Today in History - May 12

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254        May 12, St. Stephen I began his reign as the 23rd Catholic Pope. According to the “Liber Pontificalis” he instituted the rule that clerics should wear special clothes at their ministrations.
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)(HN, 5/12/98)

919        May 12, Duke Henry of Saxon became King Henry I of Eastern Europe.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1191        May 12, Richard the Lionheart married (Bernegaria) Berengaria of Navarre in Limassol, Cyprus.
    (NH, 4/97, p.62)(EofA, p.161)

1215        May 12, English barons served an ultimatum on King John (known as "Lack land").
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1459        May 12, Sun City, India, was founded by Rao Jodhpur.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1534        May 12, Wurttenburg became Lutheran.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1551        May 12, San Marcos University opened in Lima, Peru. The Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos was founded under Spanish royal charter.
    (TL-MB, 1988, p.18)(AM, 7/01, p.18)(Econ, 10/8/11, p.47)

1588        May 12, King Henry II fled Paris after Catholic League under duke Henry of Guise entered the city. The people of Paris rose against Henry III, who fled to Chartres. Seven months later he had Henry of Guise and his brother, Cardinal de Guise, assassinated.
    (TL-MB, 1988, p.24)(HN, 5/12/98)(MC, 5/12/02)

1641        May 12, Thomas Wentworth (48), chief advisor to Charles I and English viceroy of Ireland, was beheaded in the Tower of London.
    (HN, 5/12/01)(MC, 5/12/02)

1649        May 12, Isaac Doreslaer, English lawyer, diplomat, was murdered.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1670        May 12, August II, the Strong One, King of Poland (355 children), was born.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1679        May 12, Giovanni Antonio Ricieri, composer, was born.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1689        May 12, England’s King William III joined the League of Augsburg and the Netherlands. The "Grand Alliance" was formed to counter the war of aggression launched by Louis XIV against the Palatinate states in Germany. This is known as The War of the League of Augsburg (1689-97) also The Nine Years' War, and the War of the Grand Alliance.
    (www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/king_william.htm)

1733        May 12, Maria Theresa was crowned queen of Bohemia in Prague.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1739        May 12, Johann Baptist Vanhal, composer, was born.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1754        May 12, Franz Anton Hoffmeister, composer, was born.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1776        May 12, Turgot, French minister of Finance, resigned.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1777        May 12, The 1st ice cream advertisement appeared in the Philip Lenzi NY Gazette.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1780        May 12, Charleston, SC, fell to the British in the US Revolutionary War.
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97) (HN, 5/12/98)

1789        May 12, The Society of St. Tammany was formed by Revolutionary War soldiers. It later became an infamous group of NYC political bosses.
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)
1789        May 12, In England William Wilberforce laid out his case for the abolition of slavery to the House of Commons. This speech directly led to Britain’s abolition of slavery in 1807.
    (WSJ, 5/12/07, p.P14)

1792        May 12, A toilet that flushed itself at regular intervals was patented.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1797        May 12, Johann Hermann Kufferath, composer, was born.
    (MC, 5/12/02)
1797        May 12, George Washington addressed the Delaware chiefs and stated: “It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and to humbly implore his protection and favor.”
    (WSJ, 6/26/01, p.A23)

1809        May 12, Napoleon’s troops captured Vienna, Austria.
    (SFC, 4/26/12, p.A2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wagram)

1812        May 12, Edward Lear, English writer, was born (d.1888).
    (HFA, '96, p.30)(WUD, 1994, p.815)

1814        May 12, Robert Treat Paine (83), US judge (signed Declaration of Ind), died.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1816        May 12, Lord Grimthorpe was born. He was the designer of “Big Ben,” the most recognized structure in London.
    (HN, 5/12/99)

1820        May 12, Florence Nightingale (d.1910), Crimean War British nurse known as “Lady with the Lamp,” was born in Florence, Italy. She is also known as the founder of modern nursing.
    (AP, 5/12/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale)

1828        May 12, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (d.1882), English poet and painter, was born. He helped found the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti)(WSJ, 7/25/95, p.A-10)

1832        May 12, Gaetano Donizetti's opera "L'elisir d'amore," premiered in Milan.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1835        May 12, Charles Darwin visited the copper mines in North Chile.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1842        May 12, Jules Massenet Montaud, French composer, was born. His work included “Manon” and “Le Cid.”
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)

1845        May 12, Gabriel Urbain Faure, French composer, was born in Pamiers. His work included “Requiem” and “Ballade.”
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)(MC, 5/12/02)
1845        May 12, August Wilhelm Schlegel (77), German poet, interpreter, critic, died.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1851        May 12, A treaty was signed on the south bank of the Kaweah River, the site of John Wood's grave. Woods was killed by Yokut Indians. The California Tule River War ended.
    (HN, 4/28/00)(WW, 6/99)(HN, 5/12/01)

1862        May 12, Federal troops occupied Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1863        May 12, With a victory at the Battle of Raymond, Mississippi, Grant closed in on Vicksburg.
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)(HN, 5/12/99)

1864        May 12, The Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia, was fought.
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)
1864        May 12, Battle of Todd's Tavern, VA (Sheridan's Raid).
    (MC, 5/12/02)
1864        May 12, Union General Benjamin Butler attacked Drewry’s Bluff on the James River.
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)(HN, 5/12/99)
1864        May 12, J.E.B. Stuart (31), Confederate Gen’l., died. [see May 11]
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)(MC, 5/12/02)

1865        May 12, The last land action of the Civil War was fought at Palmito Ranch in Texas. It was a Confederate victory.
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)(HN, 5/12/02)

1870        May 12, An act creating the Canadian province of Manitoba was given royal assent, to take effect in July.
    (AP, 5/12/08)

1871        May 12, Segregated street cars were integrated in Louisville, Ky.
    (MC, 5/12/02)
1871        May 12, Daniel-Francois-Esprit Auber (89), French opera composer, died.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1872        May 12, J.C. Watson discovered asteroid #121, Hermione.
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)

1873        May 12, The penny postal card, issued by the Post Office Department, was first put on sale in Springfield, Mass., and in other cities a day later.
    (www.dailymail.com/static/specialsections/lookingback/lb0201.htm)

1874        May 12, The US Assay office in Helena, Montana, was authorized.
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)

1881        May 12, The Treaty of Bardo established Tunis [Tunisia] as a French protectorate. The French withdrew their forces after signing the treaty. The terms of the agreement gave France responsibility for the defense and foreign policy decisions of Tunisia. Henceforth, Tunis became a French protectorate
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Bardo)

1884        May 12, Bedrich Friedrich Smetana (60), Czech composer (MaVlast, Bartered Bride), died.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1890        May 12, Louisiana legalized prize fighting.
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)

1898        May 12, A US fleet under Admiral William T. Sampson attacked El Morro and San Cristobal in Puerto Rico. After 2 hours of shelling the fleet headed for Cuba.
    (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castillo_San_Felipe_del_Morro)
1898        May 12, Louisiana adopted a new constitution with a "grandfather clause" designed to eliminate black voters. The new constitution allowed a non-unanimous jury to convict a defendant of a felony.
    (http://tinyurl.com/yaud9vzk)(SSFC, 4/15/18, p.A13)

1900        May 12, Mostly Black fighters in Mafikeng repelled a Boer assault. Col. Robert Baden-Powell, commander of the British troops in Mafikeng, armed black fighters and many died during the 7-month siege.
    (SFC, 10/8/99, p.D3)

1902        May 12, Heinrich Kirchner, German sculptor, was born.
    (MC, 5/12/02)
1902        May 12, Over 125,000 miners in northeastern Pennsylvania called a strike and kept the mines closed all summer. An additional 18,000 bituminous workers struck in sympathy. Owners refused arbitration and Pres. Roosevelt intervened. [see Oct 3]
    (SFC, 10/4/02, p.A17)(AH, 2/03, p.44)

1903        May 12, Lennox R.F. Berkeley, British composer (Castaway), was born.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1907        May 12, Katherine Hepburn, actress (The Philadelphia Story, The African Queen), was born in Hartford, CT.
    (HN, 5/12/01)(AP, 5/12/07)
1907        May 12, Leslie Charteris, English-US detective writer (The Saint), was born.
    (MC, 5/12/02)
1907        May 12, A. Kopff discovered asteroids #633, Zelima, and #634, Ute.
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)
1907        May 12, J.K. Huysmans (59), writer, died.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1908        May 12, George Bernard Shaw's "Getting Married," premiered in London.
    (MC, 5/12/02)
1908        May 12, Wireless Radio Broadcasting was patented by Nathan B. Stubblefield.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1915        May 12, Mary Kay Ash, chairman of Mary Kay Cosmetics, was born.
    (HN, 5/12/99)
1915        May 12, Croatians plundered Armenia and killed 250.
    (MC, 5/12/02)
1915        May 12, In South Africa Naspers was founded as Die Nasionale Pers (The National Press) with the aim of furthering the cause of the Afrikaner people.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naspers)(Econ, 7/10/10, p.61)

1917        May 12, M. Wolf discovered asteroid #870, Manto.
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)

1921        May 12, Farley Mowat, Canadian nature writer (Never Cry Wolf), was born.
    (HN, 5/12/01)

1924        May 12, Russian-American poet Alexander Esenin-Volpin was born in Leningrad. A notable dissident, political prisoner and a leader of the Soviet human rights movement, he spent total of fourteen years incarcerated and repressed by the Soviet authorities in prisons, psikhushkas and exile.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Esenin-Volpin)

1925        May 12, Lawrence “Yogi” Berra, baseball star, was born. He played as a catcher for the New York Yankees and worked as a coach and manager for the Mets and Astros.
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)(HN, 5/12/98)
1925        May 12, John Simon, theater critic, was born.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1926        May 12, Dmitri Shostakovitch's 1st Symphony premiered in Leningrad.
    (MC, 5/12/02)
1926        May 12, Italian Col. Umberto Nobile of the Italian army piloted his Norge dirigible over the North Pole with Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen.
    (ON, 10/00, p.5)

1927        May 12, Clarence Kelly, San Francisco bandit killer, was executed at San Quentin following his October 1926 robbery and murder spree.
    (SFC, 7/25/20, p.B4)

1928        May 12, Brothers Joe and Tom Longs opened their first store on Oakland’s Piedmont Ave. In 1993 Longs acquired Bill’s Drugs, a 20 store chain in northern California. In 2008 Longs Drugs was acquired by CVS Caremark for $2.9 billion.
    (SFC, 8/14/08, p.C3)
1928        May 12, In Italy Mussolini abolished women suffrage under a new law that restricted the franchise to men 21 and over who pay syndicate rates or taxes or 100 lire.
    (PCh, 1992, p.787)

1929        May 12, Burt Bacharach, composer, was born in KC, Mo. His songs included “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again.”
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)(MC, 5/12/02)

1930        May 12, A Pulitzer prize was awarded to Marc Connelly (Green Pastures).
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1931        May 12, Eugene-Auguste Ysaye (72), composer, died.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1932        May 12, Goofy, aka Dippy Dawg, 1st appeared in 'Mickey's Revue' by Walt Disney.
    (MC, 5/12/02)
1932        May 12, The body of the kidnapped son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh was found in a wooded area of Hopewell, N.J.
    (AP, 5/12/97)(HN, 5/12/98)

1933        May 12, The Federal Emergency Relief Administration and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration were established to provide help for the needy and farmers.
    (AP, 5/12/03)
1933        May 12, In San Francisco a drawbridge, designed by Joseph B. Strauss, opened on Third St. across Mission Creek Channel. In 1969 it was renamed in honor of the famous baseball player Lefty O'Doul.
    (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lefty_O%27Doul_Bridge)(SFC, 3/14/00, p.A15)
1933        May 12, Andrey Andreyevich Voznesensky, Russian poet, was born.
    (HN, 5/12/01)

1934        May 12, "Cocktails For Two" by Duke Ellington hit #1.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1936        May 12, Tom Snyder, newscaster and television host, was born.
    (HN, 5/12/98)
1936        May 12, Frank Stella, painter, was born in Massachusetts.
    (HN, 5/12/01)(SFC, 6/17/04, p.E5)

1937        May 12, George Carlin (d.2002), comedian, was born in the Bronx.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Carlin)
1937        May 12, In San Francisco over 1,000 tons of gold were moved from the old to the new US Mint. The Old Mint stopped being an actual mint and was just used for federal offices. It had once stored a third of the nation’s gold supply. The new mint opened on upper Market near the Castro District.
    (SFC, 8/2/01, p.A14)(SSFC, 1/28/03, p.E6)(SSFC, 5/13/12, p.42)
1937        May 12, The Duke of York was crowned Britain's King George VI at Westminster Abbey.
    (SFEM, 1/26/97, p.40)(AP, 5/12/97)

1938        May 12, Sandoz Labs manufactured LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide). [see Apr 19, 1943]
    (MC, 5/12/02)
1938        May 12, In Holland, the 4-day convention at Utrecht ended. A Provisional Constitution for the World Council of Churches was adopted.
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)

1939        May 12, Ronald Ziegler, press secretary to Pres. Nixon, was born.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1940        May 12, The Nazi blitz conquest of France began with the crossing at the Muese River.
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)(HN, 5/12/98)

1941        May 12, Anthony Newman, harpsichordist, organist (Bhajeb), was born in LA, Calif.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1942        May 12, A Nazi U-boat sank an American cargo ship at mouth of Mississippi River.
    (MC, 5/12/02)
1942        May 12, David Ben-Gurion left the Jewish state in Palestine.
    (MC, 5/12/02)
1942        May 12, The Soviet Army launched its first major offensive of the war and took Kharkov in the eastern Ukraine from the German army.
    (HN, 5/12/99)
1942        May 12, 1,500 Jews were gassed in Auschwitz.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1943        May 12, Axis forces in Tunisia and all of North Africa surrendered.
    (AP, 5/12/97)(HN, 5/12/98)

1948        May 12, Queen Wilhelmina resigned. [see Sep 4]
    (MC, 5/12/02)
   
1949        May 12, S.V.L. Pandit of India was received as the first foreign woman ambassador to the US.
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)
1949        May 12, The Soviet Union announced an end to the Berlin blockade. [see Sep 30, 1949]
    (WUD, 1994, p.1684)(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.A10)(HN, 5/12/98)

1951        May 12, The 1st H Bomb test was on Eniwetok Atoll. [see Oct 31, 1952]
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1957        May 12, Erich von Stroheim (b.1885), Austrian-US actor and director, died of cancer in Paris. His films included "Grand Illusion," "The Merry Widow," and "Greed." In 2000 Arthur Lennig published the biography "Stroheim."
    (WSJ, 2/23/00, p.A20)(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002233/)

1958        May 12, The United States and Canada signed an agreement to create the North American Air Defense Command (later the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD for short).
    (AP, 5/12/08)

1962        May 12, Dick Calkins, co-author of Buck Rogers, died at 67.
    (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)

1963        May 12, There was a race riot in Birmingham, Alabama.
    (MC, 5/12/02)

1964        May 12, The reverse osmosis process for turning seawater and waste-water into potable stuff was patented in San Diego.
    (Econ, 3/31/12, p.42)(www.google.com/patents/US4062782)

1965        May 12, West Germany and Israel exchanged letters establishing diplomatic relations.
    (AP, 5/12/97)

1967        May 12, H. Rap Brown (b.1943) replaced Stokely Carmichael (1941-1968) as chairman of Student Nonviolating Coordinating Committee and announced that the organization will continue its commitment to black power.
    (www.shmoop.com/civil-rights-black-power/timeline.html)
1967        May 12, English poet laureate John Masefield died.
    (AP, 5/12/07)

1968        May 12, In Israel the Knesset passed the Jerusalem Day Law, making the day a national holiday. Israel’s government proclaimed Jerusalem Day, to be celebrated on the 28th of Iyar, the Hebrew date on which the divided city of Jerusalem became one.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_Day)

1969        May 12, Winnie Mandela was detained under South Africa’s Terrorism Act and was placed in solitary confinement for seventeen months. In 1970 she was placed under house arrest.
    (www.answers.com/topic/winnie-madikizela-mandela)(http://tinyurl.com/cynuvn)
1969        May 12, Viet Cong sappers tried unsuccessfully to overrun Landing Zone Snoopy in Vietnam.
    (HN, 5/12/99)

1970        May 12, The US Senate voted unanimously to confirm Harry A. Blackmun as a Supreme Court justice. Blackmun (1908-1999) was nominated to the US Supreme Court by Richard Nixon on April 14, 1970.
    (AP, 5/12/97)(www.law.cornell.edu/supct/justices/blackmun.bio.html)
1970        May 12, In Augusta, Georgia, an overnight riot left 6 black men dead. Autopsies confirmed that the six men killed were all shot in the back with police-issued shotguns.
    (www.socyberty.com/History/Augusta-Georgia-Riot-of-1970.237549)
1970        May 12, Premier Robert Bourassa (1933-1996) began serving his first term as the Liberal Premier of the province of Quebec. This term ended in 1976. He then served a 2nd term from 1985-1994.
    (SFC, 10/3/96, p.C6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bourassa)

1971        May 12, A 6.3 earthquakes in western Turkey killed about 100 people.
    (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/world/events/1971_05_turkey.php)

