01|U.S. President George W. Bush declares that the military phase of the war in Iraq is at an end. He describes the victory as a single battle in "a war on terror that began on September 11, 2001," the day militant Islamic terrorists attacked the United States. Speaking before a large group of sailors aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, the president brands former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein an ally of leaders of the al-Qa'ida terrorist network, and the president vows to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists.|
01|A powerful earthquake in southeastern Turkey causes the collapse of hundreds of buildings, leaving at least 160 people dead and thousands of people homeless. The epicenter is near the city of Bingol, 400 miles (540 kilometers) east of Ankara, the capital. In Celtiksuyu, a village near Bingol, the collapse of a boarding school dormitory kills more than 80 children trapped in the ruins.|
01|Mechanical problems aboard a conventionally powered Chinese submarine off China's coast east of the Neichangshan islands resulted in the deaths on April 16 of all 70 officers and sea men, report military officials in Beijing, the capital. They describe the incident as the worst naval accident in modern Chinese history. Naval experts speculate that a malfunction in the diesel engines removed the oxygen from the sub's interior during a descent.|
01|At least 52 people, members of South Africa's largest trade union, are killed when the bus in which they are travelling to a May Day celebration plunges into a reservoir.|
02|The United States District Court in Washington, D.C., declares much of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation, passed by Congress in 2002, unconstitutional. A panel made up of three federal judges rules that various provisions of the law limiting political donations, including so-called "soft money" donations, violate the First Amendment prohibition against government limitations on free speech. The ruling forces the U.S. Supreme Court to review the panel's decision.|
02|The rate of unemployment in the United States rose from 5.8 percent in March to 6 percent in April, during which 48,000 workers lost their jobs, announce officials with the U.S. Department of Labor.|
03|President Bashar Assad of Syria begins closing down the headquarters of militant Palestinian groups in Damascus, the capital, as a first step in fostering a new Mideast peace process, announces U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. U.S. diplomats continue to push Assad to cut off Syrian support of the Hezbollah terrorist organization, which is located in Syrian-controlled Lebanon.|
03|Funny Cide pulls ahead of two far better known and highly regarded horses, Empire Maker and Peace Rules, to win the 129th running of the Kentucky Derby by 1 3/4 lengths in a stunning upset. Funny Cide, a 12.8-1 long shot, is the first gelding to win the Derby since 1929 and the first New York State-bred horse to ever win the race.|
04|An enormous weather system sweeps across the Midwestern United States, spawning violent thunderstorms and more than 80 tornadoes in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Tennessee. At least 38 people are killed in the storms, including 7 people in Kansas, 18 in Missouri, and 13 in Tennessee. The tornadoes destroy or severely damage hundreds of houses and other structures. In southeastern Kansas, one-third of the town of Franklin is wiped out. In Pierce City, Missouri, a town of 1,400 people, no building is left undamaged, and much of the historic main business district is leveled. In Tennessee, a single tornado cuts an uninterrupted swath 65 miles (105 kilometers) in length across the western part of the state. According to the U.S. Weather Service, the storms were formed when dry air from the Rocky Mountains hit moist air from the Gulf of Mexico.|
05|Saddam Hussein's son, Qusay, carried off $1 billion in cash from the Central Bank of Iraq the day before U.S. forces began bombing Baghdad on March 19, announces an official with the U.S. Treasury Department working with Iraqi financial officials. A bank officer told the U.S. official that the bank handed over about $900 million in U.S. dollars and $100 million in Euros on the direct orders of then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Hussein gave no rationale for taking the money, which was not his own, making the transaction one of the largest robberies in history. Three tractor trailers were required to transport the cash.|
06|U.S. President George W. Bush announces the appointment of L. Paul Bremer III as the president's special envoy to Iraq. Bremer, a retired diplomat and an expert on counterterrorism, is to take charge of rebuilding the Iraqi government and infrastructure. He will assume responsibilities currently held by retired Lieutenant General Jay Garner, who reported to General Tommy R. Franks, the commander of allied forces in Iraq.|
06|Iraq, despite having the world's second largest oil reserves, will import gasoline and cooking gas from its neighbors in the Middle East, announce U.S. officials in Baghdad, the capital. Various factors--the looting of Iraqi oil fields, fearful employees, and an aging oil infrastructure--have caused severe and widespread fuel shortages. The United States is to pay for the imports.|
