The Week That Was

The World

Russia said it had pumped an aerosol version of the powerful painkiller Fentanyl into the Moscow theater where more than 100 hostages died from the drug's effects.

Several bombs exploded in the South African community of Soweto, killing one person and injuring another, in an attack that was blamed on white extremists.

Paul Burrell, Princess Diana's butler, was acquitted of stealing her belongings after her death. The prosecution revealed that Queen Elizabeth said she remembered Burrell saying he was keeping some of Diana's possessions for safekeeping.

The Irish Republican Army, under pressure to disband, said it suspended talks with foreign disarmament officials.

Talks between North Korea and Japan aimed to improve relations between the two countries ended without progress.

Swedish prosecutors dropped hijacking charges against a 29-year-old man who boarded an airliner carrying a gun in his luggage.

Moscow's population increased by 17 percent in the past 10 years, to 10.4 million, according to the latest census, but Russia's population decreased from 147 million to 143 million.

Nintendo, the Japanese video-game maker, was fined $147 million by the European Commission for price fixing in some European countries from 1991 to 1998.

Four al-Qaida and Taliban suspects held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were released to their native countries. Three were returned to Afghanistan and a 60-year-old man was flown to Pakistan.

American diplomat Laurence Foley was assassinated outside his house in Amman, Jordan. He was shot eight times at close range.

Bullets fired at a Palestinian suicide bomber apparently detonated his explosive belt, killing three Israeli soldiers trying to detain him near Ariel, a Jewish settlement on the West Bank.

An earthquake in central Italy killed at least 26 children who were attending a Halloween party at an elementary school.

A powerful storm that lashed Britain and Northern Europe with wind gusts up to 95 mph was blamed for 24 deaths.

Human Rights Watch, a U.S.-based group, issued a report saying Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat bears "political responsibility" for suicide bombings which were called "crimes against humanity."

An American soldier killed in March during an attack on suspected al-Qaida positions in Afghanistan died not from enemy mortar fire as originally announced, but from "friendly fire" from an Air Force C-130, a military investigation determined.

The Nation

President Bush proposed an informal agreement with the Senate that would require the body to hold a hearing on a judicial nominee within 90 days and accept or reject the nominee within 180 days.

Minnesota Democrats picked former Vice President Walter F. Mondale to run for the Senate in place of Sen. Paul Wellstone, the incumbent who died in a plane crash and was memorialized in a packed, partisan service.

Jam Master Jay, the D.J. who provided beats and scratches to the rap group Run-DMC's groundbreaking records, was shot to death in a recording studio in New York.

The Arizona Daily Star received a 22-page posthumous letter full of demands from a 41-year-old nursing student who shot to death three professors at the University of Arizona before killing himself.

President Bush signed the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which will give states $3.9 billion to replace - in time for the 2004 presidential election - outdated punch-card and lever machines, and to improve voter education and poll-worker training.

The Consumer Confidence Index fell to 79.4 percent, the lowest since 1993, though the economy grew at a 3.1 percent annual rate in the third quarter primarily because of consumer spending.

A computer programmer at a company that processed wagers on the Breeder's Cup was fired during an investigation of a $3 million Pick Six win by Derrick Davis, 29, of Baltimore, who held the only six tickets that correctly picked the six race winners.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating its chairman, Harvey L. Pitt, for failing to disclose that his choice for a new accounting oversight board - former FBI chief William H. Webster - was being questioned about possible fraud in a company while he headed its audit committee.

Martha Stewart's eponymous company reported a 42 percent drop in third-quarter earnings as its founder was investigated for insider trading of ImClone shares.

The FBI reported that serious violent crime was up by 2.1 percent last year, the first rise in a decade.

The Region

Citing insufficient evidence, Baltimore prosecutors dropped a first-degree murder charge against a 30-year-old man who was accused of killing Rio-Jarell Tatum, a Polytechnic Institute graduate and star athlete who was gunned down in a $10 holdup.

University of Maryland and the Naval Academy will play each other in football in 2005 - the first time since 1965.