NASA seeks cause for Columbia's destruction: Following the breakup of the space shuttle Columbia on re-entry last Saturday, NASA officials tentatively identified the cause of the shuttle's destruction, saying that it might be due to a piece of foam on the external fuel tank which struck the shuttle during liftoff, damaging the heat-dissipating tiles under the shuttle's left wing. But according to reports on Wednesday, NASA officials are now questioning this theory, saying that both the engineering study on how the shuttle should have behaved without this component and the properties of the foam itself are such that this scenario seems unlikely. Shuttle program manager Ron D. Dittemore said, "It just does not make sense to us that a piece of debris would be the root cause for the loss of Columbia and its crew. We don't believe it's this chunk of foam. It's got to be something else we don't know about." Authorities are still searching for key pieces of the destroyed spacecraft, including heat tiles, pieces of the left wing and voice and data recorders.
Colin Powell addresses the United Nations: On Wednesday, Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the Security Council of the U.N., presenting "photographs, intercepts of conversations between Iraqi military officers and information from defectors aimed at proving that Saddam Hussein poses an imminent danger to the world." Powell tried to stress the urgency of moving to disarm Iraq, pointing out Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction (through maps and recordings) as well as reminding the United Nations that Iraq has violated United Nations resolutions by refusing to disarm. However, polls indicated that Powell has not convinced everyone of the "need for military action." On Feb. 14, the United Nations will confront this issue again as chief weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei report to the Security Council.
United States economy faces "hiring slump": According to a New York Times article, the United States economy is dealing with "its worst hiring slump in almost 20 years." Since March 2001, almost two million jobs have been lost despite periods of economic growth. A government report is due out soon that may report an increase in jobs in January, but many companies still show uncertainty about the economy and are reluctant to hire workers in significant numbers. President Bush called improving the job market his "first goal" for this year in his State of the Union address last week, and requested Congress pass a $670 billion, 10-year tax cut.
Data compiled by Paige Wassel with information from the New
York Times.