1973        May 12, In Australia the northeast town of Nimbin was on the verge of closing when a group of university students held the Aquarius hippy festival in a nearby paddock. Many hippies put down roots and build an alternate culture. By 2007 Nimbin's marijuana smoking reputation had become global with busloads of young foreign tourists.
    (Reuters, 4/19/07)(www.milesago.com/Festivals/aquarius73.htm)

1975        May 12, The White House announced the new Cambodian government had seized an American merchant ship, the Mayaguez, with 39 crew members in international waters. Pres. Gerald Ford sent a company of Marines to rescue the ship. The ship was freed but there were 41 Americans killed or missing and more than 50 wounded.
    (SFEC, 5/11/97, p.T10)(AP, 5/12/97)
1975        May 12, In San Francisco Fredrick Elmer Capin was found dead. He was the 4th of at least five gay victims stabbed to death by a serial killer, dubbed the Doodler.
    (SSFC, 6/6/21, p.S2)

1978        May 12, The US Commerce Department said hurricanes would no longer be named exclusively after women.
    (AP, 10/12/97)(www.answers.com/topic/united-states-department-of-commerce?cat=biz-fin)

1980        May 12, Maxie Anderson (45) and his son Kris (23) completed the 1st balloon crossing of the American continent as they landed their helium-filled balloon on Canada’s Gaspe Peninsula. Their journey began May 8 in Marin Ct., Ca.
    (SFC, 5/6/05, p.F2)

1982        May 12, Braniff Airlines, based in Dallas, ceased operations. N601BN "747 Braniff Place" made the very last Braniff flight from Hawaii to Dallas/Fort Worth on May 13. Harding Lawrence (d.2002 at 81) led the company from 1965-1980.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braniff_Airways)(SFC, 1/21/02, p.B5)
1982        May 12, In Fatima, Portugal, security guards overpowered a Spanish ex-priest armed with a bayonet who was trying to reach Pope John Paul II. John Paul was visiting to give thanks for surviving an assassination attempt on May 13, 1981. Ultra-conservative Spanish priest, Juan Fernandez Krohn, lunged at the pope with a dagger and was knocked to the ground by police and arrested. The pope was wounded, but this was not disclosed until 2008.
    (AP, 10/12/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II)(Reuters, 10/15/08)

1985        May 12, Illinois Gov. James Thompson commuted the sentence of Gary Dotson, who'd served six years in prison for a rape that the alleged victim later said never happened.
    (AP, 5/12/05)
1985        May 12, Amy Eilberg was ordained in New York as the first female rabbi in the Conservative Jewish movement.
    (AP, 5/12/05)

1987        May 12, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir rejected Foreign Minister Shimon Peres' proposal for an international Middle East peace conference, calling it "perverse and criminal." Peres angrily accused Shamir of arrogance.
    (AP, 5/12/97)

1988        May 12, Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, meeting in Geneva, resolved nearly all remaining questions on an intermediate-range missile treaty.
    (AP, 5/12/98)

1989        May 12, The nation's largest airline computer reservation system, the American Airlines Sabre system, shut down for nearly 12 hours, disrupting the operations of thousands of travel agencies nationwide.
    (AP, 5/12/99)
1989        May 12, The MTA declared victory over graffiti. The last graffiti covered NYC subway car was retired.
    {NYC, fad, Language, USA}
    (http://www.africaresource.com/content/view/11/90/)

1990        May 12, The tune "Sending All My Love" by Linear reached #8 on the pop singles chart.
    (www.rockonthenet.com/archive/1990/05-12.htm)
1990        May 12, The presidents of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania forged a united front by reviving a 1934 political alliance in hopes of enhancing their drive for independence from the Soviet Union.
    (AP, 5/12/00)

1991        May 12, Syrian President Hafez Assad, meeting with US Secretary of State James A. Baker the Third, refused to yield on key demands for joining a Middle East peace conference.
    (AP, 5/12/01)

1992        May 12, Four suspects were arrested in the beating of trucker Reginald Denny at the start of the Los Angeles riots.
1992        May 12, President Bush announced he would travel to the Earth Summit in Brazil.
    (AP, 5/12/97)
1992        May 12, Actor Robert Reed (59) of TV's "The Brady Bunch" died in Pasadena, Calif.
    (AP, 5/12/97)

1993        May 12, President Clinton proposed putting all money raised from new taxes and spending cuts into a trust fund dedicated solely to reducing the nation's huge budget deficit.
    (AP, 5/12/98)

1994        May 12, The US Senate joined the House in passing a bill banning blockades, violence and threats against clinics where abortions were being performed.
    (AP, 5/12/99)
1994        May 12, British Labor Party leader John Smith died unexpectedly at age 55.
    (AP, 5/12/99)

1995        May 12, President Clinton, during a stopover in Ukraine, visited Babi Yar, where the Nazis massacred more than 30,000 Kiev Jews in 1941.
    (AP, 5/12/00)

1996        May 12, Authorities in Florida called off the search for possible survivors from the crash of ValuJet Flight 592, a day after the jetliner nose-dived into the Everglades with 110 people on board.
    (AP, 5/12/97)
1996        May 12, Brewster Kahle founded the non-profit Internet Archive. With a former colleague he also co-founded a firm called Alexa, to track and analyze the paths people follow as they move around the Web. In 1999 Amazon bought Alexa for an estimated $250 million.
    (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Archive)(Econ, 3/7/09, p.34)
1996        May 12, The house in which Margaret Mitchell wrote “Gone With the Wind” in Atlanta, Georgia, and purchased by Daimler-Benz for $4.5 mil, burned down while under re-construction for the summer Olympics.
     (SFC, 7/10/96, p.A4)
1996        May 12, The Canadian province of Ontario announced a 15% tax cut last week under Premier Mike Harris, who was selected last June on promises to cut the budget deficit and taxes. His cuts have led to tuition increases, expected hospital closures or consolidations, and the marked elimination of 10,000 government jobs.
    (SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-10)

1997        May 12, At the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh, star prosecution witness Michael Fortier testified that McVeigh had been bent on triggering a "general uprising in America."
    (AP, 5/12/98)
1997        May 12, Susie Maroney, Australian swimmer, became the first woman to swim the 105 mile swim from Cuba to Key West, Fla., in 24 hours and 31 min. AP says 118-mile distance in 24 1/2 hours
    (SFC, 5/13/97, p.A3)(AP, 5/12/98)
1997        May 12, Russia and Chechnya signed a peace treaty. The treaty refers to Chechnya as the “Chechen Republic of Ichkeria,” and says that it is subject to international law.
    (SFC, 5/13/97, p.A12)

1998        May 12, Singer Ray Charles and sitar master Ravi Shankar received the Polar Music Prize, $133,000, from King Carl Gustav XVI in Sweden. The award was established by Stig Anderson, manager of the Abba pop group.
    (SFC, 5/15/98, p.C5)
1998        May 12, Britain offered Northern Ireland a $500 million package of financing and tax breaks for roads, railways and the reduction of unemployment.
    (SFC, 5/13/98, p.A11)
1998        May 12, In Columbia retired Gen’l. Fernando Landazabal Reyes, a former defense minister, was shot and killed in Bogota.
    (SFC, 5/13/98, p.A13)
1998        May 12, Eritrea accused Ethiopian militiamen of invading its territory in a border skirmish. Ethiopia later said 20 people were killed and 20 wounded by Eritrean forces.
    (WSJ, 5/15/98, p.A1)(SFC, 5/18/98, p.A12)
1998        May 12, A day after India's first atomic test blasts in 24 years, neighboring Pakistan said it was ready to test a nuclear device itself.
    (AP, 5/12/99)
1998        May 12-1998 May 15, In Indonesia President Suharto's security forces opened fire on student protesters at Trisakti Univ. and 6 were killed with another 20 injured. It was later reported that 1,188 people died in Jakarta in the riots over this period. The nationwide toll was believed to be much higher. A later government report indicated that the military contributed to Suharto’s downfall. The report also concluded that 66 women, many of them ethnic Chinese, were raped during the riots. Human rights groups estimated that 160 women were raped.
    (SFC, 5/13/98, p.A1)(SFC, 5/14/98, p.A14)(SFC, 6/4/98, p.C2)(SFC, 11/4/98, p.A12)(WSJ, 11/4/98, p.A1)
1998        May 12, In Kosovo Serbian police clashed with ethnic Albanians and 2 ethnic Albanians were reported killed in Pristina. The police had found the site of the attack to be loaded with weapons.
    (SFC, 5/13/98, p.A13)
1998        May 12, In Rwanda Hutu rebels killed 17 people, 14 in the town of Taba and 3 others in Kayenzi. Another 10 were wounded in the attacks.
    (SFC, 5/15/98, p.D3)
1998        May 12, In Turkey Akin Birdal, head of the independent Human Rights Association, was shot and injured in an attack by the Turkish Revenge Brigade, an ultranationalist group. Five ultranationalists were arrested May 22.
    (SFC, 5/13/98, p.A13)(SFC, 5/23/98, p.A14)
1998        May 12, The UAR announced that it would buy 80 F-16s from the US for about $7 billion.
    (SFC, 5/13/98, p.A13)

1999        May 12, Robert Rubin, US Treasury Secretary, announced his resignation. Pres. Clinton chose Lawrence Summers, the deputy secretary to succeed Rubin. In 2001 Summers left to become the 27th president of Harvard.
    (SFC, 5/13/99, p.A1,19)(WSJ, 6/8/04, p.A1)
1999        May 12, The US Senate rejected 51 to 47 a Democratic proposal that would have required background checks for firearms sales at gun-shows. A GOP proposal for voluntary checks passed 53 to 45.
    (SFC, 5/13/99, p.A3)
1999        May 12, Saul Steinberg (b.1914), Romania-born cartoon artist, died in NYC. In 2002 a series of tape-recorded conversations with Aldo Buzzi, translated by John Shepley, was published. In 2012 Deirdre Bair authored “Saul Steinberg: A Biography.”
    (SSFC, 7/14/02, p.M6)(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9069548/Saul-Steinberg)(SSFC, 12/16/12, p.E3)
1999        May 12, NATO continued airstrikes for the 50th day of its campaign against Yugoslavia. 327 strike missions were flown. Pres. Milosevic acknowledged that his military had suffered casualties.
    (SFC, 5/13/99, p.A1,9)
1999        May 12, Iraqi armed forces said that US and British warplanes had killed 12 civilians in the Nineveh province.
    (SFC, 5/13/99, p.C4)
1999        May 12, It was reported that a drought in northern Mexico was entering its 5th year and the governor of Sonora said that his state had only a 25 day supply of water.
    (SFC, 5/15/99, p.A11)
1999        May 12, In Russia Pres. Yeltsin fired Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and named Sergei Stepashin, a top police official, to head a new government.
    (SFC, 5/13/99, p.A1)
1999        May 12, A new Scottish parliament sat for the first time in 292 years after elections. "This was the parliament adjourned on the 25th of March in 1707 and is hereby reconvened," says the oldest member of the house, the SNP's Winnie Ewing.
    (Reuters, 2/16/12)
1999        May 12, In South Korea thousands of metal and hospital workers went on strike to protest planned layoffs and wage cuts.
    (SFC, 5/13/99, p.A19)

2000        May 12, During visits to Ohio and Minnesota, President Clinton called for open trade with China, saying it would help the communist nation move closer to democracy.
    (AP, 5/12/01)
2000        May 12, The Los Alamos fire toll covered 30,000 acres with 191 housing structures burned.
    (SFC, 5/13/00, p.A1)
2000        May 12, Adam Petty, 19, the fourth-generation driver of NASCAR's most famous family, died in a crash during practice for the Busch 200 at New Hampshire International Speedway.
    (AP, 5/12/01)
2000        May 12, In Argentina at least 23 police and 22 protestors were injured in the province of Salta where thousands of jobless workers had blocked a federal highway for 10 days to protest welfare cuts.
    (SFC, 5/13/00, p.A9)
2000        May 12, In Chechnya Russian forces staged two ambush attacks on rebels and claimed 41 killed.
    (SFC, 5/13/00, p.A9)
2000        May 12, War erupted between Eritrea and Ethiopia after Ethiopian troops left their trenches and attacked Eritrean defenses. 600,000 troops were dug in along the 600-mile border.
    (SFC, 5/13/00, p.A8)
2000        May 12, The Indonesian government and separatist rebels negotiated a cease-fire in Switzerland, the 1st in 25 years of fighting. The 3 month cease-fire was set to begin Jun 2.
    (SFC, 5/13/00, p.A8)
2000        May 12, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ruled that the military takeover in October 1999 was justified under the "doctrine of necessity." Pres. Musharraf had dismissed 13 senior judges and got the remaining judges to decree that his coup was legal and necessary.
    (www.ciaonet.org/olj/sa/sa_jan01kus01.html)(Econ, 7/8/06, Survey p.6)
2000        May 12, Igor Domnikov (42), a reporter for Russia’s Novaya Gazeta, was found in a pool of blood at his Moscow apartment building. Domnikov died July 16. In 2007 a court in the city of Kazan sentenced four men to life in prison, and three others to prison terms ranging from 18 to 25 years after finding them guilty of killing 23 men, including Domnikov, and of eight kidnappings. The convicted gang's leader Eduard Tagiryanov, who was sentenced to life, told the court that Domnikov's killing had been ordered by former deputy governor of western Lipetsk region Sergei Dorovsky for a series of critical articles on his policies.
    (www.cpj.org/protests/01ltrs/Russia08jan01pl.html)(WSJ, 12/8/06, p.A12)(AP, 8/31/07)
2000        May 12, In Sri Lanka some Tamil Tiger rebels rolled into Jaffna and forced government troops to retreat.
    (SFC, 5/13/00, p.A9)

2001        May 12, Perry Como (b.1913), singer, died at age 88 in Jupiter, Fla. His Perry Como Show ran on TV for 15 years (1948-1963).
    (SSFC, 5/13/01, p.A27)(NW, 12/31/01, p.110)
2001        May 12, In the West Bank Moutasem Sabaa (26), a Palestinian militant, and Ala’a Jaloudi, a Palestinian policeman, were killed in an Israeli helicopter attack. 3 members of the Tanzim militia escaped.
    (SSFC, 5/13/01, p.A13)
2001        May 12, In Somalia Aidid forces gained control of the seaport at Mogadishu in fighting with the Suleiman clan militia. 40 people were left dead including 21 civilians.
    (SSFC, 5/13/01, p.A13)

2002        May 12, Former US Pres. Jimmy Carter arrived in Cuba and Castro offered him unfettered access. He was the 1st US president, in or out of office, to visit since the 1959 revolution that put Fidel Castro in power.
    (WSJ, 5/13/02, p.A1)(AP, 5/12/03)
2002        May 12, US forces in Afghanistan killed 5 enemy fighters and captured 32 during a raid at Deh Rawod, north of Kandahar. US air strikes at Char Chine, killed 5 civilians.
    (SFC, 5/14/02, p.A8)(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.A14)
2002        May 12, In India an express train derailed near Lucknow and 12 people were killed. Sabotage was suspected.
    (SFC, 5/13/02, p.A6)
2002        May 12, In Israel PM Ariel Sharon's Likud Party, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, voted to never allow the creation of a Palestinian state. The Palestinian Authority told 26 men transferred from the Church of the Nativity that they could have jobs in any government bureaucracy including positions in Gaza's Tanzim militia.
    (SFC, 5/13/02, p.A1,12)(AP, 5/12/03)
2002        May 12, In Kazakhstan a roof collapsed at the Baikonur cosmodrome, Russia's main space launch site. 8 workers were feared killed.
    (SFC, 5/13/02, p.A6)
2002        May 12, In Mali runoff elections were held. Retired Gen. Amadou Toure won 68% of the vote. The coalition candidate Siumaila Cisse, a wealthy former finance minister, conceded with 32%.
    (SFC, 5/16/02, p.A8)

