September 1, 2002

That fall of 2002, gas ran $1.36 a gallon and Bush was in the White House — the United Nations weapons inspectors were heading back into Iraq for the first time in four years, as the Bush administration pressed its case before the Security Council for confronting Saddam Hussein. On the cultural front, Kelly Clarkson's "A Moment Like This" was topping the charts after her win on "American Idol," while Norah Jones's album "Come Away with Me" was sweeping the Grammys and filling coffee shops across the country. The Anaheim Angels pulled off a come-from-behind World Series victory over the San Francisco Giants, and that same fall, scientists published the complete genome sequences of the malaria parasite and its mosquito host, a landmark breakthrough that researchers called a critical step toward eventually defeating a disease that killed more than a million people a year.