On this day
Revisit the music, news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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Pixar Animation Studios chief executive Steven P Jobs is working to renegotiate marketing and distribution deal with Walt Disney Co, set to expire in 2005; seeks to keep much greater share of profits; survival of partnership is in doubt; table of most popular animated films; photos (M)
Iraq's only hospital providing long-term care for chronic schizophrenia and other serious mental disorders was all but destroyed during war, leaving patients to wander off; some got shot and killed, others got raped by looters; of more than 1,400 Iraqis institutionalized at Al Rashad state hospital in Baghdad, 300 remain; Iraqi psychiatric staff accuses marines of standing by as looters carried away everything within hospital; staff says marines then broke door down on maximum security wing and patients fled, untethered from antipsychotic drugs that stabilized many of them; Red Cross has spent $1.5 million over last three years bringing facility almost to Western standards for compassionate care to mentally ill; Dr Olaf Rosset, Norwegian who has overseen project, says he asked US military commanders to send troops to provide security, but they did so only after hospital was all but destroyed; psychiatrists at hospital meet with desperate Iraqis who plead for help in handling disturbed family members who returned home after escaping from hospital; photo (L)
Union City, NJ, officials move to demolish shantytowns that have sprung up on Palisades, condemning cliffside dwellings as uninhabitable; in last six months, two residents of one encampment have been killed on the cliffs in separate attacks, and two others have been charged with murder; garbage has piled up, and residents of nearby highrise complain; city officials say they are concerned for safety of homeless and neighbors around them; photos (M)
Community and research organizations conduct Neighborhood Tree Survey, examining 322 trees from South Bronx, Lower East Side and northern Staten Island and compiling extensive information intended to calculate how much city would have to pay to replace each one; survey breaks down monetary value of services trees provide as pollution cleaners through natural respiration; most broadly, survey concludes that 322 trees have average value of $3,225 per tree and total value of $1,038,458; table shows value of various trees in various boroughs; photos (L)
Investigation into victory of jockey Jose Santos at Kentucky Derby, accused in article by Miami Herald of holding illegal device while riding Funny Cide across finish line, is turning up nothing illicit (M)
Music on My Birthday
The Top 50 albums for the chart week of May 7, 2003, covering May 12, 2003.
Madonna
50 Cent
Kelly Clarkson
Linkin Park
Cher
2003Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, French-American diplomat (born 1933)[†]
Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan was a French-born statesman and activist who served as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1966 to 1977, during which he reoriented the agency's focus beyond Europe and prepared it for an explosion of complex refugee issues. He was also a proponent of greater collaboration between non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and UN agencies. The Prince's interest in ecological issues led him to establish the Bellerive Foundation in the late 1970s, and he was a knowledgeable and respected collector of Islamic art.
2003The Riyadh compound bombings in Saudi Arabia, carried out by al-Qaeda, kill 39 people.[†]
Two major bombings took place in residential compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on 12 May 2003, 39 people were killed, and over 160 wounded when bombs went off at three compounds in Riyadh—Dorrat Al Jadawel, Al Hamra Oasis Village, and the Vinnell Corporation Compound. On 8 November, a bomb was detonated outside the Al-Mohaya housing compound west of Riyadh, killing at least 17 people and wounding 122, mostly Arab foreigners.
In 2003, the world population was approximately 6,420,361,634 people[†]