2003        May 12, Fifty-nine Texas Democrats fled to a Holiday Inn in Oklahoma to thwart a Republican drive to redraw the state's congressional districts.
    (AP, 5/13/03)
2003        May 12, Chicago and Seattle launched 5-day homeland security drills costing an estimated $16 million.
    (USAT, 5/13/03, p.3A)(WSJ, 5/13/03, p.A1)
2003        May 12, L. Paul Bremer, the new American civilian administrator, took over the task of piecing Iraq together. He replaced retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner. In 2006 Bremmer with Malcolm McConnell authored “My Year in Iraq.”
    (AP, 5/12/03)(WSJ, 1/13/06, p.P10)
2003        May 12, US officials said Rihab Rashid Taha, called "Dr. Germ" for her work with germ warfare agents, was reported to be in coalition custody. Ibrahim Ahmad Abd al Sattar Muhammad, No. 11 on the most-wanted list, was also reported in custody.
    (USAT, 5/13/03, p.11A)
2003        May 12, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan (70), a wealthy philanthropist who held a string of top UN humanitarian posts and was the uncle of the spiritual leader of the Ismaili sect of Shiite Islam, died in Boston. Khan served as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (1965-1977).
    (AP, 5/13/03)(SFC, 5/15/03, p.A21)
2003        May 12, In Brazil some 1,000 other landless farmers knocked down the barbed-wire fences surrounding the Tres Marias ranch in southern Brazil, evicted its owner and claimed the land for themselves. 90 percent of the Brazil's land was owned by just 20 percent of the people, while the poorest 40 percent of the population held just 1 percent.
    (AP, 6/29/03)
2003        May 12, A British government doctor reported that the brains of at least 20,000 people, many of them depressed or mentally ill when they died, were removed without their families' consent from 1970-1999.
    (AP, 5/12/03)(USAT, 5/13/03, p.10A)
2003        May 12, In Toronto, Canada, Holly Jones (10) disappeared after she walked a friend home in broad daylight.  Less than 24 hours later, a man found some of the girl's remains in a gym bag off Ward's Island in Lake Ontario. More body parts were found some distance away on the mainland. Michael Briere (35) was arrested for the murder on Jun 20.
    (AP, 6/21/03)
2003        May 12, In northern Chechnya a truck bomb ripped through a government compound, killing 60 people and wounding some 300 others.
    (AP, 5/13/03)(WSJ, 5/19/03, p.A1)
2003        May 12, Haiti agreed to cut spending and stabilize its currency in a deal with the International Monetary Fund.
    (AP, 5/13/03)
2003        May 12, Israel sealed the Gaza Strip, imposing the most sweeping restrictions in years, and its troops killed three Palestinians in clashes there.
    (AP, 5/12/03)
2003        May 12, The UN Security Council tentatively agreed to send peacekeepers to the Ivory Coast to help enforce an agreement aimed at ending nine months of civil war.
    (AP, 5/12/03)
2003        May 12, The Kurdish regional parliament in Erbil declared Apr 9, the date of the fall of Baghdad to US forces, as a national holiday.
    (USAT, 5/13/03, p.11A)
2003        May 12, North Korea declared that the 1992 agreement with South Korea to keep the Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons was nullified, citing a "sinister" U.S. agenda.
    (AP, 5/12/03)
2003        May 12, In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, multiple, simultaneous suicide car bombings at 3 foreign compounds killed 26 people, including 9 US citizens. The next day Saudi authorities linked Khaled Jehani (29) head of a 19-member al-Qaida team to the carnage. Ali Abd al-Rahman al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi, a senior al Qaeda figure, surrendered Jun 26. On Jan 8, 2004, 8 accomplices were arrested in Switzerland.
    (SFC, 5/14/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/14/03, p.A1)(SFC, 6/27/03, p.A16)(SFC, 1/10/04, p.A3)(AP, 5/12/08)

2004        May 12, Members of US Congress expressed outrage after they were privately shown fresh pictures and videos of Iraqi prisoners being abused by US troops.
    (AP, 5/12/05)
2004        May 12, NBC completed a merger with the Universal television and entertainment businesses to create a major media conglomerate.
    (AP, 5/12/05)
2004        May 12, A wildlife group warned that world cod stocks were falling and could be wiped out in 15 years if the current rate of over fishing continues.
    (WSJ, 5/13/04, p.A1)
2004        May 12, In Iraq US soldiers backed by tanks and helicopters battled fighters loyal to a radical cleric near a mosque in Karbala, hours after Iraqi leaders agreed on a proposal that would end his standoff. As many as 25 insurgents were killed.
    (AP, 5/12/04)
2004        May 12, Israeli troops launched a massive incursion into a Gaza neighborhood, firing missiles, demolishing buildings and scouring rooftops, in a bid to recover the body parts of six soldiers killed the day before by Palestinian militants. An Israeli helicopter fired a missile in Gaza's Zeitoun neighborhood, killing at least three Palestinians. Five Israeli soldiers were killed when Palestinians blew up an Israeli armored vehicle.
    (AP, 5/12/04)(AP, 5/13/04)
2004        May 12, The Paris Club of creditor nations agreed to cancel all $152 million owed by Niger to the club's 19 member countries.
    (AP, 5/12/04)
2004        May 12, In Nigeria Muslim mobs in Kano attacked Christians and as many as 30 people were killed.
    (SFC, 5/13/04, p.A10)

2005        May 12, The US Foreign Relations Committee voted 10-8 along party lines to advance John Bolton's nomination to be UN ambassador without the customary recommendation that the Senate approve it.
    (AP, 5/12/06)
2005        May 12, Microsoft officially unveiled its Xbox 360, a video game console boasting improved graphics over its predecessor.
    (AP, 5/12/06)
2005        May 12, The Islamic Center of America, a $12 million mosque, opened in Dearborn, Mich., down the road near the world headquarters of the Ford Motor Co.
    (SSFC, 10/9/05, p.E6)(www.icofa.com/)
2005        May 12, Police clashed with anti-U.S. demonstrators in two Afghan towns, killing at least three people, and Afghan students burned an American flag in Kabul as protests spread over reported abuse of Islam's holy book at the U.S. jail in Guantanamo Bay.
    (AP, 5/12/05)
2005        May 12, Australian police arrested five men after seizing more than 115 kgs (253 pounds) of heroin, with a street value of more than A$60 million (US$46 million), hidden in containers of plastic chairs from China.
    (AP, 5/13/05)
2005        May 12, Austrian authorities reported the break up a major human trafficking ring led by Romanian, Moldovan and Ukrainian criminals who smuggled more than 5,000 East Europeans to the West, many enduring horrific conditions in tiny hiding spaces in cars, trucks and trailers.
    (AP, 5/12/05)
2005        May 12, Leaders from 12 South American and 22 Arab nations ended their first summit by endorsing a "Declaration of Brasilia," urging Israel to abandon Palestinian territory and insisting free trade must be harnessed to benefit the world's poor.
    (AP, 5/12/05)
2005        May 12, It was reported that Colombia’s Pres. Alvaro Uribe is creating a political party to formally unite his followers, who until now have been known simply as "Uribistas." The plan is being resisted by the opposition and even some of his supporters, who worry about a political party based on one man's hardline ideals.
    (AP, 5/12/05)
2005        May 12, Alberto Santofimio, Colombia's former justice minister, was arrested in connection with the 1989 assassination of Luis Carlos Galan, leading presidential candidate and anti-corruption crusader killed at a campaign rally.
    (AP, 5/12/05)
2005        May 12, More than 13.5 tons of cocaine stored in underground chambers was seized near Colombia's southwest coast.
    (AP, 5/13/05)
2005        May 12, Gunmen ambushed a UN peacekeeping patrol in Congo's restless eastern Ituri region, killing one soldier and injuring five.
    (AP, 5/12/05)
2005        May 12, Militants assassinated a general and a colonel who were en route to work, and a car bomb exploded near a busy market and movie theater in eastern Baghdad, part of a wave of attacks that killed at least 21 Iraqis and wounded more than 70.
    (AP, 5/12/05)
2005        May 12, In Srinagar, Kashmir, a grenade thrown by suspected Islamic rebels exploded outside a school, killing two women and wounding at least 57 people, many of them schoolchildren and their parents.
    (AP, 5/12/05)
2005        May 12, Latvia’s parliament issued a declaration that said: "The Soviet Union occupied and annexed the Republic of Latvia, destroyed its state system, killed, tortured and deported hundreds of thousands of people, robbed them of their property without any legal reason."
    (AP, 5/15/05)
2005        May 12, Roads in Peru's Colca Canyon were blocked by townspeople demanding a larger share of revenue from tourists who come to see condors soar over the desert-dry moonscape and white-water raft in one of the world's deepest valleys.
    (AP, 5/12/05)
2005        May 12, Nikolai Patrushev, Russia's security chief. said that his agency has uncovered US, British, Kuwaiti and Saudi spy activity that was being conducted under the cover of non-governmental organizations. He also suggested that foreign governments are using NGOs to fund and support changes of power in former Soviet republics.
    (AP, 5/12/05)
2005        May 12, In Andijan, Uzbekistan, supporters of 23 jailed local businessmen stormed the jail where they were held freeing them and other prisoners. The businessmen had been jailed as alleged Islamic extremists.
    (Econ, 10/1/05, p.39)

2006        May 12, Tony Snow made his debut as White House press secretary.
    (AP, 5/12/07)
2006        May 12, US Federal authorities said the number of confirmed cases of a rare fungal eye infection that can cause blindness has climbed to 122, most of them contact-lens wearers who reported using Bausch & Lomb Inc.'s newest lens cleaner. In Oct, 2007, Bausch & Lomb was acquired by private equity firm Warburg Pincus for $3.67 billion. Chief Executive Ronald Zarrella said the deal would allow the company "to pursue the growth path we were on ... without a lot of outside distraction." Zarrella retired in 2008. As of 2009 away from the glare of public scrutiny, the optical products company quietly settled nearly 600 fungal-infection lawsuits with dozens more individual claims yet to be resolved. The cost so far: Upward of $250 million.
    (AP, 5/12/06)(AP, 6/1/09)
2006        May 12, California’s Gov. Schwarzenegger proposed a $131 billion budget.
    (SFC, 5/13/06, p.A1)
2006        May 12, Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher said he will complete his first term and seek a second one despite an indictment on misdemeanor charges that accuse him of illegally rewarding political supporters with state jobs.
    (AP, 5/12/06)
2006        May 12, Jonathan Tisch (52), co-chairman of Loews Corp., announced a donation of $40 million to Tufts Univ., his alma mater.
    (WSJ, 5/12/06, p.W2)(www.tufts.edu/main.php?p=flash)
2006        May 12, Gold surged to 730.65 a troy ounce.
    (WSJ, 6/20/06, p.C12)
2006        May 12, Best Buy said it will pay $180 million for a majority stake in China’s Jiangsu Five Star Appliance. Co.
    (WSJ, 5/13/06, p.A6)
2006        May 12, It was announced that "King Kong" star and Oscar nominee Naomi Watts of Australia has agreed to serve as special representative for the Joint United Nations Program on AIDS (UNAIDS).
    (AFP, 5/12/06)
2006        May 12, In western Afghanistan militants fired a rocket at a car carrying Unicef workers killing 2 Afghans and wounding a third.
    (WSJ, 5/13/06, p.A1)
2006        May 12, Relations between Brazil and Bolivia sank to their lowest point in a century, as the two sparred over Bolivia's nationalization of its energy sector and threats to seize Bolivian land held by Brazilian farmers.
    (AP, 5/12/06)
2006        May 12, Gen. Oscar Naranjo, the head of Colombia's judicial police, said he was shocked to learn his brother, Juan David Naranjo (29), is suspected of involvement in a major European drug trafficking ring.
    (AP, 5/13/06)
2006        May 12, Gamal Mubarak, the son of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, met secretly with top White House officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney. Gamal is widely seen as his father's heir-apparent.
    (AP, 5/15/06)
2006        May 12, In Ethiopia 9 bombs exploded in Addis Ababa, killing 4 people and wounding at least 26.
    (AP, 5/12/06)(WSJ, 5/13/06, p.A1)
2006        May 12, Indonesia dropped corruption charges against former strongman Suharto, disappointing those who struggled against his repressive rule and had long hoped to see him brought to justice.
    (AP, 5/12/06)
2006        May 12, Eight Iraqis died in violence, including a soldier and a civilian killed in an armed confrontation between two Iraqi army units.
    (AP, 5/13/06)
2006        May 12, Gunmen attacked border posts on both sides of the frontier between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, killing five people and injuring two.
    (AP, 5/12/06)
2006        May 12, In southwestern Nigeria a ruptured pipeline exploded as villagers rushed to collect oil gushing from it and a local TV station said up to 200 people were feared dead. Militants threatened to destroy NLNG, a $13 billion natural gas export plant.
    (AP, 5/12/06)
2006        May 12, A Palestinian was killed in a large Israeli raid in the West Bank city of Nablus.
    (AP, 5/12/06)
2006        May 12, Vladimiro Montesinos, Peru's jailed ex-intelligence chief, was sentenced to 10 more years in prison and fined $15.2 million after pleading guilty to charges of illicit enrichment.
    (AP, 5/13/06)
2006        May 12, A small boat sank during a tropical storm in the central Philippines, killing at least 21 people. Two other people were electrocuted in the storm, while floods submerged 16 villages.
    (AP, 5/13/06)
2006        May 12, Russia's finance minister said that remaining restrictions on currency movement would be removed as of July 1, as Russia seeks to make the ruble fully convertible against a backdrop of oil-driven economic stability.
    (AP, 5/12/06)
2006        May 12, Local media said Russian authorities had fired a string of high-ranking security and law enforcement officials in a shake up described as part of a Kremlin push to fight graft and cement control of key government agencies.
    (AP, 5/13/06)
2006        May 12, South Korean prosecutors indicted disgraced cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk on charges of fraud, embezzlement and bioethics violations in a scandal over faked stem cell research that shook the scientific community.
    (AP, 5/12/06)
2006        May 12, Spain's Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) agreed to the French bank BNP Paribas' purchase of its 14.75-percent stake in Italy's Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), saying it will reap 567 million euros (731 million dollars) in capital gains from the sale.
    (AP, 5/13/06)

2007        May 12, Voters in Farmers Branch, a suburb of Dallas, Texas, became the first in the nation to prohibit landlords from renting to most illegal immigrants. Texas courts quickly issued a restraining order against the city to prevent the ordnance from taking effect.
    (AP, 5/13/07)(Econ, 6/16/07, p.35)
2007        May 12, Joseph Rattigan (87), former California state senator and justice, died. He represented Sonoma County from 1958 to 1966. In 1966 Gov. Pat Brown appointed him to the First District Court of Appeal in SF, where he served for 18 years.
    (SFC, 5/17/07, p.B5)
2007        May 12, Afghan lawmakers voted to oust the foreign minister over the mishandling of the expulsion of Afghan refugees from neighboring Iran. Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban's most prominent military commander, was killed in a US-led military operation in southern Afghanistan. The one-legged fighter had orchestrated ethnic massacre and a rash of beheadings. Around 55 Taliban fighters were killed in two battles near the Pakistan border.
    (AP, 5/12/07)(AP, 5/13/07)(AFP, 5/13/07)
2007        May 12, In eastern Algeria 6 armed Islamist extremists were killed in Kabylia, in clashes with the military in the run-up to legislative elections. Algeria's official news agency APS said Algerian security forces had arrested three Libyan Islamic militants planning to join al Qaeda's north African wing. Algerian soldiers killed four armed militants in a clash near the village of Ghoumrassa.
    (AFP, 5/13/07)(AP, 5/13/07)
2007        May 12, Armenia held a general election. Acting PM Serzh Sarkisian was elected prime minister.
    (Econ, 5/19/07, p.58)
2007        May 12, In Bolivia President Evo Morales vowed to move forward with his campaign to nationalize Bolivia's oil and gas industry while presiding over ceremonies marking the transfer of two Brazilian-owned oil refineries to state hands.
    (AP, 5/12/07)
2007        May 12, A cutter of the Dominican Republic picked up 3 men hauling in bales of cocaine dropped from a plane that had originated in Venezuela. A US plane and British helicopters took part in the seizure of a half-ton of cocaine as Colombian drug traffic via Venezuela escalated.
    (SFC, 7/2/07, p.A17)
2007        May 12, Egyptian security forces arrested 59 Muslims in Bamha accused of setting fire to Christian homes and shops the previous day in clashes over church construction that underlined lingering sectarian tensions.
    (Reuters, 5/12/07)
2007        May 12, In Finland Bosnia-Herzegovina opened this year's Eurovision Song Contest. Marija Serifovic from Serbia won the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest at the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki, early Sunday May 13, 2007 with a song entitled 'Prayer.'
    (AP, 5/12/07)
2007        May 12, Eric Damfreville, a French aid worker, returned to France after five weeks in Taliban captivity in Afghanistan and made a plea for his captors to free three Afghans seized with him.
    (AP, 5/12/07)
2007        May 12, Guinean President Lansana Conte agreed to replace his unpopular defense minister, a key demand of soldiers leading a three-day-old military revolt.
    (AP, 5/13/07)
2007        May 12, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of Iraq's largest Shiite political party, called for a "security agreement" to be negotiated between Iraq and US-led forces to outline the authorities of each side in a further indication of growing frustration over America's role in Iraq. Iraq's parliament objected to the construction of walls around Baghdad neighborhoods and called on PM Nouri al-Maliki to testify about other security issues. 4 Americans and an Iraqi interpreter were killed. 3 soldiers were captured south of Baghdad. The body of Pfc. Joseph Anzack Jr. (20) of Torrance, Calif., was found a year later in the Euphrates River. The bodies of Pvt. Byron W. Fouty (19) of Waterford, Mich., and Army Sgt. Alex Jimenez (25), of Lawrence, Mass., were found in July, 2008.
    (AP, 5/12/07)(AP, 5/12/07)(AP, 5/12/08)(AP, 7/11/08)
2007        May 12, In Italy thousands of people, including families with their children, poured into a Rome piazza to protest a government bill that would give legal rights to unmarried couples, including gays and lesbians.
    (AP, 5/12/07)
2007        May 12, In Italy security officials from Europe's largest countries backed a plan to profile mosques on the continent and identify radical Islamic clerics who raise the threat of homegrown terrorism.
    (AP, 5/12/07)
2007        May 12, The leaders of Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan reached a landmark pipeline deal that will strengthen Moscow's control over Central Asia's energy export routes. The deal will dramatically increase the amount of natural gas Russia moves from Central Asia to Europe.
    (AP, 5/12/07)
2007        May 12, In Mexico a severed head accompanied by a note of defiance from organized crime gangs and two hand grenades was found outside a military barracks in Veracruz state.
    (AP, 5/12/07)
2007        May 12, A pregnant Nicaraguan teenager (17) shot Kenneth A. Kinzel (53), her American lover, and enlisted her siblings to help dismember the body. She shot her live-in boyfriend because he threatened to kill her.
    (AP, 5/29/07)
2007        May 12, In Nigeria Lora Kabir, a Russian woman, set off with 50 volunteers on a 225-kilometer (140-mile) walk from polio-endemic Nigeria's most populous city Kano to raise public awareness among parents of the dangers of polio.
    (AFP, 5/12/07)
2007        May 12, Gunbattles and attacks killed at least 27 people and wounded dozens as Pakistan's political crisis descended into violence between rival parties over President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's suspension of the chief justice.
    (AP, 5/12/07)
2007        May 12, Waves reaching 36 feet high thrashed France's Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, leaving two fishermen missing and flooding homes and hotels.
    (AP, 5/13/07)
2007        May 12, Russia said that it could not accept elements of a draft UN resolution on Kosovo worked out by the US and EU nations, maintaining its strong opposition to a Western-backed plan for the Serbian province's independence.
    (AP, 5/12/07)
2007        May 12, An unmanned Russian cargo ship carrying 2.5 tons of supplies, equipment and gifts blasted off en route to the international space station.
    (AP, 5/12/07)
2007        May 12, The UN top humanitarian official made a landmark visit to Mogadishu, but the trip was disrupted by an explosion that killed four people near the UN compound. John Holmes said he had come to push the government to allow humanitarian aid to reach its people.
    (AP, 5/12/07)
2007        May 12, A South Korean cargo vessel sank after colliding with a Chinese freighter in heavy fog in waters off northeast China. 16 crew were on board the 3,800-ton Golden Rose when it sank. The crew of the Chinese ship, the 4,800-ton JinSheng, were unharmed and returned safely to Dalian.
    (AP, 5/13/07)
2007        May 12, Taiwanese Premier Su Tseng-chang resigned, days after he was defeated in the ruling party's presidential primary.
    (AP, 5/12/07)
2007        May 12, In the Turkish port city of Izmir a bicycle bomb exploded in a market, killing one and injuring 14 people on the eve of a planned mass anti-government rally.
    (Reuters, 5/12/07)
2007        May 12, Yemen said it was recalling its ambassadors to Iran and Libya over what it sees as their support for Shi'ite Muslim rebels involved in bloody clashes with government forces. The government of Sunni-dominated Yemen accused the rebels of seeking to oust its secular administration and install Islamist rule.
    (AP, 5/12/07)

