Events at a Glance

DIPLOMACY

The Bush administration urged Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance to yield to the United Nations and install a broad-based government representing the country’s multiple ethnic groups, an administration official said.

INVESTIGATION

Osama bin Laden built a shadow air force to support his terrorist activities over the years, using Afghanistan’s national airline, a surplus U.S. Air Force passenger jet and clandestine charters to help support his Al Qaeda terror network.

HOMECOMING

After the Taliban’s retreat from the area, thousands of people--their possessions piled high onto camels, donkeys, trucks and tractor-drawn wagons--are leaving their desolate refugee camps and returning to the villages they abandoned when the forces of the Afghan regime swept through.

SECURITY

It has become much harder to get some kinds of information from federal and state governments and public libraries, as heightened concerns about national security has often trumped the public’s “right to know.”

RADIO TALK

Seeking to draw attention to the treatment of women and children in Afghanistan, the White House assigned President Bush’s weekly radio address to First Lady Laura Bush, who said the war on terrorism is “a fight for the rights and dignity of women.”

THE LAW

The brief, bungled U.S. mission of Nazi saboteurs is a footnote to World War II history, but it looms large in American law because it established the precedent for secret military trials in some circumstances.