion, John Muhammad, was convicted earlier by a jury that recommended the death penalty.

In 2004, the United States officially forgave all of the $4.1 billion owed the government by Iraq and urged other creditors to do the same.
Also in 2004, Britain s Prince Charles was reported leading efforts to end the death penalty imposed in some cases under Islamic law for Muslims who convert to other religions.

In 2005, U.S. President George Bush s confirmation of reports he had authorized government wiretaps without court approval of U.

S. citizens with suspected terrorist ties drew immediate negative response from Congress.
Also in 2005, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 77, was hospitalized after suffering what was described as a mild stroke.

And, in 2005, Bolivia elected Eso Morales as its first Indian president.
A thought for the day: Anatole France said, "To know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything."
Today is Tuesday, Dec.

19, the 353rd day of 2006 with 12 to follow.
The moon is waning. The morning stars are Mercury, Mars, Pluto, Jupiter and Saturn.

The evening stars are Venus, Uranus and Neptune.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Sagittarius. They include women s suffrage leader Mary Livermore in 1820; novelist Eleanor Porter ("Pollyanna") in 1868; actor Ralph Richardson in 1902; Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev in 1906; French dramatist Jean Genet, a pioneer in the theater of the absurd, in 1910; singer Edith Piaf in 1915; and actors Cicely Tyson in 1933 (age 73), Tim Reid in 1944 (age 62), Robert Urich in 1946, Jennifer Beals in 1963 (age 43) and Alyssa Milano in 1972 (age 34).

In 1777, Gen. George Washington and the Continental Army began a winter encampment at Valley Forge, Pa.
In 1958, the U.

S. satellite Atlas transmitted the first radio voice broadcast from space, a 58-word recorded Christmas greeting from U.S.

President Dwight Eisenhower.
In 1972, the splashdown of Apollo XVII ended the United States manned moon exploration program.
In 1984, the United States formally withdrew from UNESCO in a effort to force reform of the U.

N. cultural organization s budget and alleged Third World bias.
Also in 1984, the prime ministers of Britain and China signed an accord, returning Hong Kong to China in 1997.

In 1986, U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese said U.

S. President Ronald Reagan did not know that money Iran paid for U.S.

arms was going to Nicaraguan rebels.
In 1990, a judge in Oshkosh, Wis., dismissed the case against a man convicted of sex assault against a woman with at least 46 personalities.

In 1991, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International agreed to plead guilty to federal racketeering charges, forfeiting $550 million.
In 1998, U.S.

President Bill Clinton became only the second U.S. president to be impeached when the House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment, charging him with perjury and obstruction of justice.

He was acquitted in the subsequent trial.
In 2002, U.S.

Secretary of State Colin Powell warned Iraq it was risking war by lying and refusing to cooperate on the issue of weapons of mass destruction.
Also in 2002, South Korea elected Roh Moo-hyun as its president.
In 2003, Libya announced it would abandon efforts to develop nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

In 2004, at least 60 people were killed in Iraq by car bombings in the Shiite Muslim holy cities of Karbala and Najaf.
In 2005, a Shiite Muslim coalition showed a strong overall lead in preliminary returns from Iraq s parliamentary election.
A thought for the day: George Bernard Shaw said, "There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses.

"
Today is Wednesday, Dec. 20, the 354th day of 2006 with 11 to follow.
The moon is new.

The morning stars are Mercury, Mars, Pluto, Jupiter and Saturn. The evening stars are Venus, Uranus and Neptune.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Sagittarius.

They include author and decorator Elsie de Wolfe (Lady Mendl) in 1865; industrialist Harvey Firestone in 1868; philosopher Susanne K. Langer in 1895; actress Irene Dunne in 1898; nuclear physicist Robert Van de Graaff in 1901; movie director George Roy Hill ("Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "The Sting") in 1921; actor John Hillerman in 1932 (age 74); psychic Uri Geller in 1946 (age 60); and actress Jenny Agutter in 1952 (age 54).
In 1803, the United States formally took over territory acquired from France in the Louisiana Purchase.

In 1812, Sacagawea, the young Indian woman who guided the Lewis and Clark Expedition, died.
In 1864, Union Gen. William T.

Sherman completed his "march to the sea" across the South and arrived in Savannah, Ga.
In 1946 the first Indochina war began with Vietnamese troops under Ho Chi Minh clashing with the French at Hanoi.
In 1956, the Montgomery, Ala.