2008        May 12, The US Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling that multinational companies can be sued in a US court for allegedly aiding and abetting the former apartheid government in South Africa. Financial holdings prevented 4 justices from taking the case.
    (www.csmonitor.com/2008/0513/p02s01-usju.htm)(SFC, 5/13/08, p.A5)
2008        May 12, The US Postal Service increased first-class postage a penny to 42 cents.
    (SSFC, 5/11/08, p.A4)
2008        May 12, US immigration agents arrested more than 300 people at Agriprocessors Inc, a kosher meat plant in Postville, Iowa, amid an ongoing investigation into identification theft, fraudulent use of Social Security numbers, and for illegal immigrants.
    (Reuters, 5/12/08)
2008        May 12, Powerset, a SF-based Internet company founded in 2005, announced a limited release of its search engine. Executives said it fielded queries in natural language with attempts to deduce intent.
    (SFC, 5/12/08, p.D1)(www.powerset.com/)
2008        May 12, Oakley Hall (b.1920), prolific author and writing teacher, died in Nevada City. His books included “Warlock” (1958) and “The Art and Craft of Novel Writing” (1994).
    (SFC, 5/14/08, p.A1)
2008        May 12, Robert Rauschenberg (b.1925), Texas-born artist, died of heart failure in Florida. His use of odd and everyday articles earned him regard as a pioneer in pop art, first gaining fame in the 1950s.
    (AP, 5/13/08)
2008        May 12, In Algeria 3 government troops were killed in an ambush allegedly set by the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of Algiers in Bouira province.
    (AP, 5/13/08)
2008        May 12, In Bangladesh a ferry on the Ghorautura River capsized with nearly 150 passengers and at least 44 people were killed.
    (WSJ, 5/14/08, p.A13)
2008        May 12, Brazil announced that it is forming a sovereign-wealth fund worth between $10 and $20 billion.
    (WSJ, 5/13/08, p.A1)
2008        May 12, The Canadian Federal Court said that Pakistan appears to have received a $500,000 bounty from the United States for the capture of Abdullah Khadr, a Canadian wanted on charges of working with al Qaeda against US forces in Afghanistan. Khadr was arrested in Pakistan in 2004 and sent back to Canada in 2005.
    (Reuters, 5/13/08)
2008        May 12, Chad closed its border with Sudan and put a halt to bilateral trade, a minister said, a day after Sudan severed diplomatic ties with Chad.
    (AP, 5/12/08)
2008        May 12, The Commonwealth re-admitted Pakistan as a full member after a six-month suspension triggered by a clampdown by President Pervez Musharraf.
    (AFP, 5/12/08)
2008        May 12, Initial reports said a 7.8 earthquake struck central China, killing over 9,000 people and trapping nearly 900 students under the rubble of their school. 80% of the buildings had collapsed in Beichuan county in Sichuan province. The death toll soon exceeded 12,000 in Sichuan province alone. 18,645 were reported buried in debris in the city of Mianyang, near the epicenter of the quake, whose magnitude was raised to 7.9. The Sichuan quake ended up killing some 80,000 people. Scientists in 2009 linked the quake to the Zipingu Dam, 5.5 km from the epicenter. In 2009 an official tally said 5,335 students were left dead or missing. 
    (AP, 5/1208)(AP, 5/13/08)(WSJ, 2/7/08, p.A6)(AP, 5/7/09)
2008        May 12-2008 May 13, Chinese police detained 16 Tibetan Buddhist monks from eastern Tibet's Mangkam county, who were allegedly involved in a series of bombings in early April.
    (AP, 6/5/08)
2008        May 12, The Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) said that an Egyptian government-owned Internet service provider on May 4 blocked the Egyptian Movement for Change - Kefaya website, in the latest crackdown on the country's cyber dissidents.
    (AFP, 5/12/08)
2008        May 12, Haitian legislators rejected President Rene Preval's pick for prime minister, extending a monthlong period without a functioning government. International banker Ericq Pierre (63) lost a vote that ended his candidacy 51 to 35, with nine abstentions.
    (AP, 5/12/08)
2008        May 12, In India Renault-Nissan and India's Bajaj group said they planned to make a 2,500-dollar car by early 2011, the second effort to make a cheap car for the South Asian nation's rapidly growing middle class.
    (AP, 5/12/08)
2008        May 12, Representatives of firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and lawmakers from Iraq's main Shiite political bloc signed a four-day cease-fire in an effort to end seven weeks of fighting in Baghdad's Sadr City slum. The fragile cease-fire failed to stop fighting in Baghdad's Sadr City where clashes between Shiite extremists and US-backed Iraqi forces killed 11 men and wounded 19. The latest cease-fire came as the US military largely finished the building of a barrier to isolate extremists from using the southern section of Sadr City and disrupt supply and escape routes for militants.
    (AP, 5/12/08)(AP, 5/13/08)
2008        May 12, Iraqi Kurdish officials said Turkish jets overnight struck suspected Kurdish rebel targets close to the border in northern Iraq.
    (AP, 5/12/08)
2008        May 12, Israel’s police raided Jerusalem’s city hall and seized documents as part of the corruption probe of PM Ehud Olmert. A rocket fired by Palestinian militants killed a 75-year-old Israeli woman, just as an Egyptian mediator was winding up truce talks in Israel.
    (AP, 5/12/08)(AP, 5/13/08)
2008        May 12, In Lebanon heavy fighting broke out between government supporters and opponents in Tripoli, where the two sides battled with rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machine guns and mortars.
    (AP, 5/12/08)
2008        May 12, Mexican authorities said a police officer and four other people, with suspected ties to a powerful drug cartel, have been arrested in the May 8 assassination of Edgar Millan Gomez, the acting federal police chief.
    (AP, 5/13/08)
2008        May 12, Myanmar state television put the death toll for Cyclone Nargis at 31,938 with 29,770 people missing. The US White House said it was extending an extra 13 million dollars in aid as the first US flight of emergency supplies landed in the country.
    (AP, 5/12/08)(SFC, 5/13/08, p.A3)
2008        May 12, Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif pulled his party out of Pakistan's six-week-old coalition government, plunging the volatile Muslim nation back into political uncertainty.
    (AP, 5/12/08)
2008        May 12, Irena Sendler (b.1910), Polish savior of WWII Jewish children in the Warsaw ghetto, died in Warsaw. She saved some 2,500 Jewish children by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto, providing them with false documents, and sheltering them in individual and group children's homes outside the Ghetto.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irena_Sendler)(Econ, 5/24/08, p.110)(www.irenasendler.org/)
2008        May 12, Serbia's pro-European alliance sought a coalition deal with smaller parties on to stave off a challenge from nationalist runners-up who say they too can form a government after Sunday's parliamentary election. With about 98% of votes counted, the Democratic Party had 38.75% and the nationalist Radical Party 29.2%.
    (Reuters, 5/12/08)
2008        May 12, South Korean officials said they have killed all poultry in Seoul, to curb the spread of bird flu following a new outbreak of the disease in the city.
    (AP, 5/12/08)
2008        May 12, Sudan arrested its leading fundamentalist Islamic ideologue, accusing him of aiding a Darfur rebel attack on the capital. Hassan Turabi was arrested after dawn at his home in Khartoum and at least 10 other members of his Popular Congress Party members were detained in a government sweep across the city. Authorities released al-Turabi and four members of his party after detaining them for several hours.
    (AP, 5/12/08)(AP, 5/12/08)
2008        May 12, In Vietnam 2 reporters were arrested for their coverage of a bribery, gambling and corruption scandal. Their arrests led to a highly unusual confrontation between Vietnam's Communist government and the country's state-controlled newspapers. The scandal, which erupted in 2005, led to the conviction of 9 people, including several government officials.
    (AP, 5/14/08)

2009        May 12, The US won a seat on the UN Human Rights Council for the first time along with Cuba, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia, four countries accused of serious human rights violations.
    (SFC, 5/13/09, p.A2)
2009        May 12, Five more people were arrested at the Senate Finance Committee this morning. The advocates of a single payer health care system were protesting the fact that Committee chairman Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) continues to exclude single payer advocates from a series of hearings on health care reform. Last week, eight doctors, lawyers and activists were arrested as they sought to put a single payer advocate at a table of 15 witnesses. Baucus has reportedly accepted $413,000 in drug and health insurance campaign contributions.
    (SFC, 5/30/09, p.A7)(www.singlepayeraction.org/blog/?p=690)
2009        May 12, A federal jury in New York convicted Oussama Kassir, a Lebanese-born Swede, of plotting to help Al-Qaida recruit for a weapons training post in Bly, Oregon in 1999 and for distributing terrorist training manuals over the Internet. On Sep 15 Kassir was sentenced to life in prison.
    (SFC, 5/13/09, p.A4)(SFC, 9/16/09, p.A8)
2009        May 12, Medicare’s trustees warned that the program’s biggest fund would run out of money in 8 years.
    (SFC, 5/13/09, p.A4)
2009        May 12, In Utah partitions known as “Zion curtains” began coming down as a new law came into effect allowing bartenders to serve patrons directly over the bar. This ended Utah’s requirement that people who wanted a drink join a “private club.”
    (SFC, 5/13/09, p.A8)(Economist, 9/8/12, p.66)
2009        May 12, John Demjanjuk, retired Ohio autoworker, arrived at a German prison after 3 decades of fighting in court. He was deported from the US to face allegations of being an accessory to the murder of 29,000 Jews and others as a guard at the Nazis' Sobibor death camp.
    (AP, 5/12/09)
2009        May 12, In eastern Afghanistan 11 Taliban suicide bombers attacked government buildings in Khost, sparking running gunbattles that killed at least 20 people and wounded three US troops. US and Afghan troops freed 20 hostages taken by the insurgents. Another 98 Afghan girls were rushed to hospital in the latest in a spate of mysterious poisonings to hit three schools north of Kabul in a fortnight. Militants fired several rockets at two other US military bases in eastern Paktika province. Six militants were killed when US troops used artillery and airstrikes to fire back. Two people not involved in the fight were also killed.
    (AP, 5/12/09)(AFP, 5/12/09)(AP, 5/13/09)
2009        May 12, Treasurer Wayne Swan said Australia will post a record 57.6 billion Australian dollar (44.1 billion US) deficit in 2009-10 as it battles the worst global recession since the Great Depression.
    (AP, 5/12/09)
2009        May 12, Vittorio Calao head of Vodafone, a British mobile phone operator, announced a plan to build a joint global platform through which software companies and content providers could sell things to mobile subscribers.
    (Econ, 5/16/09, p.75)
2009        May 12, In Iraq a suicide bomber rammed his car into a police truck in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing five policemen and a civilian.
    (AP, 5/12/09)
2009        May 12, Italian anti-terrorism investigators said two French citizens behind bars since last year on suspicion of smuggling migrants were al-Qaida propaganda point men in Europe and were heard talking in jail about a possible attack on a Paris airport. Bassam Ayachi (62) and Raphael Frederic Gendron (33) were served warrants in jail accusing them of criminal association for international terrorism. The men have been held in Bari since November when they were arrested on suspicion of smuggling two Syrians and three Palestinians into Italy.
    (AP, 5/12/09)
2009        May 12, Vladimir Voronin (68), Moldova's former president, was voted head of parliament by his Communist Party colleagues. Three opposition parties boycotted the ballot, claiming the country's April 5 election was rigged.
    (AP, 5/12/09)
2009        May 12, Moroccan authorities announced the arrest of a group of alleged Islamists, who planned to attack Jewish interests in the country. The suspects, alleged to be members of a cell that was part of the radical Islamist movement Salafia Jihadia, were also said to be preparing attacks against Moroccan security services.
    (AFP, 5/21/09)
2009        May 12, In Pakistan helicopter-borne soldiers swooped into a Taliban stronghold in a remote corner of Swat, as the UN urged help for hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the fighting. A suspected US drone attack killed up to eight people in South Waziristan, a remote tribal area near the Afghan border.
    (Reuters, 5/12/09)(AP, 5/12/09)
2009        May 12, Peruvian Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde said former Bolivian ministers Mirtha Quevedo and Javier Torres Goitia requested and have received refugee status, a legal measure that, unlike asylum, does not denote political persecution. They are among the former ministers of former Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez Lozada, charged with genocide for sending soldiers who killed 63 people in 2003 while quelling anti-government protests in the city of El Alto.
    (AP, 5/12/09)
2009        May 12, In Peru a new law went into effect that says officers will be fired for taking bribes and abusing detainees. It also said police officers who "damage the image" of law enforcement by engaging in homosexual behavior can lose their jobs.
    (AP, 5/14/09)
2009        May 12, In Somalia a human rights activist said 113 civilians have been killed in fierce fighting in Mogadishu in the past three days. Some 10,000 civilians fled their homes, raising the number displaced by the fighting to more than 27,000.
    (AP, 5/12/09)
2009        May 12, Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels accused government forces of killing at least 47 people in an artillery and mortar attack on a hospital. The island's military denied the charges. The defense ministry said its troops had captured more ground in the latest fighting and had recovered 35 rebel bodies.
    (AFP, 5/12/09)
2009        May 12, In Switzerland a rare 7.03-carat blue diamond sold for 9.3 million Swiss francs (more than $8.4 million), the highest price ever for a gem of its kind, according to Sotheby's.
    (AP, 5/12/09)