07|The estimated overall death rate from severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is approximately 15 percent, announce officials with the World Health Organization (WHO), an agency of the United Nations. Earlier WHO estimates of the overall death rate were as low as 2 percent. WHO officials also announce that the SARS death rate for patients over 60 years old in Hong Kong hospitals runs as high as 55 percent. While WHO maintained its estimate that the SARS incubation period is 10 days, a study recently published in the British medical journal Lancet led some researchers to conclude that the incubation period may be as long as 14 days. Incubation length has major implications for control of the epidemic, including longer isolation and quarantine periods. A longer incubation would also require public health officials to trace an additional four days of patient contacts.|
08|More than 30 German tourists are killed when their bus is struck by a train at a crossing near the Hungarian resort town of Siofok, on the shores of Lake Balaton. The bus was enroute from Budapest, the capital, to Nagykanizsa, in western Hungary.|
08|The cargo bay of an Ilyushin 76 transport opens midflight between Kinshasa, capital of Congo, and the city of Lubumbashi, causing some 120 people--Congolese military and police officials and their families--to be sucked out of the plane at an altitude of 7,000 feet (2,200 meters). Approximately 100 people, including the plane's Russian crew, survive.|
09|Tornadoes and violent thunderstorms cause another round of destruction in the Midwest and the Plains states and trigger flooding in parts of the South. In and around Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, tornadoes destroy hundreds of houses and leave at least 100 people injured. One tornado cuts a swath more than 1,000 feet (305 meters) wide and nearly 4 miles (6.4 meters) long through the town of Moore, leveling 335 houses and businesses. Storms packed with seven tornadoes smash through parts of Kansas for the second time in less than one week. The governor declares a state of emergency for six counties and the city of Lawrence, where a number of houses lose roofs. High winds also hit southeastern Nebraska, tearing the top off a manufacturing plant in Filley. Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia are swamped by some of the heaviest rainfall in more than a century. At Chattanooga, Tennessee, the Tennessee River rises to more than 6 feet (1.8 meters) above flood stage, forcing some 1,500 people out of their houses. Hundreds of people in Troup County in west-central Georgia are also forced to evacuate as the Chattahoochee River reaches its highest level in more 40 years.|
10|Violent storms again sweep across the central United States, resulting in severe damage to property in Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Along the Mississippi River in northeast Missouri, tornadoes wreck several houses in historic Hannibal and structures on the Culver-Stockton College campus and in the nearby town of Canton. Several tornadoes simultaneously cut through 10 central and western Illinois counties, flattening dozens of houses. The rural town of Lima, Illinois, east of Canton, Missouri, and South Pekin, Illinois, 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of Peoria, are hardest hit. At least 50 houses are leveled in South Pekin. Tornadoes also destroy houses and topple power lines in Tennessee. In central Kentucky, winds of up to 150 miles (240 kilometers) per hour blow a mobile home into a river, killing one woman. At least 48 people in the Midwest have died since the first of May in a series of severe storms that spawned more than 300 tornadoes.|
11|Officials with the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush confirm that top U.S. officials assigned to govern and rebuild Iraq have been replaced and will return to Washington, D.C., within a week. According to an administration spokesperson, the escalating violence and continuing breakdown of civil order, particularly in Baghdad, provided the impetus for the personnel changes. Both civilians and U.S. Army personnel in Iraq have warned the Bush administration that civil disorder is paralyzing the rebuilding process. The country is without an effective police system, and power and water systems remain unreliable. Lack of security forced the former top U.S. official in Iraq, retired Lieutenant General Jay Garner, and his team of administrators to live in isolation behind razor wire and machine-gun installations within one of Saddam Hussein's Baghdad palaces.|
11|Lithuanians overwhelmingly vote in favor of joining the European Union (EU). More than 90 percent of voters approve the referendum, making Lithuania the first former Soviet republic to move toward EU membership.|
12|Suicide bombers attack Western targets in Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh, just hours before U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is scheduled to arrive there. Groups of terrorists shoot their way into three residential compounds and detonate car bombs that kill 25 people, not including the 9 people believed to be the suicide bombers. The victims include citizens of Australia, Ireland, Jordan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. About 200 other people are injured. Arab officials believe that 12 houses and 16 apartment complexes are destroyed. The bombings occur only two weeks after the United States announced it was withdrawing its troops from Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Department of State warned against nonessential travel there. State Department officials cited intelligence reports that terrorists, possibly members of the al-Qa'ida network, appeared to be planning attacks against the U.S. community in Saudi Arabia.|
12|Suicide bombers run a truck through concrete barriers outside a Russian government complex in Znamenskoye, a village in northern Chechnya, and detonate an explosive device that kills 59 people. More than 100 others are injured, 57 critically. Officials in Moscow blame Islamic separatists for the attack.|
