HARPER’S WEEKLY
Gunmen terrorized Mumbai for more than two days, killing
at least 180 people during attacks at a train station, a
restaurant, two five-star hotels, a movie theater, a
hospital, a police station, and a Jewish center. At the
peak of the violence more than one tweet per second with
the word “Mumbai” was being posted to Twitter.com. Indian
authorities claimed there were only ten attackers, with
nine killed and one captured, but others, including the
captive gunman, suggested that many others were involved
in the attacks. Evidence suggested that the
Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani militant group that has
fought with India for control of Kashmir, was responsible
for the violence, though the Deccan Mujahideen, a
little-known group that may not exist, claimed
responsibility. Several Americans were killed, including a
father and daughter on a pilgrimage to learn about the
roots of the meditation foundation Synchronicity, and
Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, who managed
the local Chabad-Lubavitch center. Gary Samore, on
vacation with his family, survived by hiding in his hotel
room at the Taj Mahal Hotel until the American Consulate
reached him via BlackBerry to say that the hotel was on
fire and he and his family needed to get out. “My
BlackBerry,” Samore said, “may have saved our lives.”
Osama bin Laden’s former chauffeur Salim Ahmed Hamdan was
released from Guantanamo Bay after spending more than five
years at the detention camp, and after ten days of
deliberations, the Iraqi parliament ratified a security
agreement that requires American troops to leave the
country by the end of 2011. “What I saw today,” said
journalist Alaa Mohammad of the ratification vote, “made
me feel I want the forces to stay longer, because without
these forces we will eat each other.”
President-elect Barack Obama announced his national
security team, which includes Hillary Clinton as secretary
of state, Robert Gates as defense secretary, and James
Jones, a retired four-star general who bikes nine miles to
work twice a week, as national security
adviser. Researchers learned that ants that perform
specific tasks are no more efficient than regular
ants. “It turns out,” said scientist Anna Dornhaus, “that
the ones that are specialized on a particular job are not
particularly good at doing that job.” Ann Coulter had her
mouth wired shut. George Bush pardoned 14 people,
including Leslie Collier, who poisoned three bald eagles,
and commuted the sentence of John Forte, a Grammy-winning
rapper and backup singer for Carly Simon. Wo Weihan, a
59-year-old biomedical researcher convicted of espionage
by a Chinese court, was executed by a gunshot to the
head. “I don’t want people to think we hate China,” said
his daughter. “We’re just really disappointed and shocked
by the criminal justice system.”
Evangelical pastor Ed Young, of Fellowship Church in
Texas, challenged married couples in his congregation to
have sex seven days a week. A 56-year-old British man was
sentenced to 25 life sentences for repeatedly raping his
two daughters over 27 years, resulting in 19 pregnancies
and seven children, all of whom suffer from genetic
deformities. Planned Parenthood of Indiana announced plans
to offer holiday gift certificates that can be applied
toward the cost of checkups, contraception, or
abortions. “They deserve coal in their stockings,” said
Sister Diane Carollo of the Indianapolis
Archdiocese. Quixing Park Zoo panda Yang Yang bit a
college student. “I just wanted to cuddle him,” said the
20-year-old, “I didn’t expect he would attack.” A survey
found that among adult Britons sex was the most popular
zero-cost activity, and a survey by a wealth-research firm
found that 82 percent of male multimillionaires were
cutting back on expenditures for their mistresses. The
National Bureau of Economic Research announced that the
U.S. economy is officially in recession. Officials in
Rochester, Minnesota, said that the city’s economic woes
were relieved for the year after an eight-day visit by
Saudi King Abdullah and hundreds of his family members,
who spent up to $2.5 million during their stay. A
three-bedroom house in northern Virginia was reportedly
rented for $57,000 for inauguration week. A crowd of 2,000
shoppers in search of Black Friday bargains gathered in
front of a Long Island Wal-Mart at 5 a.m., shattered the
store’s sliding-glass double doors, and rushed into the
store, killing 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour, a temporary
worker hired for the holiday season, in the stampede. “It
was crazy,” said a worker in the electronics
department. “The deals weren’t even that good.”