2010        May 12, President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai met at the White House in a show of unity aimed at patching over differences at a pivotal time in the nearly nine-year-old war.
    (Reuters, 5/12/10)
2010        May 12, In San Francisco Mayor Newsom presided over the official dedication of a 3-story, 15-ton Buddha sculpture, “Three heads Six Arms” by artist Zhang Huan, to mark the city’s 30th anniversary sister city relationship with Shanghai. The one year lease expired and the work was dismantled on Feb 15, 2011, for return to Zhang Huan.
    (SFC, 5/13/10, p.C1)(SFC, 2/14/11, p.C1)
2010        May 12, In southern Afghanistan violence erupted where an American and a Romanian soldier were killed. Attackers on motorcycles shot and killed the No. 2 prisons official in the southern province of Kandahar. The Taliban claimed responsibility for assassinating the prison official and an explosion injured at least three people. A bomb exploded near a police training center in Kandahar city, injuring at least three people. Allied forces killed five insurgents after a joint patrol came under fire in the Sangin district of Helmand province while searching for a Pakistan-based Taliban commander.
    (AP, 5/12/10)(AP, 5/13/10)
2010        May 12, In the Bahamas Clive Tomlinson, a Jamaican, was killed. On May 14 authorities charged Daniel Andres Ayo (27) and Luis Mendez (39), two tourists from Florida, with the killing during what police say was a drug deal gone bad.
    (AP, 5/15/10)
2010        May 12, Britain's first coalition government since 1945 unveiled its ministerial team on and said it would speed up efforts to cut the country's budget deficit as it emerges from a deep recession. A deal was struck between Cameron’s Conservative party and the third-placed Liberal Democrats with Nick Clegg (43) to serve as deputy premier. The Conservatives became parliament's largest party after last week's election, but fell 20 seats short of an outright majority. With the LibDems, they will have a majority of 76 seats.
    (Reuters, 5/12/10)
2010        May 12, In northwest China 7 children and the owners of a kindergarten were hacked to death in Nanzheng county, a rural corner of Shaanxi province. Wu Huanming (48) used a kitchen cleaver to kill five boys and two girls as well as the mother-son team who owned and ran the private kindergarten. He then returned home and committed suicide. This latest in a string of assaults on schools, prompted officials to vow to "strike hard" to calm public alarm.
    (Reuters, 5/12/10)
2010        May 12, In Dubai James Ibori, former governor of Nigeria's oil-rich Delta state (1999-2007), was arrested on a UK warrant. Nigerian anti-graft agency chief Farida Waziri said Ibori was wanted on charges of stealing 44 billion naira ($292 million) in state funds while he was in office. In July Ibori was scheduled for extradition to Britain.
    (AP, 5/14/10)(AFP, 7/26/10)
2010        May 12, German software titan SAP agreed to buy database company Sybase, based in Dublin, Ca., for $5.8 billion.
    (SFC, 5/13/10, p.D1)
2010        May 12, The European Union set out plans to vet member state budgets before national parliaments do in a power-grab that could trigger a divisive referendum in Britain and provoked Swedish anger. Spain announced big public sector wage cuts and market sentiment buoyed by positive growth figures as several states shook off recession.
    (AP, 5/12/10)
2010        May 12, In Indonesia 5 suspected terrorists were killed in two raids, the latest in a series of anti-terror operations nationwide. 3 were killed in Cawang, East Jakarta, and 2 others in the West Java city of Cikampek. One of the suspects killed in the second raid was Saptono, who was involved in a suicide car bomb attack which killed 10 people outside the Australian embassy in 2004. Two days of raids around Java also detained 20 people.
    (AFP, 5/12/10)(Econ, 5/22/10, p.45)
2010        May 12, In Iraq more than a thousand Kurds poured into the streets of the northern Iraqi city of Sulaimaniyah in a growing wave of outrage, blaming authorities for the kidnapping and murder of a young Kurdish journalist. A late night car bomb tore through a cafe in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood killing nine people. It appeared to have detonated prematurely, also blowing up three suspected militants in the vehicle. The dead included young people who had gathered to drink tea and play dominoes. A roadside bomb exploded near a police patrol in Baghdad's central al-Nahda square, killing a bystander and wounding 8 others, including five policemen. An Iraqi army lieutenant was shot dead by a sniper in the afternoon while manning a checkpoint in New Baghdad.
    (AP, 5/12/10)(AP, 5/13/10)(SFC, 5/13/10, p.A2)(AP, 5/14/10)
2010        May 12, Kazakh lawmakers approved amendments to the constitution that will give President Nursultan Nazarbayev lifetime immunity from prosecution for acts committed during his rule and the right to approve important national and foreign policies after he retires.
    (AP, 5/13/10)
2010        May 12, A Libyan Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A330-200 carrying 104 people crashed on approach to Tripoli's airport. Ruben van Assouw, a Dutch boy (9), was the only known survivor. The Royal Dutch Tourism Board said 61 of the dead came from the Netherlands.
    (AP, 5/12/10)(AFP, 5/14/10)
2010        May 12, Macedonian police said a shootout between police and an armed group near the country's border with Kosovo has left four people dead. Police had intercepted them attempting to smuggle weapons across the border from Kosovo.
    (AP, 5/12/10)
2010        May 12, Mexico’s army overran a Zeta camp in Nuevo Leone state seizing 55,000 rounds of ammunition, 109 grenades and 124 heavy weapons among other booty.
    (Econ, 6/5/10, p.46)
2010        May 12, Former Nigerian minister Nasir el-Rufai appeared in court on charges of doling out government lands to associates and family members during his four years in office. The minister of the federal capital territory (FCT) Abuja from 2003 to 2007 faced charges of criminal conspiracy and abuse of office following an investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
    (AFP, 5/13/10)
2010        May 12, Pakistani Taliban shot and killed two men whom they accused of spying for the United States, while a bomb ripped through a NATO oil tanker near the Afghan border and killed a passer-by.
    (AP, 5/12/10)
2010        May 12, Peru’s Health Ministry reported that an estimated 1.5 million or 5% of its citizens were alcoholics, and that it was now the 2nd leading cause of illness and death.
    (SSFC, 5/16/10, p.A4)
2010        May 12, In South Korea there were two separate cases of suspected group suicide. 4 women and one man — all in their 20s and 30s — were found dead inside a parked car in Hwaseong. 2 of the five left suicide notes. 3 men were found dead hours later in Chuncheon, about 85 km (50 miles) east of Seoul.
    (AP, 5/12/10)
2010        May 12, Spain’s PM Zapatero announced sweeping spending cuts totaling $19 billion that included 5% pay cuts for civil servants and 15% cuts for government ministers.
    (SFC, 5/13/10, p.A3)
2010        May 12, Turkey and Russia signed agreements for the construction of Turkey's first nuclear power plant and the development of a pipeline project to carry Russian oil from the Black Sea, through Turkey to the Mediterranean.
    (AP, 5/12/10)
2010        May 12, The UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan said Clashes between rival Arab tribes have claimed 107 lives since March in Darfur, warning of a buildup of government and rebel troops in the region.
    (AFP, 5/12/10)

2011        May 12, In Arizona 2 Border Patrol agents were killed when their SUV was struck by a freight train near Gila Bend.
    (SFC, 5/13/11, p.A4)
2011        May 12, In Texas a judge freed a Dallas man who spent 27 years in prison for aggravated sexual assault before DNA evidence cleared him. Johnny Pinchback became the 22nd person to be exonerated through DNA testing in Dallas County since 2001. He was found to have been wrongly convicted of raping two teenage girls in a Dallas field in 1984.
    (AP, 5/12/11)
2011        May 12, In Washington state Hana Williams (~13), an adopted girl from Ethiopia, was found dead in the backyard of the family home in Sedro-Woolley, about 60 miles north of Seattle. An autopsy found she died of hypothermia, with malnutrition and a stomach condition as contributing factors. On Sep 9, 2013, Larry and Carri Williams were convicted of manslaughter and faced long prison terms.
    (AP, 10/29/13)
2011        May 12, Journalists learned that PR agency Burston-Marsteller had tried to persuade newspaper writers to say nasty things about Google, while concealing that Facebook was paying for the lobbying.
    (Econ, 5/21/11, p.72)
2011        May 12, Arctic Council members signed an agreement in Greenland to coordinate search and rescue operations and pledged to create int’l. protocols to prevent and clean up offshore oil spills. The 8 members included Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the USA.
    (SFC, 5/13/11, p.A2)
2011        May 12, In Afghanistan two NATO service members were killed in Helmand province by Mohammad Dawood, an Afghan policeman, who was wounded and hospitalized. Another NATO service member was killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan. In 2020 Dawood (31) was released as part of a prisoner exchange with the Taliban to move peace talks forward.
    (AP, 5/13/11)(SFC, 5/14/11, p.A2)(AP, 9/24/20)
2011        May 12, In Australia two Malaysians were arrested and charged with importing heroin into Australia with a street value of more than Aus$50 million (US$53 million), the country's biggest haul in a decade.
    (AFP, 5/12/11)
2011        May 12, Chinese authorities arrested 40 people for allegedly trafficking at least 22 babies for sale. The ring bought babies in Yunnan, one of China's most impoverished provinces, and sold them to families in relatively prosperous Fujian.
    (AP, 5/12/11)
2011        May 12, In China Xu Maiyong (52), a former vice mayor of the wealthy resort city of Hangzhou, was sentenced to death on corruption charges, one of the harshest sentences handed down to a high-level Chinese official in recent years.
    (AP, 5/12/11)
2011        May 12, Colombia’s Pres. Juan Manuel Santos singed a law creating incentives for soccer clubs to become limited companies and attract new investors and to report to the finance ministry’s money-laundering unit.
    (Econ, 5/21/11, p.38)
2011        May 12, In Egypt Abeer Fakhri, a Christian woman whose affair with a Muslim sparked deadly sectarian clashes, was detained and faced charges that included polygamy.
    (AP, 5/13/11)
2011        May 12, In Germany retired US autoworker John Demjanjuk (91) was convicted of thousands of counts of acting as an accessory to murder at a Nazi death camp and sentenced on to five years in prison, a groundbreaking verdict that closed one chapter in a decades-long legal battle. Judges ordered him released pending appeal.
    (AP, 5/12/11)
2011        May 12, Indian PM Manmohan Singh offered Afghanistan $500 million in fresh aid, during his first visit to the war-torn country since 2005.
    (AFP, 5/12/11)
2011        May 12, In Japan TEPCO officials said one of the reactors at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant has been damaged more severely than originally thought, a serious setback for efforts to stabilize the radiation-leaking complex.
    (AP, 5/12/11) 
2011        May 12, NATO airstrikes struck Moammar Gadhafi's sprawling compound in Tripoli and three other sites reportedly killing 3 people, hours after the Libyan leader was shown on state TV in his first appearance since his son was killed nearly two weeks ago.
    (AP, 5/12/11)(AFP, 5/12/11)
2011        May 12, Mexican authorities fired 7 regional directors of the immigration agency following allegations that officers in the north had delivered migrants to kidnapping gangs. The Mexican army said that they had detained one of the main leaders of the Sinaloa cartel, led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. Martin Beltran Coronel, alias "The Eagle," was arrested along with four other people in an exclusive neighborhood of Zapopan, a suburb of Guadalajara. He had replaced Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel, the cartel's reputed No. 3 capo gunned down in Guadalajara in July 2010. The bodies of 8 decapitated men were dumped along roads in Durango state, where the 196 bodies have been unearthed in mass graves.
    (SFC, 5/13/11, p.A2)(AP, 5/13/11)(SFC, 5/13/11, p.A2)
2011        May 12, In northern Nigeria two motorcycle-riding gunmen opened fire on local chief Abba Mukhtar outside his home in Maiduguri, killing him and seriously wounding a friend. In the northwest gunmen kidnapped an Italian and a Briton who had been working for a construction company in the state capital of Birnin-Kebbi. Italian engineer Franco Lamolinara (48) and his British colleague Chris McManus (28) were shot dead by their captors during a British-Nigerian rescue attempt on March 8, 2012.
    (AFP, 5/13/11)(AP, 5/14/11)(AP, 3/9/12)
2011        May 12, A Pakistani court ruled that President Asif Ali Zardari must relinquish his position as co-chairman of Pakistan's ruling party, a decision that could strip him of his main source of power and cause fresh political conflict in the country. A US drone aircraft fired missiles at militants, killing eight of them.
    (AP, 5/12/11)
2011        May 12, In the southern Philippines communist rebels killed a security guard for an American-owned gold mining company and took the weapons of three others.
    (AP, 5/12/11)
2011        May 12, Qatar pulled out of an effort to mediate an end to Yemen's political crisis, blaming the country's embattled president for the impasse and potentially leaving his regime even more isolated among his neighbors.
    (AP, 5/13/11)
2011        May 12, Russia and Pakistan pledged to boost economic ties and coordinate efforts to fight terror as the Kremlin welcomed the Pakistani president for a key visit after the killing of Osama bin Laden.
    (AFP, 5/12/11)
2011        May 12, In Somalia AU forces killed several militants in a battle in Mogadishu. Three AU soldiers were also wounded. AU mission spokesman Paddy Ankunda said al-Shabab militants, who are trying to overthrow the government, lost ground in the battle. The body of a fighter who appeared to be a member of the AU's peacekeeping mission was pulled through the streets by a rope.
    (AP, 5/12/11)(AP, 5/13/11)
2011        May 12, Sweden’s struggling car maker Saab Automobile faced renewed uncertainty Thursday as the financing deal with China's Hawtai Motor Group fell apart, raising fresh concerns about the company's future. Spyker Cars NV, which bought Saab from General Motors Corp. in 2010, said it was "forced to terminate" the $223 million (euro150 million) agreement with Hawtai since the Chinese company was not able to obtain all the necessary consents, including approvals from different shareholders.
    (AP, 5/12/11)
2011        May 12, Syrian soldiers and tanks executing a nationwide crackdown on regime opponents surrounded the city of Hama.
    (AP, 5/12/11)
2011        May 12, Uganda police sprayed tear gas at rock-throwing opposition supporters, after the country's top opposition leader returned home and while the 25-year leader was sworn in to a fourth term.
    (AP, 5/12/11)
2011        May 12, Yemeni police trying to disperse thousands of anti-government protesters in Al-Bayda and Taiz killed 2 people and injured 45, including some of them by gunfire. In one of the cities, protesters took over an Oil Ministry building.
    (AP, 5/12/11)(AP, 5/13/11)

2012        May 12, California Gov. Jerry Brown said the state’s budget deficit has swelled to a projected $16 billion — much larger than had been predicted just months ago — and will force severe cuts to schools and public safety if voters fail to approve tax increases in November.
    (AP, 5/12/12)
2012        May 12, In Afghanistan insurgent attacks killed three NATO troops, while a fourth died of non-battle related injuries. A roadside bomb in the northwest killed four Afghan policemen. Two members of the Afghan police opened fire on British soldiers who were mentoring them in Lashkar Gah, killing two. One of the gunmen was killed and the other escaped.
    (AP, 5/12/12)(Reuters, 5/13/12)
2012        May 12, China said it would cut reserve requirements for banks, after disappointing economic data raised fears of a sharp slowdown in the world's second largest economy.
    (AFP, 5/12/12)
2012        May 12, CongoDRC government forces launched airstrikes against mutineers near the Rwandan border, where a rebel leader known as the "Terminator" was said to be hiding.
    (AFP, 5/12/12)
2012        May 12, The WWF nature conservancy body said a ranger and two soldiers have been killed in Democratic Republic of Congo's Virunga national park as they protected a road used by civilians fleeing rebels.
    (AFP, 5/12/12)
2012        May 12, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso envoys of ECOWAS quit Mali after failing to reach agreement with coup leaders on naming the head of a transitional government. The ex-junta now hoped that coup leader Amadou Haya Sanago take over as interim leader.
    (AFP, 5/12/12)
2012        May 12, In Lebanon an army officer was killed by sniper fire after clashes broke out between the army and a group of young Islamists, who were demonstrating in Tripoli for the release of a terrorism suspect. A resident of the largely Sunni district of Kobbe was killed in clashes between factions supporting and opposed to the revolt in neighboring Syria. Five people were left injured. Shadi Mawlawi, an outspoken Lebanese critic of Syrian President Bashar Assad, was arrested and set off several days of clashes in northern Lebanon. Mawlawi was released on May 22.
    (AFP, 5/13/12)(AP, 5/22/12)
2012        May 12, The presidents of Mozambique and Malawi signed an electricity agreement in Maputo in a first step to restore troubled relations between the two southern African neighbors.
    (AFP, 5/12/12)
2012        May 12, In New Zealand 3 Boston University students, who were studying in New Zealand, were killed when their minivan crashed. At least five other students from the university were injured in the accident. On May 18 BU student Stephen Houseman (20) was charged with careless driving.
    (AP, 5/12/12)(SFC, 5/19/12, p.A2)
2012        May 12, In Nigeria gunmen stormed Mafa police station in Borno state killing 2 policemen and one civilian.
    (AFP, 5/14/12)
2012        May 12, In Pakistan a roadside bomb targeting a vehicle carrying police killed one officer in Peshawar.
    (AP, 5/12/12)
2012        May 12, In South Korea Expo 2012 opened in the coastal city of Yeosu for a three-month run.
    (AP, 5/12/12)
2012        May 12, The first group of ethnic South Sudanese, among up to 15,000 camped in Sudan, began their journey home ahead of a major airlift to begin May 13.
    (AFP, 5/12/12)
2012        May 12, In Spain masses of chanting "indignant" activists poured into the streets across the country in a vast show of strength one year on from igniting a global protest against economic injustice. The marches, held in 80 cities and towns across Spain, launched a four-day protest that will end on May 15, the anniversary of the movement's birth -- dubbed 15-M.
    (AFP, 5/12/12)
2012        May 12, Ugandan forces captured Caesar Acellam, a senior commander of Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army, after a brief fight with rebels near the Congo-Central African Republic border. Two other rebel fighters were also caught as they tried to cross a river called Mbomu. Officials say only about 200 LRA members remain the jungle.
    (AP, 5/13/12)
2012        May 12, In Yemen US drones killed 12 militants in two separate attacks east of the capital Sanaa. Air strikes also hit Jaar, killing three Al-Qaeda gunmen and a civilian, and wounding three civilians.
    (AFP, 5/13/12)