13|U.S. military personnel in Iraq have been authorized to shoot to kill looters on sight, announce U.S. officials in Baghdad, the capital. The new security policy, crafted by the new U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, also calls for hiring more Iraqi police and banning all former members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party from service in any official capacity within the Iraqi government.|
12|The U.S. National Weather Service reports that more than 384 tornadoes have been reported across the Midwest since the beginning of May, a record number.|
13|The U.S. trade deficit widened to $43.46 billion in March, the second largest deficit in history, announce officials with the U.S. Department of Commerce. Economists note that the ever-growing U.S. trade deficit appears to be depressing the value of the U.S. dollar on international currency markets. The value of the dollar has dropped nearly 30 percent compared with the value of the euro since the beginning of 2003. The secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department, John Snow, recently informed the House of Representatives' Financial Services Committee that the Bush administration has no immediate plans to defend the dollar's value.|
13|More than 80 miners are killed in a gas explosion 1,500 feet (455 meters) below ground in a coal mine near Hufei in Anhui province in eastern China. Mine safety experts rate China's mines as among the most dangerous in the world. An estimated 1,600 Chinese miners died in accidents in the first two months of 2003.|
14|A second suicide bomb attack in less than three days in the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya leaves at least 14 people dead and 145 others injured. The attack, which takes place in the town of Iliskhan Yurt, is carried out by a widow in a crowd of several thousand Muslims as prayers are being read out. Authorities believe that Akhmad Kadyrov, head of the Russian-backed Chechen administration, was the target. Kadyrov joined several thousand other Chechens in Iliskhan Yurt to participate in an Islamic religious holiday.|
14|Sheriff's deputies in Victoria County in southeast Texas discover the bodies of 17 illegal immigrants in a trailer truck. The victims died of dehydration and lack of oxygen inside a stiflingly hot trailer truck, which appeared to have been abandoned at a truck stop. Authorities believe the victims, from Mexico, El Salvador, and Guatemala, were being smuggled into the United States along with some 80 other people. When law enforcement officials opened the doors of the trailer, the surviving illegal immigrants jumped out and fled into nearby fields.|
15|The Israeli Army carries out a raid on the town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip during which five Palestinians--two gunmen, two teen-agers, and a 12-year-old boy--are killed. According to an Army spokesperson, a recent increase in rocket attacks on southern Israel and mortar attacks on Jewish settlers in Gaza prompted the raid.|
15|Industrial fishing fleets have stripped the world's oceans of as much as 90 percent of all big fish, including the giant tuna, swordfish, and marlin, announce biologists at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. After completing an independent, 10-year research project, Canadian and U.S. scientists affiliated with various universities concluded that the world's fishing fleets, still competing for what remains, are likely to cause the complete collapse of large fish populations. The cod population off New England and Nova Scotia has already collapsed. The Japanese introduced industrial fishing fleets consisting of huge ships with enormous nets and onboard canneries and freezers in the years after World War II.|
15|A fire burns through three overcrowded cars aboard a train traveling between the Indian cities of Mumbai and Amritsar in the northern state of Punjab, killing more than 35 people.|
15|The U.S. Department of State issues a warning of a possible terrorist attack against a Western neighborhood in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah, which is about 525 miles (845 kilometers) west of Riyadh, the capital. According to an unconfirmed report, the attack could occur "in the future." The threat specifically mentioned a residential district in Jeddah where employees of the U.S. consulate and their families live.|
16|Suicide bombers set off a series of near simultaneous explosions that rip through five different locations in central Casablanca, Morocco, killing 28 people and wounding at least 100 others. A spokesperson for the Moroccan government characterizes the 14 suicide bombers as commandos belonging to a terrorist cell with direct ties to an international terrorist network. He does not specifically identify al-Qa'ida as being responsible for the bombings but notes that in February, Arab television broadcast an audiotape allegedly to be of al-Qa'ida leader Osama bin Laden condemning Morocco as an "apostate" (unfaithful to religion) U.S. ally "ready for liberation."|
17|Flash floods in the Ratnapura district in south-central Sri Lanka kill more than 230 people and force an estimated 150,000 others to evacuate. Most of the victims are killed in a landslide that wipes out an entire village.|
17|Funny Cide, winner of the 2003 Kentucky Derby, wins the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown, at Pimlico race track in Baltimore. Ridden by jockey Jose Santos, the New York-bred gelding completes the 1.53-mile (2.4-kilometer) track in 1 minute and 55.6 seconds.|
