On this day
Revisit the news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
In 2002, the world population was approximately 6,337,730,342 people[†]
2002Andres Küng, Swedish journalist and politician (born 1945)[†]
Andres Küng was a Swedish journalist, writer, entrepreneur and politician of Estonian origin. He was born in Ockelbo in Gävleborg County to a family of refugees from Soviet occupied Estonia.
2002Ian MacNaughton, Scottish actor, director, and producer (born 1925)[†]
Edward Ian MacNaughton was a Scottish actor, television producer and director, best known for his work with the Monty Python team.
Article on vipers, large, widely diverse family of snakes that includes rattlesnakes, coral snakes and black mambas and more than 200 other species dispersed everywhere except Australia; focuses on new illustrated book, Biology of the Vipers, in which several dozen herpetologists offer information, some surprising, amusing or cautionary, about vipers; photos (M)
Footlights column: New Juilliard Ensemble, directed and conducted by Joel Sachs, presents premieres of works by Tajik composer Alisher Latif-Zadeh and Mongolian composer Sansar Sangidorj; exhibition of American documents and photographs, many never shown before publicly, is opening at New-York Historical Society; composer Tan Dun will make his conducting debut at Brooklyn Academy's New York premiere of his work, Water Passion after St Matthew; Bolshoi Ballet will complete current US tour with performances at Kennedy Center Opera House; photo (M)
New York Mets introduce new pitcher Tom Glavine, who says Mets organization and owner Fred Wilpon made him feel like he was part of family; photo (M)
New Jersey Nets defeat Phoenix Suns, 106-93; photos (M)
Argentina's Pres Eduardo Duhalde accept
Brazil's industrial production rose 8.9 percent in October, up from 1.7 percent in September; country is running $12 billion 12-month trade surplus (S)
Clyde Haberman NYC column contends that winter weather brings abundance of journalistic hyperbole on television when reporters use countless cliches to exaggerate and form stories around snow fall and cold temperatures (M)
Bush administration proposes sweeping new pension rules that will encourage companies to adopt type of retirement plan that has been under attack for three years for what critics call tendency to strip benefits from older employees; proposed rules, which are to be released by Treasury Department, describe steps for companies to avoid age-discrimination challenges when they convert their traditional pension plans into what are called cash-balance pension plans; cash-balance plans tend to benefit younger workers, often at expense of older workers, and are less costly for companies; employers are lauding new proposals, while worker-rights advocates are criticizing them, saying they permit reductions in value of employees' benefits (M)
Man in the News profile of John W Snow, mew Secretary of Treasury; he was born Aug 2, 1939 (M)
Article on long-term study conducted by Carnegie Mellon computer science Prof Manuel Blum and others on how to differentiate human from artificial intelligence; Yahoo and other portals now use simple vision and sound puzzles called Captchas (Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart) to prevent automated registrations at Web sites; future applications may include automated recognition of military targets or detection of trademark infringements on Internet; photos (M)
Analysis of recent census data shows that alarmingly high percentage of lower- to middle-income single homeowners are spending more than 35 percent of income on housing in Brooklyn and Bronx (NYC); because so many homeowners are willing to pay high housing costs for relatively little space, many are saddled with unmanageable mortgages and struggle to make ends meet; photo (M)