2013        May 12, In California the 5-day BottleRock music festival in Napa came to a close. Napa’s first major music festival was organized by WillPower Entertainment.
    (SFC, 5/13/13, p.E1)
2013        May 12, In Louisiana gunmen opened fire on people marching in a neighborhood Mother's Day parade in New Orleans. At least 19 people were wounded including 2 kids. Police saw 3 suspects running from the scene. People later identified Akein Scott (19) as the shooter. Scott was arrested on May 15. His brother Shawn Scott (24) was arrested on May 16. Five others were soon accused of helping the suspects avoid capture.
    (AP, 5/12/13)(SFC, 5/14/13, p.A7)(SFC, 5/16/13, p.A6)(AP, 5/17/13)
2013        May 12, Kyle Dube (20) of Orono, Maine, used a phony Facebook account created in the name of a student from another school to lure Nichole Cable (15) outside her Glenburn home. He abducted and killed her. Her body was found more than a week later in a wooded area of Old Town, north of Bangor.
    (AP, 5/30/13)
2013        May 12, Kevin Orr, Michigan’s state appointed emergency manager for Detroit, released a report sayhing the city is broke and its deficit could reach $386 million in less than two months.
    (SFC, 5/14/13, p.A4)
2013        May 12, In Nebraska Dr. Robert Brumbeck (65), a faculty member of Creighton Univ. School of Medicine, and his wife Mary were killed in their Omaha home. Suspect Anthony Garcia was arrested two months later in a traffic stop in southern Illinois. Prosecutors later argued that these murders two others in 2008 were motivated by Garcia's long-simmering rage over being fired in 2001 from the Creighton medical school residency program. In 2018 Garcia (45) was sentenced to death.
    (http://tinyurl.com/ycx3t4yq)(SFC, 9/15/18, p.A8)
2013        May 12, New Jersey police shot and killed Gerald Tyrone Murphy (38), a registered sex offender, ending a 37-hour ordeal during which Murphy held 3 children of girlfriend Carmelita Stevens (44) hostage. Inside the home police found the decomposing bodies of Stevens and a son (13).
    (SFC, 5/13/13, p.A6)
2013        May 12, In Pennsylvania a late night house fire in Pottsville killed 4 children, their father and an aunt as the mother did laundry at a friend’s house across the street.
    (SFC, 5/14/13, p.A5)
2013        May 12, Bulgarians voted in parliamentary elections. The center-right Citizens for Bulgaria's European Development party (GERB) of former PM Boiko Borisov won 31%, falling far short of winning a majority needed to form a government. with no willing partners to join a coalition. This left the second-place (27%) opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party (DPS) in position to lead a new government.
    (AP, 5/12/13)(AP, 5/13/13)(Econ, 5/18/13, p.60)
2013        May 12, Global Witness presented a report “Rubber Barons” on illegal logging and land grabbing in Cambodia by local and foreign companies, including the Vietnam Rubber Group.
    (Econ, 5/18/13, p.46)(www.youtube.com/watch?v=3epqpR9OBhY)
2013        May 12, China’s ruling Communist Party's disciplinary agency said in a one-sentence statement on its website that Liu Tienan, deputy head of the Cabinet's National Development and Reform Commission, is being investigated for "suspected serious disciplinary violations." On Aug 8 the party’s antigraft agency said that an investigation had found Liu took bribes and abused his power. He was expelled from the CP and faced prosecution.
    (AP, 5/12/13)(SFC, 8/9/13, p.A2)
2013        May 12, In Egypt Romany Amir, a Coptic Christian, committed suicide as he was waiting to be interrogated by police at the main court in the southern city of Assiut. He had stabbed his wife a day earlier for converting to Islam. She remained in critical condition.
    (AP, 5/12/13)
2013        May 12, In Iraq gunfire attacks killed five people. They included 3 civilians in Mishada, a police officer in Baghdad and Ali Hussein, a Sunni member of the Basra Provincial Council.
    (AP, 5/12/13)
2013        May 12, It was reported that an upsurge of gang rapes has hit the breakaway region of Somaliland. Rights activists and medical officials said least 84 women have been raped since the beginning of this year.
    (AP, 5/12/13)
2013        May 12, In Syria 6 mortar shells struck the Damascus neighborhood of the Alawite district of Mazzeh 86 causing damage and casualties. Regime forces retook Khirbet Ghazaleh and rebels withdrew from the area. Troops reopened the Damascus-Jordan highway, restoring the supply line between Damascus and the provincial capital of Daraa.
    (AP, 5/12/13)(AP, 5/13/13)
2013        May 12, Pope Francis gave the Catholic Church new saints, including hundreds of 15th-century martyrs who were beheaded for refusing to convert to Islam.
    (AP, 5/12/13)
2013        May 12, Zimbabwe's state radio said police have arrested three polling campaigners for illegally promoting voter awareness ahead of crucial elections.
    (AP, 5/12/13)

2014        May 12, In Louisiana Reginald Adams was freed from prison after spending 34 years in jail for a murder he did not commit. Detectives knowingly gave false testimony at his trial.
    (Econ, 5/17/14, p.28)
2014        May 12, In Afghanistan the Taliban unleashed a wave of attacks to mark the start of their spring offensive, storming a government building in the east where attackers killed 2 police guards and 5 civilians, and striking a police checkpoint to the south and killing 9 policemen.
    (AP, 5/12/14)
2014        May 12, Chad announced it was shutting down its southern border with the strife-wracked Central African Republic until the conflict in the poor, landlocked nation is resolved.
    (AFP, 5/12/14)
2014        May 12, A European human rights monitor urged Georgia to improve its justice system, promote tolerance and avoid the selective prosecution of officials who served former president Mikheil Saakashvili.
    (Reuters, 5/12/14)
2014        May 12, The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered Turkey to pay 90 million euros ($124 million) in damages for its 1974 invasion of Cyprus, the largest such ruling in its history. Turkish officials the next day said that the country will not pay the fine.
    (CSM, 5/13/14)
2014        May 12, Millions of Indian voters wrapped up the country's mammoth national election, braving the searing sun on the final day of polling in which Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist opposition candidate, is seen as the front-runner for prime minister.
    (AP, 5/12/14)(Reuters, 5/12/14)
2014        May 12, Indonesia said it has banned the popular video sharing site Vimeo, because it contains nudity, which officials in the world's most populous Muslim country consider to be pornographic material.
    (AP, 5/13/14)
2014        May 12, Italian authorities said a boat carrying hundreds of migrants has sunk south off the Sicilian island of Lampedusa. At least 14 people were killed with 206 rescued.
    (Reuters, 5/12/14)(SFC, 5/13/14, p.A4)
2014        May 12, Nayef al-Ajmi, Kuwait's justice and Islamic affairs minister, said the Gulf state's ruler has accepted his resignation. In March US Treasury Undersecretary David Cohen said al-Ajmi had called for jihad in Syria and promoted the funding of terrorism.
    (Reuters, 5/12/14)
2014        May 12, Lorenzo Zambrano, the head of Mexico’s Cemex Corp., died unexpectedly in Madrid.
    (Econ, 5/17/14, p.64)
2014        May 12, Boko Haram released a new video claiming to show the missing Nigerian schoolgirls, alleging they had converted to Islam and would not be released until all militant prisoners were freed.
    (AFP, 5/12/14)
2014        May 12, In Pakistan Qari Naseer (27) and two friends raped a college girl (20) in a moving car. Naseer, a teacher at a Quranic school in Mansehra, and the two friends were soon arrested. He was suspected of having filmed and blackmailed other victims.
    (AP, 5/14/14)
2014        May 12, In Spain Isabel Carrasco (b.1955), a local bigwig in the People’s Party of PM Mariano Rajoy, was shot dead by the mother of a young woman who had been let go from her government job.
    (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabel_Carrasco)
2014        May 12, Russia made it clear that Moscow has no intention of immediately annexing two regions in eastern Ukraine after a weekend referendum there showed most voters allegedly backing sovereignty.
    (AP, 5/12/14)
2014        May 12, In South Africa 2 Lonmin workers were killed as they reported for work at their strike-hit platinum mine, threatening the firm's plans to end the walkout this week.
    (Reuters, 5/12/14)
2014        May 12, Syrian media said rebels have agreed to free 1,500 families in Adra in exchange for food and the release of jailed opponents of President Bashar al-Assad.
    (AFP, 5/12/14)
2014        May 12, In eastern Ukraine insurgents in Luhansk said they wouldn't hold the scheduled May 25 presidential vote.
    (AP, 5/13/14)
2014        May 12, A confidential new report by a UN panel of experts highlighted Iran's methods of evading sanctions - from concealing titanium tubes inside steel pipes to using its petrochemical industry as a cover to obtain items for a heavy-water nuclear reactor.
    (Reuters, 5/12/14)
2014        May 12, In southern Yemen a suspected US drone strike killed six al-Qaida militants in Marib province.
    (AP, 5/12/14)

2015        May 12, In Arizona 5 men and women were found shot dead in a Tucson home. Christopher Carillo (25) killed 4 of his family members before fatally shooting himself.
    (Reuters, 5/13/15)(SFC, 5/14/15, p.A6)
2015        May 12, In NYC three Somali-born men pleaded guilty to conspiracy to support terrorism.
    (SFC, 5/13/15, p.A5)
2015        May 12, In Pennsylvania an Amtrak derailment late today killed 8 people. Brandon Bostian (32) was at the helm of the train when it derailed while traveling at 106 miles per hour, more than double the limit.
    (AFP, 5/13/15)(SFC, 5/15/15, p.A7)
2015        May 12, In Texas Derrick Dewayne Charles (32) was executed by lethal injection at the Huntsville prison for killing his girlfriend (15), her mother and her grandfather nearly 13 years ago in Houston. This was the state’s 7th execution this year.
    (SFC, 5/13/15, p.A5)
2015        May 12, Verizon announced a $4.4 billion all-cash deal to buy AOL.
    (SFC, 5/13/15, p.C1)
2015        May 12, In Afghanistan Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif promised coordinated military operations with Afghan forces to hunt down militants along their shared border, saying on a visit to Kabul that he condemned a recent Taliban offensive.
    (Reuters, 5/12/15)
2015        May 12, In Bangladesh blogger and banker Ananta Bijoy Das (33) was hacked to death by machete-wielding attackers, the third killing of a critic of religious extremism in the Muslim-majority nation in less than three months.
    (Reuters, 5/12/15)
2015        May 12, Burundi police opened fire on protesters as President Pierre Nkurunziza defied international pressure to end a controversial third term bid.
    (AFP, 5/12/15)
2015        May 12, Eritrean diplomat Mohammed Idris, from the Red Sea state's mission to the African Union, sought asylum in Ethiopia, citing rights abuses at home.
    (Reuters, 5/13/15)
2015        May 12, The European Central Bank raised the cap on emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) that Greek banks can draw from the country's central bank by 1.1 billion euros, taking the ceiling to 80 billion euros.
    (Reuters, 5/12/15)
2015        May 12, French President Francois Hollande arrived in Haiti to sign cooperation agreements and support reconstruction efforts that continue since the deadly 2010 earthquake.
    (AFP, 5/12/15)
2015        May 12, Die Zeit Online reported that Germany's BND intelligence agency sends mammoth amounts of phone and text data to the US National Security Agency (NSA) each month.
    (Reuters, 5/12/15)
2015        May 12, Indonesia police said seven people have been arrested on charges of human trafficking including two Indonesians and five Thais.
    (SFC, 5/13/15, p.A2)
2015        May 12, In northern Iraq a bomb blast killed senior Kurdish Maj. Gen. Salah Delmani as well as two of his bodyguards. Delmani was prominent in the fight against the Islamic State group.
    (AP, 5/12/15)
2015        May 12, In Iraq Abu Alaa al-Afari (aka Abdul Rahman Mustafa Mohammed), the second most senior member of Islamic State, was killed in a coalition air strike on a mosque where he was meeting with other militants at a mosque in Tal Afar. 6 people were killed in two attacks against worshippers walking towards the shrine of Imam Musa Kadhim in northwestern Baghdad.
    (AP, 5/13/15)(AFP, 5/14/15)
2015        May 12, Israel's Supreme Court rejected a petition by residents of the unrecognized Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran against their removal and the demolition of the community – in order to construct a new town for Jewish residents in its place.
    (www.haaretz.com/news/israel/1.655145)
2015        May 12, Malaysia said it would turn away any more migrant boats packed with Rohingya and Bangladeshis unless they were sinking.
    (AP, 5/12/15)
2015        May 12, Mozambican police seized 340 elephant tusks and 65 rhino horns from a house in the city of Matola. Two Chinese citizens were arrested. Mozambique's elephant population has dropped from just over 20,000 to about 10,300 since 2009.
    (AP, 5/28/15)
2015        May 12, In Myanmar corpses began to wash ashore in Rakhine state. By May 24 47 bodies had washed up on beaches and the mouths of rivers. Some were believed to be Rohingya Muslims and others Bangladeshis trying to escape trafficking ships.
    (SFC, 6/3/15, p.A2)
2015        May 12, In Nepal a magnitude 7.3 earthquake killed at least 91 people, bringing down buildings already weakened by a devastating tremor less than three weeks ago and unleashing landslides in Himalayan valleys near Mount Everest. 17 people were reported killed in India.
    (AP, 5/12/15)(Reuters, 5/12/15)(SFC, 5/14/15, p.A2)
2015        May 12, In Nepal an American military UH-1Y Huey helicopter delivering aid in Dolakha went missing with six Marines, two Nepali soldiers and 5 injured passengers on board. Wreckage was found on May 15 with no survivors.
    (Reuters, 5/13/15)(Reuters, 5/15/15)(AP, 6/5/15)
2015        May 12, In southwest Pakistan gunmen shot and killed two paramilitary troops and two workers for an army-owned company at a canal construction site in in the Kolachi area of Dera Ismail Khan district.
    (AP, 5/12/15)
2015        May 12, The Philippines became the first country to come up with national rules governing Uber and other ride-sharing services with new country-wide guidelines for the likes of Uber and GrabTaxi to be published on May 13.
    (AFP, 5/12/15)
2015        May 12, Russian opposition activists said least 220 Russian soldiers have been killed in east Ukraine in a report offering what they called "ample evidence" to rebut President Vladimir Putin's denial his troops are fighting there. The report, the last project of murdered Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov, also said Russia had spent more than 53 billion rubles ($1.04 billion) in 10 months to fund the conflict and deprived people of 2.75 trillion rubles of money lost to inflation.
    (Reuters, 5/12/15)
2015        May 12, In Singapore Amos Yee (16) was convicted on charges of obscenity and insulting religious feelings related to his posting a video criticizing Lee Kuan Yew (1923-2015), the founding father of modern Singapore.
    (SFC, 5/13/15, p.A2)
2015        May 12, In South Africa Lawyers for Human Rights obtained a court order to halt any deportations for two weeks and allow foreigners arrested during recent raids to get access to legal representation after government authorities said they have arrested about 750 immigrants staying illegally in the country.
    (AP, 5/12/15)
2015        May 12, Syrian government helicopters dropped barrel bombs in a neighborhood in the northern city of Aleppo, killing at least 15 people. The Aleppo Media Center, based in the city, said at least 35 people were killed. At least 4 people were killed and 17 wounded in a double bomb blast in the central city of Homs.
    (AP, 5/12/15)(AFP, 5/12/15)
2015        May 12, Ukraine said 3 government servicemen were killed and one was wounded in separatist eastern territories over the past 24 hours despite a three-month-old ceasefire deal.
    (Reuters, 5/12/15)
2015        May 12, In Yemen at least 69 people were killed and 250 others were wounded by explosions after Saudi-led warplanes hit an arms depot a day earlier on the outskirts of Sanaa as bombing continued today.
    (AFP, 5/12/15)