, public bus boycott officially ended but not until it had given a major boost to the civil rights struggle in the South. The boycott had been called in reaction to the Dec. 1, 1955, arrest of Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man.

In 1987, nearly 1,600 people died in the Philippines when a passenger ferry was struck by an oil tanker and sank. It was the century s worst peacetime maritime disaster.
In 1989, the United States invaded Panama to oust Manuel Noriega and install the duly elected civilian government.

Twenty-three U.S. troops were killed.

In 1990, Eduard Shevardnadze abruptly resigned as Soviet foreign minister, warning against a dictatorship of hard-liners.
In 1991, Philippines prosecutors filed nine counts of graft against former first lady Imelda Marcos, charging she used bogus front companies to bilk millions of dollars from the nation.
In 1993, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic s governing Socialist Party claimed victory in parliamentary elections held the day before.

In 1994, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced that the warring parties in Bosnia had agreed to a 4-month cease-fire starting Dec.

23.
In 1995, 160 people were killed when an American Airlines 757 crashed into a mountain shortly before it was scheduled to land in Cali, Colombia.
Also in 1995, Buckingham Palace confirmed that Queen Elizabeth II had sent letters to her son, Prince Charles, and his estranged wife, Princess Diana, urging them to seek a divorce as quickly as possible.

Further in 1995, NATO assumed peacekeeping duties in Bosnia from the United Nations.
In 1996, guerrillas in Peru took an estimated 380 hostages at the Japanese ambassador s residence.
In 1998, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein declared that the 4-night U.

S.-British bombing campaign of his country was a victory for Iraq over the "enemies of God and humanity."
Also in 1998, a Houston woman gave birth to seven more babies after delivering the first infant 12 days earlier.

They were the only known set of octuplets to be born alive in the United States. The smallest baby died a week later.
In 1999, Macau reverted to Chinese rule.

In 2001, Argentine President Fernando de la Rua resigned amid mass protest demonstrations but chaos continued in his troubled country.
In 2002, U.S.

Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., resigned as Senate majority leader amid an intense furor growing from remarks that seemed to praise the 1948 segregationist presidential candidacy of Sen.

Strom Thurmond, R-S.C.
In 2004, a published report said experts were estimating that Medicare will exhaust its hospital-care trust fund by 2019.

Also in 2004, the United Nations said sub-Saharan Africa, ravaged this year by drought, civil strife and swarms of crop-devouring locusts, faced a worsening food crisis.
In 2005, a 3-day transit strike idled New York City s 6,300 subway cars and 4,600 buses and hampered the 7 million people who ride on the system every week day.
Also in 2005, a judge in Harrisburg, Pa.

, ruled the concept of "intelligent design" cannot be taught in Pennsylvania public high school science classes.
A thought for the day: Bertrand Russell said, "To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom."
Today is Thursday, Dec.

21, the 355th day of 2006 with 10 to follow.
Winter begins at 7:22 p.m.

EST.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Sagittarius. They include British statesman Benjamin Disraeli in 1804; Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in 1879; Austrian President Kurt Waldheim in 1918 (age 88); former talk show host Phil Donahue in 1935 (age 71); actress Jane Fonda in 1937 (age 69); rock musician Frank Zappa in 1940; Beach Boys guitarist Carl Wilson in 1946; actor Samuel L.

Jackson in 1948 (age 58); former tennis star Chris Evert in 1954 (age 52); comedian Ray Romano in 1957 (age 49); track athlete Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1959; and actors Kiefer Sutherland in 1966 (age 40) and Andy Dick in 1965 (age 39).
In 1620, the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth, Mass., following a 63-day voyage from England aboard the Mayflower.

In 1913, the first crossword puzzle in an American newspaper appeared in The New York Sunday World.
In 1937, Walt Disney s "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," the first full-length animated feature film, opened in Los Angeles.
In 1958, three months after a new French constitution was approved, Charles de Gaulle was elected the first president of the Fifth Republic by a sweeping majority of French voters.

In 1968, Apollo VIII, the first manned voyage to the moon, was launched.
In 1975, the notorious terrorist Carlos the Jackal led a raid on a meeting of OPEC oil ministers in Vienna. German and Arab terrorists stormed in with machine guns, killed three people and took 63 others hostage, including 11 OPEC ministers.

