Portal:Current events/2007 January 4

January 4, 2007 (Thursday)

Buffalo American terrorist James Charles Kopp has appealed his sentence to federal court. Jury selection is underway. (WKBW)^{[permanent dead link]}
Josefa Iloilo is restored as President of Fiji by Commodore Frank Bainimarama, leader of the December 2006 coup d'état. (AP)
A Russian Soyuz 2 rocket body re-enters the atmosphere as "space junk", breaking up and disintegrating over Denver, Colorado, and is seen throughout the Rocky Mountains of the United States. The rocket was used to launch the French CoRoT astronomy satellite on December 27, 2006. None of the "space junk" fragments are confirmed to have struck Earth. (KMGH) (KDVR)
Quadrantids meteor shower of 2007: An irregular metallic object, the size of a golf ball and the weight of a can of soup, severely damages a house in Freehold Township, New Jersey. No one is injured. (Fox News)
Nancy Pelosi is elected speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and becomes the first woman to hold that post. (CNN)
The New Way Forward in Iraq War leadership:
- U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte resigns. United States President George W. Bush appoints him Deputy Secretary of State according to officials. (BBC)
- Bush replaces key military Leadership in Iraq: Navy Admiral William J. Fallon replaces General John Abizaid as CENTCOM commander and General David Petraeus replaces General George Casey as Commander of Multi-National Force – Iraq. scotsman.com
NASA announces Nature article, Cassini–Huygens found methane lakes on Titan, a moon of Saturn. (NASA) (Saturn Daily)
Keith Ellison, the first Muslim member of the United States Congress and the first African American elected to the House from Minnesota is sworn in using Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an. (AP via The Guardian), (Asian Tribune), (Al Jazeera), (CTV) Archived 2007-01-07 at the Wayback Machine