2016        May 12, The Obama administration unveiled its latest action aimed at reducing methane emissions in the oil and gas industry. The EPA ruling would reduce methane emissions from oil and gas drilling by 40 to 45% by 2025 compared with 2012 levels.
    (Reuters, 5/12/16)(SFC, 5/13/16, p.A8)
2016        May 12, The Obama administration said public schools must permit transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their chosen gender identity. Politicians in Arkansas, Texas and elsewhere soon vowed defiance.
    (SFC, 5/13/16, p.A8)(SFC, 5/14/16, p.A6)
2016        May 12, The United States switched on an $800 million missile shield in Romania that it sees as vital to defend itself and Europe from so-called rogue states but the Kremlin says is aimed at blunting its own nuclear arsenal.
    (Reuters, 5/12/16)
2016        May 12, Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison pledged $200 million to the Univ. of Southern California to create a center designed to combine traditional medicine with holistic approaches to treat and prevent cancer.
    (SFC, 5/13/16, p.C1)
2016        May 12, George Zimmerman (32), the former neighborhood-watch volunteer who shot and killed black teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012, said he would sell the gun he used in the shooting at auction.
    (AFP, 5/12/16)
2016        May 12, In Oklahoma the Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 landed in Tulsa after taking off from Arizona on the latest leg of its around-the-world journey.
    (SFC, 5/14/16, p.A6)
2016        May 12, In Australia the 4-day Sexpo, Sydney's adult entertainment and lifestyle show, opened for its 20th year.
    (http://www.sexpo.com.au/)(AFP, 5/15/16)
2016        May 12, In Brazil centrist VP Michel Temer, of the centrist Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB), took the helm of the country, hours after the Senate voted to suspend President Dilma Rousseff, of the Workers’ Party (PT), to stand trial for breaking budgetary laws.
    (Reuters, 5/12/16)(Econ, 5/7/16, p.25)
2016        May 12, Britain’s PM David Cameron, the host of a global anti-corruption summit, announced that countries have pledged to set up public registers of company ownership in a collective effort to make it harder to launder the proceeds of corruption around the globe. Countries taking part in the summit issued a 34-point communique outlining pledges to tackle issues ranging from doping and match-fixing in sports to tax evasion and bribery.
    (Reuters, 5/12/16)
2016        May 12, It was reported that China's ruling Communist Party has expelled Zhang Kunsheng, former assistant foreign minister, for graft, including joining private clubs, accepting gifts and bribes, and trading power for sex. Kunsheng was sacked from his government post last January and put under investigation.
    (Reuters, 5/12/16)
2016        May 12, French prosecutors said that $2 million tied to Tokyo's winning bid for the 2020 Olympics was apparently paid to an account linked to Papa Massata Diack (50), the son of disgraced former IAAF president Lamine Diack, in the months immediately before and after the Japanese capital won the games.
    (AP, 5/12/16)
2016        May 12, Guinea-Bissau's President Jose Mario Vaz sacked PM Carlos Correia and dissolved his government, in a move that threatened to deepen political turmoil in the tiny West African nation.
    (Reuters, 5/12/16)
2016        May 12, In India television journalist Akhilesh Pratap Singh was also shot dead by unknown assailants as he returned home on a motorbike in restive Jharkhand state.
    (AFP, 5/14/16)
2016        May 12, Iran announced that it will not send pilgrims to Saudi Arabia this year for the annual hajj pilgrimage, after a disaster during the event last year killed at least 2,426 people including 464 of its pilgrims.
    (AP, 5/12/16)
2016        May 12, The World Health Organization said air pollution causes more than 3 million premature deaths worldwide every year. The worst air pollution was recorded at Zabol in Iran. The WHO said India has four of the 10 cities in the world with the worst air pollution and Saudi Arabia had two.
    (Reuters, 5/12/16)(SFC, 5/13/16, p.A2)
2016        May 12, Islamic State insurgents killed at least 17 Iraqi soldiers with suicide truck bombs in a major attack on government forces in Jarayshi, 10 km (6 miles) north of Ramadi. They also surrounded an army regiment, seized a bridge and cut a key supply route linking Ramadi to the Thirthar district further north. The jihadist group also killed two policemen and wounded eight others in two suicide bombings in Abu Ghraib outside Baghdad.
    (Reuters, 5/12/16)
2016        May 12, Kyrgyzstan security services arrested three politicians including a former minister on charges of plotting a coup, ahead of an anti-government rally later this month.
    (AFP, 5/13/16)
2016        May 12, In Libya 4 members of military forces loyal to the new UN-backed unity government were reported killed and 30 wounded in clashes with Islamic State (IS) insurgents near the western city of Misrata.
    (Reuters, 5/12/16)
2016        May 12, Coca-Cola said it will stop production of all canned drinks in Namibia and has warned consumers of possible shortages, as a regional drought worsened across southern Africa.
    (AFP, 5/12/16)
2016        May 12, In northeastern Nigeria 7 people including 2 police officers were killed when a suicide bomber tried to attack government offices in Maiduguri.
    (AP, 5/12/16)
2016        May 12, Officials said Pakistan is spending $4 billion a year on cotton imports to support the ailing textile industry, after erratic rainfall and drought in the country's cotton fields slammed growers and the country's economy.
    (Reuters, 5/12/16)
2016        May 12, Slovenia said it took in its first 28 migrants under an EU relocation scheme that many other EU countries have been slow to carry out or rejected outright. Slovenia, with a population of 2 million, has committed to accepting a total of 587 migrants, or up to 50 per month through August 2017.
    (Reuters, 5/12/16)
2016        May 12, Syrian government forces battled rebels north of Aleppo as a ceasefire expired in the city itself. Insurgents captured the Alawite village of al-Zara from government control in western Syria and abducted civilians living there.   
    (Reuters, 5/12/16)
2016        May 12, In Syria Lebanon’s top Hezbollah commander Mustafa Badreddine (55) was killed in an explosion in Damascus.
    (AP, 5/13/16)
2016        May 12, In Turkey 15 militants were killed in clashes in Sirnak province. 4 suspected bomb makers were killed and 23 people were wounded when an explosion ripped through a village in the southeast as PKK militants loaded explosives onto a small truck. Authorities later identified the remains of 13 people from two families killed from more than 15 tons of explosives in the truck raising the death toll to 16.
    (Reuters, 5/13/16)(AP, 5/17/16)
2016        May 12, Uganda’s Pres. Museveni (71) was inaugurated for a 5th term amid arrests of opposition politicians and a shutdown of social media.
    (SFC, 5/13/16, p.A2)
2016        May 12, In Yemen a suicide car bombing struck a navy base in the southern port city of Mukalla, killing at least 6 troops in a rare IS attack in a city once occupied by its rival militant al-Qaida branch. Yemen's Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility.
    (AP, 5/12/16)

2017        May 12, President Donald Trump shot a sharp warning at his ousted FBI director about possible "tapes" of their disputed private conversations, raising the provocative possibility that recording devices have been installed in the White House.
    (AP, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, Lawyers for President Donald Trump said that a review of his last 10 years of tax returns did not reflect "any income of any type from Russian sources," but their letter included exceptions related to previously cited income generated from a beauty pageant and sale of a Florida estate.
    (AP, 5/13/17)
2017        May 12, In southern California former Los Angeles sheriff Lee Baca (74) was sentenced to three years in prison for obstructing an FBI investigation into abuses at the jails he ran.
    (SFC, 5/13/17, p.A6)
2017        May 12, Federal prosecutors in New York announced late today a surprise settlement between the US government and Russian businessman Denis Katsyv, the owner of Prevezon Holdings. The Russian-owned group of companies agreed to pay nearly $6 million to settle US civil allegations that the firms laundered proceeds of a $230 million tax fraud, ending a politically charged case days before it was set to go to trial.
    (Reuters, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, Washington and Beijing announced an agreement giving US beef, natural gas and certain financial services access to China's massive market in a deal highlighting the warm ties nurtured by their presidents. The US in exchange will allow cooked Chinese poultry to enter US markets.
    (AFP, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, A federal jury in Minneapolis awarded a Twin Cities woman nearly $1 million in her civil lawsuit against a Minnesota man she says sexually assaulted her when she was 14 and living in Laos.
    (AP, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, In Ohio gunman Thomas Hartless (43) was found dead after shooting Steven Eric Disario (36), the police chief of Kirkersville, and nursing home employees Marlina Medrano and Cindy Krantz. Medrano had obtained civil protection orders against Hartless.
    (SFC, 5/13/17, p.A5)(SSFC, 5/14/17, p.A8)
2017        May 12, In northern Afghanistan Taliban fighters launched the attack early today in the Burka district, Baghlan province. Four security forces were reported killed as well as 15 Taliban fighters. 10 insurgents including a Taliban-appointed deputy governor and district chief were killed in northern Samangan province.
    (AP, 5/12/17)(AP, 5/13/17)(SFC, 5/13/17, p.A2)
2017        May 12, In Azerbaijan the local court in the Baku upheld action by the country's communications ministry to block the access to the Azeri-language website of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as well as several key independent news websites. The websites have been unavailable since late March when the ministry shut down the access following a prosecutor's petition decrying "threats to legitimate interests of the government and society."
    (AP, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, Security companies noticed that a piece of malicious software known as WannaCry was spreading across the Internet, first in Britain and Spain and then around the world. In 48 hours it reached 230,000 computers.
    (Econ 5/20/17, p.69)
2017        May 12, Britain's National Health Service said hospitals across England have been hit by an apparent "ransomware" attack, but there was no immediate evidence that patient data had been accessed. The cyberattack crippled computer systems at hospitals across England, with appointments canceled, phone lines down and patients turned away.
    (AP, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, A global cyber-attack infected computers at businesses, healthcare facilities and other organizations in dozens of countries, disrupting operations at some facilities. Spain said several Spanish companies had been targeted in ransomware cyberattack that affected the Windows operating system of employees' computers. Kaspersky Lab, a Russian cybersecurity firm, said it had recorded at least 45,000 attacks in as many as 74 countries. Code for exploiting the Microsoft bug, which is known as "Eternal Blue," was released on the internet in March by a hacking group known as the Shadow Brokers. The group claimed it was stolen from a repository of National Security Agency hacking tools.
    (AP, 5/12/17)(Reuters, 5/13/17)(SFC, 5/13/17, p.A2)(Reuters, 5/14/17)
2017        May 12, Congo DRC’s health minister said one person has been confirmed dead from Ebola in an outbreak in a remote corner of northern Congo as health authorities look into a total of nine suspected cases. The outbreak emerged April 22 in Bas-Uele province. The WHO said at least three people have died in the last three weeks.
    (AP, 5/12/17)(SFC, 5/13/17, p.A2)
2017        May 12, In India the Allahabad High Court ruled that the state should start re-issuing licenses to the abattoirs in Uttar Pradesh, allowing them to re-open. The chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state had ordered the closure of unlicensed slaughter houses after he was appointed by PM Narendra Modi in March.
    (Reuters, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, The western Indian city of Ahmadabad, a city of more than 7 million people, launched its first air quality monitoring system that will be used to send out pollution alerts.
    (AP, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, Iraq's Shi'ite paramilitaries launched an offensive to drive Islamic State from a desert region near the border with Syria as security forces fought the militants in the city of Mosul.
    (Reuters, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian during stone-throwing clashes in the occupied West Bank.
    (Reuters, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, In Italy G7 finance ministers began two days of talks on the global economy, taxation and terrorist financing in the southern city of Bari. Officials raised concerns about risks to global growth from the Trump administration's policy proposals including tax reform.
    (Reuters, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, Ivory Coast's national security council held an emergency meeting as soldiers left their barracks and blocked streets in several towns and cities across the country, including the commercial capital, firing gunshots into the air as their protest over a pay dispute gathered momentum.
    (Reuters, 5/12/17)(AP, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, Malaysia said it had deported three Turkish men to Ankara over suspected links to a group blamed by Turkey for a failed coup last year. Authorities had detained school principal Turgay Karaman (43), businessman Ihsan Aslan (39) and academic Ismet Ozcelik (58) last week, saying they posed a threat to national security.
    (Reuters, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, Myanmar police said they have arrested two radical Buddhist nationalists and are seeking several more after they clashed with Muslims in the country's commercial capital Yangon, underscoring a growing concern over rising religious tensions.
    (Reuters, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, North Korea sent a rare letter of protest to the US House of Representatives warning that a new package of tougher sanctions would only spur its development of nuclear weapons.
    (Reuters, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, Pakistan’s army said Pakistan and Afghanistan military officials have agreed to increase the number of bilateral interactions through various command and staff channels to foster an environment of mutual respect, trust and cooperation.
    (AP, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, In Pakistan a bomb exploded next to a convoy of the deputy chairman of the Pakistan Senate in Baluchistan province, killing at least 25 people. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bombing.
    (Reuters, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, Pope Francis arrived in Portugal where he is to visit the shrine at Fatima, one of the world's most popular Catholic pilgrimage sites.
    (AP, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, South Korea ordered Hyundai and Kia to recall 240,000 vehicles to repair five defects initially raised by a whistleblower, in the country's first compulsory recall for a domestic carmaker.
    (AP, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, In Syria more than 1,200 people including rebels left two opposition-held districts of Damascus under an agreement that will bring Syria's government closer to exerting full control over the capital.
    (AFP, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, Turkish police detained Oguz Guven, the editor of pro-secular Cumhuriyet newspaper's online edition, for a news article on the death of prosecutor Mustafa Alper in a traffic accident on May 10. Alper, chief prosecutor of Denizli province in southwest Turkey, had filed the first indictment against the network of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen following last summer's coup attempt.
    (AP, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, In Turkey the domed Zeynel Bey Tomb, weighing 1,100 tons, was moved in one piece in four hours, traveling two km (more than a mile) on a large wheeled platform to make way for a hydroelectric dam on the Tigris river. The monument, around 550 years old, was located in the ancient settlement of Hasankeyf, where the majority of villages and historic sites are at risk of being submerged in water when the Ilisu Dam is completed.
    (AP, 5/12/17)
2017        May 12, The UN called for an investigation into crimes against sexual minorities following an uptick in deadly violence against transgender women in El Salvador.
    (Reuters, 5/12/17)

2018        May 12, In Hawaii a crack in pasture land on Kilauea's east flank was the 16th recorded since the US volcano, one of the world's most active, erupted on May 3. A 17th fissure opened later in the day.
    (AP, 5/13/18)
2018        May 12, Police in Albania said they have cracked down on an international drug trafficking ring that allegedly smuggled marijuana, heroin and cocaine to European Union member countries.
    (AP, 5/12/18)
2018        May 12, In Cambodia Khieng Navy was arrested in his home for posting comments online that allegedly insulted King Norodom Sihamoni by suggesting he was behind the November court decision to disband the main opposition party to benefit Cambodia's enemies. The school director became the first person to be arrested on charges of insulting the monarchy.
    (AP, 5/13/18)
2018        May 12, East Timorese voted in their second election for parliament in less than a year after the collapse of a minority government. The opposition coalition squeaked across the line with an absolute majority. The three-party Parliamentary Majority Alliance (AMP), led by independence hero Xanana Gusmao, had about 48 percent of the votes.
    (AP, 5/12/18)(AFP, 5/13/18)
2018        May 12, In Egypt at least 22 people were detained by police during "limited and sporadic protests" at several Cairo metro stations by commuters demanding that metro price hikes be reversed.
    (Reuters, 5/13/18)
2018        May 12, In France 82 female film industry professionals protested on the steps of the Palais des Festivals to represent, what they describe as pervasive gender inequality in the film industry, at the 71st international film festival, Cannes.
    (AP, 5/13/18)
2018        May 12, A Frenchman (21) born in Russia's Chechnya region killed one man in a knife attack in Paris. He fatally knifed a 29-year-old man and wounded four others, among them a Chinese and a Luxembourg citizen, before police shot him dead. The government later said Khamzat Azimov had been flagged previously as a potential security risk.
    (AP, 5/13/18)(SFC, 5/15/18, p.A2)
2018        May 12, Hundreds gathered in the center of Georgia's capital Tbilisi to protest armed police raids on two nightclubs and to demand the resignation of the prime minister and interior minister.
    (Reuters, 5/12/18)
2018        May 12, Iraq voted in its first election since declaring victory over the Islamic State group, but widespread disillusionment appeared to dampen hope for the future. The official turnout for the elections was 44.5 percent. Shiite cleric al-Sadr took an early lead in partial returns. A political bloc led by populist Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr won the country's parliamentary election.
    (AFP, 5/12/18)(AFP, 5/13/18)(SFC, 5/14/18, p.A3)(AP, 5/19/18)
2018        May 12, Israel closed the Kerem Shalom border crossing with the Gaza Strip, a day after the terminal was damaged during protests by Palestinians that turned violent.
    (Reuters, 5/12/18)
2018        May 12, Kuwait deported Nawaf al-Rasheed, a Saudi man with dual Qatari nationality, to Saudi Arabia at the kingdom's request.
    (Reuters, 6/13/18)
2018        May 12, Malaysia's new leader, Mahathir Mohamad, said that defeated scandal-tainted PM Najib Razak and his wife have been barred from leaving the country to prevent them from fleeing from possible prosecution over a massive corruption scandal.
    (AP, 5/12/18)
2018        May 12, In Myanmar the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) rebel group fighting the government launched an attack against the country's military in the town of Muse, Shan state, leaving at least 15 people dead and 20 injured, including civilians. The group attacked a casino run by militiamen and a Myanmar army post on the outskirts of Muse. Riot police in Yangon used batons to break up a protest in support of victims of fighting in the northern state of Kachin, arresting 17 organizers for disturbing the public and holding a protest without permission.
    (AP, 5/12/18)(Reuters, 5/12/18)(Reuters, 5/30/18)
2018        May 12, In Nicaragua protesters opposed to President Daniel Ortega's government clashed with riot police and Sandinista Youth groups in cities across the country, with demonstrators burning tires and setting up barricades in violence that left two people dead and dozens injured. Nicaragua's army called for an end to violence in the country and distanced itself from President Daniel Ortega, saying it was not repressing anyone for taking part in anti-government protests.
    (AP, 5/13/18)(AFP, 5/13/18)
2018        May 12, North Korea said that it will dismantle its nuclear test site on May 23-25, in a dramatic event that would set up leader Kim Jong Un's summit with President Donald Trump next month.
    (AP, 5/12/18)
2018        May 12, In Poland thousands marched through Warsaw demanding free courts and respect for the constitution and denouncing a populist government that they accuse of eroding democracy.
    (AP, 5/12/18)
2018        May 12, Portugal hosted the final night of the Eurovision Song Contest. Israel's Netta Barzilai (25) was announced the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest in Portugal with her techno dance tune "Toy".
    (AP, 5/12/18)(AP, 5/13/18)
2018        May 12, The Syrian regime continued to pound the Yarmuk area with air strikes and artillery fire. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 203 pro-government fighters have been killed along with 159 IS jihadists since April 19.   
    (AFP, 5/12/18)
2018        May 12, Yemeni officials said fighting over two days in western Yemen has killed at least 115 people on both sides of the conflict pitting forces loyal to a Saudi-led coalition against Iran-backed Shiite rebels.
    (AP, 5/12/18)