In 1987, in a case that highlighted racial tensions, three young white men were convicted of manslaughter in an attack on a black man in New York s predominantly white Howard Beach section.
In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded and crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland, killing everyone aboard and 11 people on the ground for a total death toll of 270.
In 1989, Kentuckian Larry Mahoney was convicted on 27 counts of manslaughter in a 1988 collision with church bus, the nation s deadliest drunken-driving accident.

In 1990, a boat carrying about 100 U.S. sailors involved in Operation Desert Shield capsized off the Israeli coast.

Twenty-one people died.
In 1991, 11 former Soviet republics declared an end to the Soviet Union and forged a commonwealth that guaranteed independence.
In 1992, 54 people were killed when a chartered jetliner carrying 340 people on a holiday to southern Portugal crashed in bad weather.

In 1993, Hungary s parliament endorsed the nomination of Peter Boross as president, succeeding Jozsef Antall, who died in office on Dec. 12.
In 1994, more than 40 people were injured when an incendiary device exploded on a crowded subway in New York s lower Manhattan.

Police later arrested one of the burn victims who reportedly was carrying a firebomb that went off.
In 1995, a commuter train rammed the rear of a passenger train in heavy fog near Cairo, Egypt, killing 75 people.
In 1997, a fire swept through Tokyo s Tsukji wholesale fish market, destroying more than 100 shops and stores.

In 1998, the shaky coalition of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu collapsed when Israel s parliament voted 81-30 to dissolve the government.
In 2002, U.S.

President George Bush set in motion the first U.S. smallpox vaccination program in three decades.

Bush had voiced fears terrorists might use the virus as a biological weapon.
In 2004, U.S.

President George Bush s approval rating slipped 6 percent to 49 percent, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll said, making Bush the first incumbent president to have an approval rating below 50 percent one month after winning re-election.
In 2005, the U.S.

Senate unanimously passed a $445 million defense appropriations bill that included a provision against torture and without a proposal for oil drilling in Alaska s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Also in 2005, the trial of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein resumed in Baghdad with graphic testimony of government abductions, torture and executions.
A thought for the day: Ambrose Bierce defined a bore as "a person who talks when you wish him to listen.

"
Today is Friday, Dec. 22, the 356th day of 2006 with nine to follow.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Capricorn.

They include opera composer Giacomo Puccini in 1858; Philadelphia A s Manager Connie Mack, the "Dean of Baseball," in 1862; former first lady Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson in 1912 (age 94); TV game show host Gene Rayburn in 1917; actress Barbara Billingsley in 1922 (age 84); actor Hector Elizondo in 1936 (age 70); TV journalist Diane Sawyer in 1945 (age 61); Robin Gibb (age 57) and twin brother Maurice Gibb in 1949, members of the Bee Gees pop group; and actor Ralph Fiennes in 1962 (age 44).
In 1785, the American Continental Navy fleet was organized, consisting of two frigates, two brigs and three schooners. Sailors were paid $8 a month.

In 1864, Union Gen. William T. Sherman sent U.

S. President Abraham Lincoln this message: "I beg to present you as a Christmas present the city of Savannah."
In 1894, French Capt.

Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason by a military court-martial on flimsy evidence in a highly irregular trial and sentenced to life in prison for his alleged crime of passing military secrets to the Germans.
In 1944, ordered to surrender by Nazi troops who had his unit trapped during the Battle of the Bulge, Gen. Anthony McAuliffe of the U.

S. 101st Airborne Division replied with one word: "Nuts!"
In 1956, the first gorilla to be born in captivity arrived into the world at the Columbus Zoo in Ohio.

In 1971, the U.N. General Assembly chose Austrian diplomat Kurt Waldheim to lead the United Nations.

In 1972, 5,000 people died when a series of earthquakes left the Nicaraguan capital of Managua in ruins.
In 1984, "subway vigilante" Bernard Goetz shot and wounded four would-be hold-up men on a New York City subway. He ended up serving eight months in prison for carrying an illegal weapon but was cleared of assault and attempted murder charges.

In 1986, political dissident and Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov and his wife, Yelena Bonner, were allowed to return to Moscow after seven years of internal exile.
In 1989, Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, the last hard-line communist holdout against East Bloc reforms, fell from power in the face of continuing massive demonstrations.
In 1992, all 158 people aboard a Libyan Boeing 727 died when the jetliner crashed, apparently following an in-air collision with a military plane.

