Journalist. He was kidnapped and ultimately executed by Islamic extremists while working as the South Asia Bureau Chief of The Wall Street Journal, based in Mumbai, India. He had travelled to Pakistan as part of an investigation into the alleged links between Richard Reid (the "shoe bomber") and the terrorist group Al-Qaeda. Born in Princeton, New Jersey to Jewish parents, he moved to Encino, California (a suburb of Los Angeles) with his family where he attended Portola Middle School and Birmingham High School. His father was a professor of Computer Science and Statistics, director of the Cognitive Systems Laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and his mother was of Iraqi Jewish decent. In 1981, he attended Stanford University in Stanford, California and graduated in 1985 with Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communications. After graduating, he spent the following summer as a Pulliam Fellow intern at The Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis, Indiana. Following a trip to the then-Soviet Union, China and Europe, he joined the North Adams Transcript and The Berkshire Eagle in western Massachusetts, then moved on to the San Francisco Business Times in San Francisco, California. In 1990, he accepted a position with the Wall Street Journal's Atlanta, Georgia bureau and three years later relocated with them to Washington DC. His most notable investigations covered the ethnic wars in the Balkans, where he discovered that charges of one alleged genocide committed in Kosovo were unsubstantiated, and the American missile attack on a supposed military facility in Khartoum, which he proved to be a pharmaceutical factory. He subsequently took a position with the South Asia Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal in Mumbai, India. On January 23, 2002, on his way to what he thought was an interview with Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani at the Village Restaurant in downtown Karachi, Pakistan, he was abducted near the Metropole Hotel by a militant group calling itself the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty. The group claimed he was a spy and their demands included the release of all Pakistani terror detainees, and the release of a halted U.S. shipment of F-16 fighter jets to the Pakistani government. He was executed by his captors nine day later, on February 1, 2002, at the age of 38. On February 21, 2002, he was confirmed dead by the US Department of State. In July 2002, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British national of Pakistani origin, was tried sentenced to death by hanging for Pearl's abduction and murder. Then on March 10, 2007, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, an alleged Al Qaeda operative reported to be third in command under Osama bin Laden, claimed responsibility, before his Combatant Status Review Tribunal, for his murder. After his death, the Daniel Pearl Foundation was formed by his family and friends, to continue his mission and to address what they consider the root causes of his death. The Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture at UCLA was established by the foundation in 2002. The Daniel Pearl World Music Days has been held worldwide in his honor since 2002, and has promoted over 1,500 concerts in over 60 countries. A collection of his writings, titled "At Home in the World," was published posthumously in 2002. Among his posthumous recognitions include the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award from Colby College in Waterville, Maine (2002), the Lyndon Baines Johnson Moral Courage Award from the Houston Holocaust Museum in Houston, Texas (2007), the adding of his name to the Holocaust Memorial on Miami Beach as the first non-Holocaust victim (2007), and being named by the International Press Institute its World Press Freedom Heroes (2010). On May 19, 2010, US President Barack Obama signed the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act, which protects US journalists around the world. The act is also designed to use tools from the Secretary of State to ensure that freedom of press is upheld in other countries. In 2003 his widow, Mariane Pearl, wrote the memoir "A Mighty Heart," which tells his full story and more about his life. The book was adapted into a film in 2007, starring Dan Futterman as Daniel Pearl, Angelina Jolie as Mariane Pearl.