18|Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon shuts down the Middle East peace plan after a series of Palestinian suicide bombings are carried out in a single 12-hour period. The prime minister indefinitely postpones a planned trip to Washington, D.C., to discuss the peace plan with U.S. President George W. Bush and announces that he will not receive foreign diplomats who meet with Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. The prime minister also bans movement into and out of the West Bank, effectively cutting thousands of Palestinian workers from jobs in Israel. The first of the bombings, which took place on May 17, left two Israeli settlers, a husband and wife, dead in the West Bank town of Hebron. Another bombing took place near a police roadblock on the northern outskirts of Jerusalem. The attacker was the only casualty. A third bomber, a Palestinian man disguised as an Orthodox Jew, detonated an explosive device aboard a Jerusalem city bus, killing himself and seven passengers.|
19|A Palestinian suicide bomb kills at least three Israelis at a shopping mall in the town of Afula in northern Israel. More than 30 people are injured, 8 of them seriously. The blast occurs at an entrance where shoppers line up to be checked by a security guard. Earlier in the day, a Palestinian riding a bicycle alongside an Israeli Army jeep in the Gaza Strip detonated explosives that killed himself and wounded three soldiers. The Israeli government blames Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat for inciting the attacks, which are the fourth and fifth suicide bombings against Israelis in the past two days.|
19|U.S. President George W. Bush reconfirms his commitment to send U.S. troops to the Philippines to help the Philippine government root out Muslim militants. Speaking at a joint White House press conference with Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, President Bush publicly acknowledges her commitment to crushing international terrorism.|
19|Presidential press secretary Ari Fleischer announces that he plans to resign his position with the George W. Bush administration sometime during the summer.|
19|The Indonesian Army launches a major air and ground offensive against separatist rebels in oil-rich Aceh Province. About 30,000 troops are battling approximately 5,000 guerrilla fighters in a dense, mountainous forest on the northern tip of Sumatra, some 1,200 miles (1,930 kilometers) northwest of Jakarta, the capital. President Megawati Sukarnoputri ordered the military campaign after members of the Free Aceh Movement repudiated a cease-fire brokered in December 2002. More than 12,000 people have been killed in the rebellion since it began in 1976. When Indonesia declared independence from the Netherlands in 1945, the Acehnese were promised, but failed to receive, political autonomy.|
19|Bankrupt Mississippi-based WorldCom Inc. has agreed to pay stockholders $500 million as a fine for the largest accounting fraud in the history of U.S. corporations, announce officials with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Executives at WorldCom, the second largest U.S. long-distance carrier, pushed up the value of WorldCom stock by inflating revenues by $11 billion.|
20|The United States and United Kingdom temporarily close their embassies in Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh. The governments of both the United States and Britain warn that they have credible information that new terrorist attacks against unspecified targets in Saudi Arabia may be "imminent." Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, reveals that a raid recently carried out by Saudi authorities uncovered huge quantities of explosives like those used in the bombings in Riyadh on May 12.|
20|U.S. President George W. Bush telephones the new Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas to underscore the need for both Palestinians and Israelis to resume peace negotiations. Abbas assures the president that he is committed to the three-stage "road map" peace plan endorsed by the Bush administration as well as by leaders of Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations. President Bush's call is made after suicide bombing attacks in Israel in a single 12-hour period shut down the peace process.|
21|Officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture order a temporary ban on the importation of cattle and animal feed from Canada in response to an announcement by the Canadian government that a cow had tested positive for mad cow disease in the province of Alberta. Canada's agriculture minister said the affected cow had been quarantined along with the rest of a 150-head herd.|
21|As many as 2,000 people are killed and thousands of others are injured when an earthquake registering a magnitude of 6.7 strikes northern Algeria. The worst hit area is around Boumerdes, which is 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of Algiers, the capital.|
21|Christie Whitman resigns as administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Environmental experts note that her 28-month tenure as head of the agency was often a source of controversy. Conservatives, including some members of President George W. Bush's administration, claimed Whitman was too willing to impose new environmental regulations on U.S. corporations. Environmentalists accused her of failing to enforce existing regulations.|
22|Fourteen of the 15 members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council, including France, Germany, and Russia, who opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq, vote to lift economic sanctions against Iraq and give UN backing to a U.S.-led administration there. Syria, the only Arab nation currently represented on the council, boycotts the meeting. The resolution empowers UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to appoint a special representative to assist in the creation of an interim Iraqi government.|
23|Relief officials in India announce that at least 198 people have died in the past week as the result of a heat wave with temperatures as high as 117 degrees F (47 degrees C). Andhra Pradesh state in southern India is hardest hit.|