In 1993, the daughter of Cuban President Fidel Castro was granted political asylum in the United States.
Also in 1993, South Africa s Parliament gave a strong endorsement to an interim constitution that ended centuries of white-minority rule.
In 1994, North Korea released the body of the slain U.

S. helicopter pilot it had shot down five days earlier.
Also in 1994, Italy s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi resigned after seven months in office, following corruption charges against him.

In 1996, the hostage standoff at the Japanese Embassy in Lima, Peru, continued, although 200 hostages were released.
In 1997, members of a pro-government militia attacked the village of Chenalh, Mexico, killing 45 people, including a number of children.
In 2001, American Airlines passengers and attendants overpowered a man trying to light a match to detonate powerful explosives hidden in his sneakers on a flight from Paris to Miami.

In 2003, the White House urged Americans to be vigilant over the holidays but not to curtail travel or other plans because of the high-risk terrorist threat.
In 2004, 13 U.S.

soldiers and nine others were killed in a suicide bomber attack on a U.S. military dining hall near Mosul, Iraq.

Also in 2004, the White House was reported to be seeking an investigation into allegations of widespread abuse of prisoners by the U.S. military.

In 2005, Wal-Mart was ordered to pay more than 100,000 California employees $172 million for depriving them of breaks to eat.
A thought for the day: James Dewar has been quoted as saying, "Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open.

"
Today is Saturday, Dec. 23, the 357th day of 2006 with eight to follow.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Capricorn.

They include Egyptologist Jean Francois Champollion, who deciphered the Rosetta Stone, in 1790; Mormon church founder Joseph Smith in 1805; poet Harriet Monroe, founder of Poetry magazine, in 1860; Manhattan restaurateur Vincent Sardi Sr. in 1885; British film executive J. Arthur Rank in 1888; actor James Gregory in 1911; former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in 1918 (age 88); actor Harry Guardino in 1925; Japanese Emperor Akihito in 1933 (age 73); marathon runner Bill Rodgers in 1947 (age 59); and actors Susan Lucci in 1946 (age 60) and Corey Haim in 1972 (age 34).

In 1620, construction began of the first permanent European settlement in New England, one week after the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth harbor in present day Massachusetts.
In 1783, Gen. George Washington resigned his commission with the U.

S. Army and retired to Mount Vernon, Va. He became the new nation s first president in 1789.

In 1913, the U.S. Federal Reserve System was established.

In 1928, the National Broadcasting Company established a permanent coast-to-coast radio hookup.
In 1947, the transistor was invented, leading to a revolution in communications and electronics.
In 1948, former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo of Japan and six other Japanese war leaders were hanged in Tokyo under sentence of the Allied War Crimes Commission.

In 1973, the shah of Iran announced that the petroleum-exporting states of the Persian Gulf would double the price of their crude oil.
In 1987, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yaeger landed the experimental aircraft Voyager at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.,completing a record 9-day, 25,012-mile global flight without refueling.

In 1991, floods in Texas killed 13 people.
In 1992, the first U.S.

casualties of the U.S.-led relief operation in Somalia occurred when a vehicle hit a land mine near the city of Badera, killing one civilian and injuring three others.

In 1993, U.S. President Bill Clinton announced he would instruct his lawyers to give investigators all documents relating to the Whitewater scandal.

In 1994, major league baseball team owners declared an impasse in their negotiations with the players association and unilaterally imposed a salary cap the players had rejected.
In 1995, more than 500 people, including entire families, were killed in Mandi Dabwali, India, when fire engulfed a tent set up for a school ceremony.
In 1997, Terry Nichols, the second defendant in the Oklahoma City bombing trial, was convicted of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter by a federal jury in Denver.

In 2002, North Korea, preparing to resume development of nuclear weapons, said it was reopening a plutonium reprocessing plant.
In 2003, a jury recommended life in prison without parole for Lee Malvo, the teenager convicted of taking part in the deadly month-long sniper attacks in the Washington area that killed 10 people a year earlier. His adult companion drew the death penalty.

Also in 2003, the first case of mad cow disease was reported in the United States when a Holstein in Washington state tested positive for the ailment.
In 2004, China reported its Bohai Bay Basin in the north may contain 20.5 billion tons of offshore oil reserves.

