February 17, 2004
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- Bishop Thomas O'Brien, the former head of Arizona's largest Roman Catholic diocese, is convicted of a hit and run making him the first Catholic bishop in the United States to be convicted of a felony. (Washington Post)
- Democratic presidential nomination: Wisconsin held its primary election. John Kerry got 40% of the vote, followed by John Edwards with 34%, and Howard Dean with 18%.
- The US FAA announces it will attempt to require a fuel tank inerting system in most large airliners in an effort to prevent fuel tank explosions such as the one which apparently destroyed TWA Flight 800 in 1996. The order could take two years to complete and then would require a retrofit of about 3,800 large Boeing and Airbus jets over the next seven years. (Newsday) (NYT)
- A CNN survey finds that children made more than 11,000 allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic priests. The 4,450 accused priests represent about 4 % of the 110,000 priests who served during the 52 years covered by the study. Nearly 3 %, or 133 of the priests, had 10 or more allegations. (CNN)
- Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, a top Vatican official arrives in Moscow for sensitive talks with the Russian Orthodox hierarchy, which accuses the Catholic Church of aggressive proselytizing in traditionally Orthodox lands. (NYT) (Russian Orthodox Church)
- An outbreak of dengue fever kills 91 people in Indonesia and infects thousands more. Health officials report that 4,500 people have been hospitalized for the mosquito-borne disease, mostly in the capital and other parts of East Java, including the city of Yogyakarta. The number hospitalized is double that of last year. (BBC) (NYT)
- A study published in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests breast cancer is linked to the use of antibiotics. (Tucson Citizen) (NYT)
- As expected, the board of directors of the Walt Disney Company unanimously rejects a hostile buyout offer by Comcast, saying the cable television giant's $66 billion bid is too low, but does not rule out accepting a higher bid in the future. (AP)
- Cingular wins the auction for AT&T Wireless by offering to pay $40.7 billion to become the United States' largest wireless telephone company. (Forbes)
- Same-sex marriage in the United States: San Francisco Superior court Judge James L. Warner postpones any decision to block the city and county of San Francisco, California from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples and to void the 2,464 same-sex marriages that were performed in the city since February 12. This was on the grounds that the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund's order for San Francisco to "cease and desist issuing marriage licenses to and/or solemnizing marriages of same-sex couples; to show cause before this court..." had an improper semicolon; to do both, rather than one or the other, would have exceeded the judge's jurisdiction. (MSNBC)