24|Two major U.S. highways are shut down at the start of the busy Memorial Day weekend. In Maryland, Interstate 68 is littered with the wrecks of nearly 90 cars that were damaged in a series of pileups triggered by a truck that hit a van, causing the van to overturn into the westbound lanes. Interstate 80 is closed in western Nebraska due to the collapse of an overpass, which crashed into the highway late on May 23 when a tractor trailer slammed into its center support columns.|
25|Nestor Kirchner is sworn in as Argentina's 49th president, the 6th in less than two years. Kirchner, a member of the party founded by Juan and Eva Peron, promises to reconstruct the economy, which collapsed in late 2001, setting off the worst crisis in Argentine history. He announces that he disagrees with the International Monetary Fund's recipe for economic recovery and plans to renegotiate the repayment of Argentina's foreign debts.|
26|All 75 passengers and crew members are killed when a Ukrainian-chartered Yak-42 plane crashes into a hillside near the Trabzon airport in northeast Turkey. The plane, which was carrying Spanish peacekeeping forces home from Afghanistan, was attempting to land in dense fog in order to refuel.|
27|The use of hormone therapy by women over the age of 65 appears to double the risk of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia, announces Marilyn Albert, a professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The finding is based on the results of a four-year experiment involving 4,532 women at 39 different medical centers. Half of the women took placebos. The other half received estrogen and progestin, the most widely prescribed type of hormone therapy. Over the length of the study, 40 women receiving hormones developed cases of dementia, compared with 21 women taking placebos.|
28|U.S. President George W. Bush signs legislation that cuts various federal taxes by $350 million. Leaders for the Republican majority in Congress describe the bill as a great political victory for the president, who claimed the cuts are needed to strengthen the U.S. economy. Democrats counter that the cuts benefit wealthy citizens at the expense of low income families. They point out that Republican Congressional leaders revised the tax bill at the last minute to prevent minimum-wage families from benefiting from an increase in the child tax credit. The bill increases the child tax credit to $1,000, from $600, but only for families with annual incomes of more than $26,625. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research group, nearly 12 million children belong to the 6.5 million U.S. families with annual incomes of less than $26,625.|
28|Officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announce that the agency will temporarily stop designating critical habitats under the Endangered Species Act because there is no money to fund the program in fiscal 2003.|
29|U.S. military officials in Iraq announce plans to launch a major offensive against remaining strongholds of followers of Saddam Hussein. The announcement is made after a rocket-propelled grenade kills a U.S. soldier on a U.S. supply convoy 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Baghdad, the capital. The death is the fifth fatality of a U.S. solider in Iraq since May 25.|
29|Halliburton Co., the Houston, Texas-based corporation formerly headed by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, received $425 million in government contracts over the last 14 months, reveals U.S. Representative Henry Waxman (D., California). The contracts are in addition to $71.3 million that Kellogg Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, is slated to receive from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers to repair and operate Iraqi oil wells. Waxman notes that none of the work was offered for competitive bids from other companies. Waxman noted that a 2001 government contract with Halliburton exempts future projects from being offered to other companies for competitive bids.|
30|Scientists at the University of Idaho and Utah State University report that they have cloned a mule. The cloning is the first of a member of the horse family. The mule was born at the University of Idaho on May 4. The cloning means that mules, which are a cross between a male donkey and female horse and are usually sterile, can be reproduced. The cloning also raises hopes that researchers will be able to produce genetic copies of other members of the horse family, including championship race horses.|
31|Suspected serial bomber Eric Rudolph is captured in western North Carolina after eluding arrest for more than five years. Authorities believe that he hid out in the Great Smoky Mountains possibly aided by local people who sympathized with his opinions, which have been characterized as right-wing and extremist. Rudolph is accused of killing two people and injuring more than 100 others in four bombings carried out between 1996 and 1998--at Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park during the Olympic games; at an Atlanta gay nightclub; at an Atlanta office building; and at an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama.|
31|The leaders of Myanmar place prodemocracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi under arrest and cut the telephone lines of members of her party, the National League for Democracy. According to a government official, Aung San Suu Kyi and 19 party members are under "protective custody" after a melee involving her supporters and a progovernment group resulted in the deaths of four people. Aung San Suu Kyi has been incarcerated numerous times since Myanmar's military government in 1990 annulled parliamentary elections won by her party.|
