Bloomberg wins second term

Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg defeated Democratic candidate Fernando Ferrer in the race for New York City mayor.

Bloomberg, a supporter of abortion and gay marriage, was able to draw many democratic voters to his campaign, a feat not even former mayor Rudolph Giulianni was able to achieve.

Bloomberg’s first term accomplishments include overseeing a tremendous drop in crime and repairing the economy after the World Trade Center attacks.

French government declares state of

emergency

A 12-day state of emergency was declared by the French government Tuesday in an attempt to end the recent riots.

The riots began on Oct. 27 after the accidental deaths of two teenagers of North African descent.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin used a 1955 law drafted during the Algerian War to impose a curfew and other preventive measures on areas where riots have taken place.

The French newspaper Le Monde said that “exhuming a 1955 law sends to the youth of the suburbs a message of astonishing brutality: that after 50 years France intends to treat them exactly as it did their grandparents.”

Riots have taken place in the streets of over 20 French cities. Cars have been burned, and businesses, schools and churches have been attacked with gasoline bombs.

Another lawyer in Hussein trial shot

and killed

Two lawyers representing co-defendants of Saddam Hussein were shot yesterday, killing one and seriously wounding the other.

The lawyers were driving in western Baghdad when their vehicle came under fire.

A panel of five judges is trying Hussein and eight others in the torture and killing of 148 men and teenage boys after an assassination attempt against Mr. Hussein in 1982.

The trial, which opened on Oct. 19, has been adjourned until Nov. 28.

The attack was the second on lawyers involved in the proceedings.

On Oct. 20, armed men seized Sadoun al-Janabi from his Baghdad law office. His body was found later with two bullet wounds to the head. Janabi had been shown on television presenting arguments on behalf of his client, Awad Hamed al-Bander, the former head of the Revolutionary Court under Mr. Hussein.

Australian authorities arrest terror suspects

Sixteen men were arrested during raids in Sydney and Melbourne and were charged yesterday with being members of a terrorist organization and plotting terrorist attacks.

More than 400 Australian police and intelligence officers assisted in the raid, which found chemicals similar to those used in the London bombings this summer. No evidence has emerged linking the men to any outside group, such as Al Qaeda.

The raids were the largest terrorism-related operation in the country’s history.

Corzine wins New Jersey gubernatorial

election

U.S. Senator Jon Corzine, a Democrat and former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs will be New Jersey’s next governor after Tuesday’s election.

Corzine had opened Tuesday with a double-digit lead in local polls but there was some worry within his campaign that the lead had shrunk. His Republican rival, Doug Forrester, owns a company that manages prescription drug benefits.

-Compiled with New York Times and Associated Press sources