Portal:Current events/2004 February 27
February 27, 2004 (Friday)
- Same-sex marriage in the United States: The California Supreme Court refuses a petition by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer asking for an immediate ruling on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage laws and a cease and desist order against San Francisco's granting of marriage licenses to same-sex couples. (365Gay)
- In an angry public exchange, Yasser Arafat calls Fatah official Nasser Yousef a "traitor" and hurls a microphone at him. (Al Bawaba) (Maariv)
- International Space Station crew Michael Foale and Aleksandr Kaleri perform the first ever spacewalk involving the station's entire crew; the spacewalk is cut short by a malfunction in Kaleri's spacesuit. (BBC) (ABC)
- Shoko Asahara, the leader of a Japanese cult that gassed the Tokyo subway in 1995, is sentenced to death by hanging. (BBC)
- The U.S. Justice Department says it will move to block Oracle Corporation's hostile $9.4 billion takeover bid for larger rival PeopleSoft, saying a merger of the two largest accounting and human resources software companies in the U.S. would hurt competition. (SF Chronicle) (Toronto Star)
- Iranian state radio reports Osama bin Laden captured. United States officials discount the reports. (ORF) (AP)
- A bombing of a Superferry by Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines.