Datebook
Datebook
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16
REMEMBERING RFK. Three events on Capitol Hill commemorate the 80th anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy's birth (actually November 20). The former attorney general and president's brother was assassinated while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968. A current Democratic star, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, who was 6 years old when Kennedy was killed, will be the keynote speaker.
NO, IT'S MY INTERNET. The United Nations World Summit on the Information Society opens in Tunisia and promises an acrimonious debate over who controls the Internet and freedom of speech on the Web. The European Union and countries including China and Brazil contend that the Internet should be overseen by an international body or a group of nations, not the American-based private organization that now regulates domain names and that ultimately answers to Washington. But the United States says it won't yield that power.
AUTHOR, AUTHOR! The 2005 National Book Awards are presented at a dinner in New York. Among this year's finalists are E. L. Doctorow (The March) and William T. Vollmann (Europe Central) in fiction, Joan Didion (The Year of Magical Thinking) in nonfiction, John Ashbery (Where Shall I Wander) and W. S. Merwin (Migration: New and Selected Poems) in poetry, and Walter Dean Myers (Autobiography of My Dead Brother) in young people's literature.
CHUBBY CHILDREN. Everyone agrees there are too many fat kids in America, but what will happen when manufacturers try to develop devices to treat the problem of childhood obesity? A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee meets today and tomorrow in Gaithersburg, Md., to discuss ethical and scientific issues that could arise in running clinical trials of such devices. Now, only one device is marketed to treat obesity in adults, and none are approved for children. Yet applications for devices to treat adults have increased, and the FDA expects that companies will soon turn their attention to kids. Among questions that need answering: How old should a child be to take part in a clinical trial, and how long should trials of devices for kids last?
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18
AND REMEMBERING JFK. Dogged investigators of the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas open a three-day conference in Bethesda, Md. Among the speakers are former Sen. Gary Hart and a journalist who is suing the CIA to release still-secret documents.
CONCLAVE AT THE KWIKEE MART. The National Association of Convenience Stores winds up its convention in Las Vegas with a speech by former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20
JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG. Sixty years ago today, the trials of 24 Nazi leaders in World War II began in Nuremberg, Germany, before the International Military Tribunal. They were charged with crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and conspiracy. Ten were eventually hanged. Now, in what would be the first war-crimes trials of foreign prisoners since the post-World War II era, the Bush administration plans to try foreigners accused of terrorism in special military courts. But, in a case brought by lawyers for a driver of Osama bin Laden held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Supreme Court agreed last week to hear a challenge that contends the Bush plan would violate prisoners' rights under the Geneva Conventions.
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