2019        May 12, In Afghanistan unidentified gunmen killed Abdul Ghafour Mahmoud, a deputy intelligence director for northern Baghlan province. In the north the Taliban targeted security checkpoints in Sari Pul province late today, killing at least seven members of the country's security forces. The insurgents also abducted two members of the force and left five wounded.
    (AP, 5/12/19)(AP, 5/13/19)
2019        May 12, The ruling coalition of Argentine President Mauricio Macri suffered a heavy defeat in elections held in Cordoba province, the country's second most populous district.
    (AP, 5/13/19)
2019        May 12, Argentine legislator Héctor Olivares died three days after being seriously wounded in a gun attack that killed a provincial official near the country's congressional building in Buenos Aires.
    (AP, 5/12/19)
2019        May 12, Albania's center-right opposition decided to continue protests calling for the resignation of the government and for an early parliamentary election.
    (AP, 5/12/19)
2019        May 12, In northern Burkina Faso gunmen killed a priest and five parishioners during mass Sunday in an attack on a Catholic church in Dablo.
    (AFP, 5/12/19)
2019        May 12, Indians voted in the next-to-last round of a six-week-long national election marked by a highly acrimonious campaign that has seen PM Narendra Modi blame opposition party chief Rahul Gandhi's family for the country's ills.
    (AP, 5/12/19)
2019        May 12, Israel reopened its crossings with the blockaded Gaza Strip after closing them during a deadly escalation earlier this month, as a fragile truce held.
    (AFP, 5/12/19)
2019        May 12, In Kashmir thousands of people took to the streets to protest the alleged rape of a 3-year-old girl by a neighbor who lured her to a school bathroom. The girl was hospitalized in critical condition on May 8, but her condition has stabilized. The suspect's family produced a school-issued birth certificate giving his age as 13. Protesters said the suspect is not less than 20 and he worked in a motor repair workshop.
    (AP, 5/13/19)
2019        May 12, Lithuanians voted for a new president in a close race dominated by concerns over poverty and income inequality in the Baltic state that boasts some of the eurozone's strongest growth. Ingrida Simonyte (44) won the round with 31.4 percent, only a 2,647-vote advantage over Gitanas Nauseda (54) who had 31.2 percent. PM Saulius Skvernelis (48) had 21 percent.
    (AFP, 5/12/19)(Reuters, 5/13/19)
2019        May 12, Voters in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia cast ballots for their local Congress, with separatists hoping to win a majority. Under a 1998 agreement, there can be two further votes on independence before 2022 in the archipelago located more than 1,000 km (600 miles) northeast of Brisbane, Australia.
    (AFP, 5/12/19)
2019        May 12, In North Macedonia Stevo Pendarovski was sworn in as the new president, promising he will serve all citizens in a deeply divided society and will lobby European Union leaders to approve the start of his country's accession talks in June.
    (AP, 5/12/19)
2019        May 12, It was reported that Sri Lankan authorities have arrested Mohamed Aliyar (60), a Saudi-educated scholar, for what they claim are links with Zahran Hashim, the suspected ringleader of the Easter Sunday bombings. Two Muslim community sources said his hardline views were partly shaped by ultra-conservative Salafi-Wahhabi texts that he picked up at the Center for Islamic Guidance's library around 2-3 years ago.
    (Reuters, 5/12/19)
2019        May 12, In northwestern Syria Insurgents fired rockets into the government-held Christian town of Suqailabiyah, killing six people, including five children who were playing near a monastery.
    (AP, 5/12/19)
2019        May 12, It was reported that nearly 128,000 people in Syria have never emerged from prison over the last eight years and are presumed to be either dead or still in custody under the Assad regime.
    (SFC, 6/8/19, p.A6)
2019        May 12, The UAE said that four commercial vessels were sabotaged near Fujairah emirate, one of the world's largest bunkering hubs lying just outside the Strait of Hormuz, but did not describe the nature of the attack or say who was behind it. Two Saudi oil tankers were targeted in the attack.
    (Reuters, 5/13/19)
2019        May 12, Venezuelan Gen. Ramon Rangel called on the country's armed forces to rise up against President Nicolas Maduro, who has relied on the backing of the military to hold on to power despite an economic collapse. Rangel fled to Colombia last month.
    (Reuters, 5/12/19)

2020        May 12, Dr. Anthony Fauci, warned senators in a videoconference hearing that the "consequences could be really serious" if states and localities reopen too soon.
    (Good Morning America, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, US District Judge Emmet Sullivan said that before he decides whether to dismiss charges against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, he will let third parties submit filings in the case.
    (The Week, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, It was reported that the US government is donating up to 1,000 ventilators to South Africa the help the country respond to COVID-19.
    (AP, 5/12/20, p.A5)(SFC, 5/13/20, p.A5)
2020        May 12, California's state university system cancelled classes for the fall semester, while Los Angeles County said its stay-at-home order was likely to be extended by three months.
    (Reuters, 5/13/20)
2020          May 12, California to date had 69,417 cases of coronavirus and 2,789 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 10,049 cases and 366 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 1,358,901 with the death toll at 81,805.
    (sfist.com, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, In the SF Bay Area Alameda County officials told Tesla to stop manufacturing at its Fremont plant until the county and Tesla agree on a plan to reopen in line with state and local rules.
    (SFC, 5/13/20, p.C1)
2020        May 12, In Florida Arya Gray (15), Miami Beach High freshman, was shot and killed during a late-night hangout of teenagers at a Shorecrest apartment. Thalys Oliveira (17) was later charged as an adult for the shooting. Arya was shot and killed in front of her sister, who was also at the hangout.
    (Miami Herald, 6/2/20)
2020        May 12, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called face masks a sign of respect for others on a day the state reported 195 new deaths, a jump from 161 the previous day.
    (AP, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, Mayor Bill de Blasio said New York City has 52 confirmed cases of what the state is calling Pediatric Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome Associated with COVID-19, an inflammatory syndrome which has features that overlap with Kawasaki disease. Out of the city's 52 cases, 25 tested positive for COVID-19 and 22 others had antibodies. New data showed that nine out of 10 people arrested for virus-related offenses in NYC have been black or Hispanic.
    (Good Morning America, 5/12/20)(AP, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, LabCorp said its $119 at-home sample collection kit for COVID-19 testing would now be available to all individuals with symptoms and possible exposure to the virus, after limiting delivery to healthcare workers during its launch last month. Customers can get the kit with no upfront out-of-pocket costs if they are found to be eligible after filling in a survey on the company's website.
    (Reuters, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, Moderna Inc said the US Food and Drug Administration granted "fast track" designation to its experimental coronavirus vaccine, a move that speeds up the regulatory review process. Moderna expects to start a late-stage study of the vaccine in early summer and says there is potential for a marketing application approval in 2021.
    (Reuters, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, In Afghanistan militants stormed a maternity hospital in Kabul, setting off an hours-long shootout with the police and killing 24 people, including two newborn babies, their mothers and an unspecified number of nurses. A suicide bomber targeted the funeral of a pro-government militia commander and former warlord in Nangarhhar's Khewa district, killing 32 people and wounding 133. In eastern Khost province, a bomb planted in a cart in a market killed a child and wounded 10 people. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said he was ordering the military to move to 'offensive mode', away from a defensive stance it had taken as part of efforts to reduce violence in the war-ravaged nation as Washington tries to broker peace talks.
    (AP, 5/12/20)(Reuters, 5/12/20)(AP, 5/13/20)
2020        May 12, In southern Bangladesh a fire raced through a crowded camp housing Rohingya refugees, destroying nearly 400 shanties and shops. No casualties were immediately reported.
    (AP, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, In Burkina Faso 12 people arrested on suspicion of terror offences were found dead in their police cells. Most of the 12 dead men were ethnic Fulas, a group often accused of jihadist links.
    (BBC, 5/14/20)
2020        May 12, Canada's National Research Council said China's CanSino Biologics Inc , the company behind one of the few coronavirus vaccine candidates already in clinical trials, is collaborating with the NRC to "pave the way" for future trials in Canada.
    (Reuters, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, China reported seven new coronavirus cases on the mainland, versus one a day earlier. Jilin city in the country's northeast warned of a huge risk of COVID-19 spreading further.
    (Reuters, 5/13/20)
2020        May 12, Estonia's parliament approved a new Electronics Communications Act, dubbed the "Huawei law," to ensure security reviews for telecom gear needed in the development of future networks.
    (Reuters, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, India's PM Narendra Modi pledged 20 lakh crore rupees, about $265 billion, to reignite growth.
    (Econ., 5/23/20, p.26)
2020        May 12, In Iran another 1,481 people tested positive for the virus in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases to 110,767 since the start of the crisis. Another 48 deaths from the virus took the overall toll to 6,733. A minister said Iran will reopen its mosques for three nights over the next week so that worshippers can pray during one of the holiest times of year.
    (AP, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, An Israeli soldier (21) was killed during a West Bank arrest raid in Jenin when a rock thrown off a rooftop struck him in the head. The raid was aimed at arresting four Palestinians wanted for stone-throwing at Israeli vehicles and other recent attacks.
    (AP, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, Israeli police arrested over 300 people as officers attempted to control crowds that had assembled at a religious site in northern Israel in violation of coronavirus restrictions. Jews observed the holiday of Lag B'Omer, on which ultra-Orthodox Jews customarily gather at the tomb of a prominent rabbi in antiquity on Mount Meron.
    (AP, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, In Italy deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic climbed by 172, against 179 the day before, but the daily tally of new cases doubled to 1,402. The Lombardy region said it had found 419 infections from previous weeks that it had not logged. The total death toll now stands at 30,911 with confirmed cases at 221,216.
    (AP, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, Madagascar has reported 193 Covid-19 cases and no deaths. President Andry Rajoelina has said criticism of Covid-Organics, an untested herbal tonic that he is touting as a treatment for Covid-19, shows the West's condescending attitude towards Africa.
    (BBC, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, In Montenegro hundreds of Serbian Orthodox pilgrims used hand sanitizer and wore face masks as they entered the Ostrog Monastery to mark the Day of St Vasilije Ostroski the Miracle Maker, a 17th century bishop after whom the monastery is named. Montenegro has reported 324 cases of the coronavirus and nine deaths.
    (Reuters, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, Russia moved to ease a nationwide coronavirus lockdown. It was reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman has been hospitalized for the coronavirus. He is the fifth senior government official in Russia to get the virus, and the second from within Putin's inner circle. Another 10,899 cases were recorded in the last 24 hours, bringing the country's total number of confirmed infections to 232,243. At least 2,116 people have died.
    (AFP, 5/12/20)    (Business Insider, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, In Russia a fire broke out in a Saint Petersburg hospital early today and killed five coronavirus patients. Preliminary reports suggested an overheated ventilator had short-circuited and caught fire. On May 9 a fire caused by a faulty ventilator in the Spasokukotsky Hospital in Moscow killed one patient.
    (Good Morning America, 5/12/20)(SFC, 5/13/20, p.A2)
2020        May 12, In Sudan armed clashes in South Kordofan province killed more than two dozen people, including paramilitary troops, over the last 48 hours. The dispute was over an arms sale and escalated in the past two days in the market and in some villages in Kadugli.
    (AP, 5/13/20)
2020        May 12, The UN said COVID-19 has been confirmed in a crowded civilian protection camp in Juba, South Sudan's capital.
    (AP, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, The United Nations refugee agency said violence in northwest Nigeria has forced about 23,000 refugees to flee to Niger since April and raised concerns about the deteriorating security situation.
    (Reuters, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, In Uruguay the 86 crew members of the Greg Mortimer cruise ship, stranded in local waters since March 27, began their evacuation to Montevideo following an outbreak of the new coronavirus on board. At least 37 positive cases of coronavirus were detected in the last several days.
    (AP, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, In Yemen clashes in the southern province of Abyan between Saudi-backed government troops and separatists backed by the United Arab Emirates have left at least six fighters from both sides killed in the past 24 hours.
    (AP, 5/12/20)
2020        May 12, Yemen's Saudi-backed government reported the first outbreak of the new coronavirus in three more southern provinces, taking the total number of cases in areas under its control to 65, including 10 deaths.
    (Reuters, 5/12/20)

2021        May 12, US House Republicans ousted Rep. Liz Cheney from her post as the chamber’s No. 3 GOP leader, punishing her after she repeatedly rebuked former President Donald Trump for his false claims of election fraud and his role in inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
    (AP, 5/12/21)
2021        May 12, The US reversed a ban on US investments in Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp. that was imposed under former President Donald Trump. A US court filing said that the US Department of Defense will remove Xiaomi from the blacklist after the two parties reached an agreement.
    (AP, 5/13/21)
2021        May 12, Drivers in the US Southeast formed lines to fill up tanks from the dwindling number of retail gas stations with fuel to sell, disregarding government pleas for people not to hoard supplies as the shutdown of the main regional fuel pipeline entered its sixth day.
    (AP, 5/12/21)
2021        May 12, COVID-19 deaths in the US have tumbled to an average of around 600 per day, the lowest level in 10 months, with the number of lives lost dropping to single digits in well over half the states and hitting zero on some days.
    (AP, 5/12/21)
2021        May 12, The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had identified 28 cases of serious, potentially life-threatening cases of blood clotting, among the more than 8.7 million people who had received the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine.
    (Reuters, 5/12/21)
2021         May 12, California to date had 3,737,289 cases of coronavirus and 62,100 deaths. The SF Bay Area had 440,728 cases and 6,420 deaths. Total cases nationwide reached over 32,813,656 with the death toll at 583,646.
    (sfist.com, 5/12/21)
2021        May 12, A US federal judge approved a $577 million settlement in a lawsuit over underfunding at Maryland's four historically Black colleges and universities.
    (SFC, 5/14/21, p.A6)
2021        May 12, Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio announced that the state would give five people $1 million each in return for having been vaccinated as part of a weekly lottery program.
    (NY Times, 5/12/21)
2021        May 12, Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, said Tesla had suspended accepting Bitcoin because of concern about the energy consumed by computers crunching the calculations that underpin the currency.
    (AP, 5/12/21)
2021        May 12, Australia tapped Moderna Inc for 25 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, as it tries to speed up vaccination in people under 50 after deciding against AstraZeneca, whose jab has been linked to rare blood clots.
    (Reuters, 5/12/21)
2021        May 12, In Belarus Alexander Burakov, a freelance correspondent for Deutsche Welle, was arrested while waiting with other journalists for access to the trial of six people charged with mass unrest. On May 15 he was sentenced to 20 days in jail for taking part in an “unauthorized event".
    (AP, 5/15/21)
2021        May 12, The British government said that former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic will serve his life sentence for war crimes in a UK prison.
    (AP, 5/12/21)
2021        May 12, It was reported that two transgender women in Cameroon have been sentenced to five years in jail for contravening homosexuality laws. Trans celebrity Shakiro, a YouTuber who highlights the problems Cameroon's banned LGBT community faces and her friend Patricia have been in detention since February after their arrest at a restaurant.
    (AP, 5/12/21)
2021        May 12, The Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) gave the federal government the authority to regulate plastic products to keep them out of incinerators, landfills and the environment, including a national ban on single-use plastic items, such as checkout bags, take-out containers, straws, stirrers, cutlery and six-pack rings.
    (Global Newswire, 5/12/21)
2021        May 12, Human rights groups and Western nations met and demanded unfettered access for UN human rights experts to China's Xinjiang region. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned China for “crimes against humanity and genocide against Muslim Uyghurs” during the release of an annual report on international religious freedom.
    (AP, 5/13/21)
2021        May 12, In Egypt fire broke out in an intensive care unit of a hospital in the Nile Delta city of Kafr el-Sheikh, leaving at least two patients dead.
    (AP, 5/12/21)
2021        May 12, Judges at the EU's General Court annulled a ruling by the European Commission that a tax deal between Amazon and Luxembourg's government amounted to illegal state support.
    (AP, 5/12/21)
2021        May 12, The German government adopted an ambitious plan to reduce the country's greenhouse gas emissions to ‘net zero’ by 2045, five years earlier and with deeper cuts than previously planned.
    (AP, 5/12/21)
2021        May 12, The German government passed a new law making hate-motivated insults a criminal offence that can be punished with a monetary fine or prison of up to two years.
    (AP, 5/12/21)
2021        May 12, The German government agreed to let travelers who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 or recovered from infection avoid testing and quarantine when entering the country, unless they come from areas where variants of concern are prevalent.
    (AP, 5/12/21)
2021        May 12, Israeli police said they arrested nearly 400 people allegedly “involved in riots and disturbances” across the country.
    (AP, 5/12/21)
2021        May 12, Myanmar sentenced online reporter Min Nyo (51) to three years in prison under a recently revised provision in the Penal Code.
    (SFC, 5/14/21, p.A6)
2021        May 12, In Nepal climbers Puwei Liu (55) from California and Abdul Waraich of Switzerland (41) died of altitude sickness.
    (SFC, 5/14/21, p.A4)
2021        May 12, RIA news cited Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova saying Russia has vaccinated over 14 million people against COVID-19 so far with at least one dose.
    (AP, 5/12/21)
2021        May 12, It was reported that Russia has experienced production problems with its Sputnik V vaccine. Sputnik is unusual in that its two required doses are different and not interchangeable.
    (SFC, 5/12/21, p.A7)
2021        May 12, Slovakia's health minister says he plans to keep AstraZeneca in the country's vaccine arsenal, speaking a day after the country suspended use of the shots after a recipient died.
    (AP, 5/12/21)
2021        May 12, The UN's atomic watchdog (IAEA) said Iran has enriched uranium to slightly higher purity than previously thought due to “fluctuations” in the process.
    (AP, 5/12/21)
2021        May 12, The UN Security Council called for an immediate halt to fighting in Yemen, saying that only a lasting cease-fire and political settlement can end the six-year conflict in the Arab world's poorest nation and the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
    (AP, 5/12/21)

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