Also in 2004, the Transportation Security Administration announced that most women s breasts will no longer be patted down at U.S. airports.

In 2005, the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a Senate plan to extend the Patriot Act by six months, opting instead for only a 1-month extension.

Also in 2005, reports said that before he was captured, Osama bin Laden s top operational commander planned to assassinate U.S. President George Bush.

A thought for the day: Anatole France wrote, "People who have no weaknesses are terrible; there is no way of taking advantage of them."
Today is Sunday, Dec. 24, the 358th day of 2006 with seven to follow.

This is Christmas Eve.
The moon is waxing. The morning stars are Mercury, Mars, Pluto, Jupiter and Saturn.

The evening stars are Venus, Uranus and Neptune.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Capricorn. They include English King John I in 1167; American diplomat Silas Deane in 1737; physician and chemist Benjamin Rush in 1745; frontiersman Christopher "Kit" Carson in 1809; English physicist and inventor James Prescott Joule in 1818; film director Michael Curtiz ("Casablanca") in 1888; composer Harry Warren ("Lullaby of Broadway," "Chattanooga Choo Choo") in 1893; industrialist, moviemaker and aviator Howard Hughes in 1905; actress Ava Gardner in 1922; author/director Nicholas Meyer in 1945 (age 61); actor Diedrich Bader ("The Drew Carey Show") in 1966 (age 40); and pop singer Ricky Martin in 1971 (age 35).

In 1814, the Treaty of Ghent was signed by representatives of the United States and Britain, ending the War of 1812.
In 1851, the Library of Congress and part of the Capitol building in Washington were destroyed by fire.
In 1865, a group of Confederate veterans met in Pulaski, Tenn.

, to form a secret society they called the "Ku Klux Klan."
In 1871, Giuseppe Verdi s opera "Aida" premiered in Cairo. It had been commissioned to commemorate the opening of the Suez Canal.

In 1906, Reginald A. Fessenden, a Canadian-born radio inventor, broadcast the first musical program, accompanying on violin a female singer s "O Holy Night," from Brant Rock, Mass. He discovered the superheterodyne principle, the basis for all modern radio receivers.

In 1942, German rocket engineers launched the first surface-to-surface guided missile.
Also in 1942, Adm. Jean Louis Darlan, the French administrator of North Africa, was assassinated as a sympathizer of the French Vichy regime.

In 1983, one of the nation s severest early season cold waves in history claimed nearly 300 lives.
In 1989, Manuel Noriega, the object of U.S.

invasion forces, took refuge at the Vatican Embassy in Panama City and asked for political asylum.
In 1990, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein reportedly threatened to attack Tel Aviv, Israel, if the allies tried to retake Kuwait.
Also in 1990, the bells of St.

Basil s Cathedral in Moscow rang to celebrate Christmas for the first time since the death of Lenin.
In 1992, U.S.

President George H.W. Bush issued Christmas Eve pardons to former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger and five others involved in the Reagan administration s Iran-Contra scandal.

In 1994, Islamic militants hijacked an Air France Airbus. The hijacking ended two days later when the plane was stormed by French paramilitary commandos in Marseille, who killed the four militants.
In 1997, a French court convicted the international terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal of the 1975 killings of three men in Paris and sentenced him to life in prison.

In 2002, North Korea warned of an "uncontrollable catastrophe" if the United States failed to agree to negotiations on nuclear-related issues.
In 2003, nine nations imposed bans on U.S.

beef imports after the United States first documented case of mad cow disease was reported in Washington state.
Also in 2003, Air France canceled six Paris to Los Angeles flights, at the United States request. U.

S. officials reportedly believed some passengers on the flights could have ties to terrorists.
In 2004, gunmen opened fire on a bus in northern Honduras, killing at least 23 and wounding 16.

Authorities suspected a noted Central American youth gang.
Also in 2004, a Chinese freighter wrecked in the Aleutian Islands broke apart, spilling thousands of gallons of oil into the Bering Sea.
In 2005, the South Korean scientist whose research on stem cells and cloning won him international acclaim, Dr.

Hwang Woo-suk, resigned after admitting he fabricated his groundbreaking paper in which he claimed to have created stem cell colonies from 11 patients.
A thought for the day: Eugene Field said, "Most all the time, the whole year round, there ain t no flies on me, but jest fore Christmas I m as good as I kin be!