There will be no launch today. And tomorrow…
Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison, Kyrie Eleison.
Fierce winds and a stubborn hatch bolt at Cape Canaveral forced NASA to again scrub the launch of Challenger with schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe aboard, the second straight shuttle mission hindered by fickle Florida weather. Although the weather was perfect at the scheduled launch time of 9:37 AM, the problems with the hatch started about an hour before that. They were not resolved until shortly before noon when workers used a hacksaw on the bolt after contending with the late delivery of tools, a drill with a dead battery, and broken drill bits. By the time the workers’ comedy of errors ended, the winds strengthened and sent gusts of 30 mph whipping across a runway where Challenger would land if there were an emergency after liftoff. Launch director Gene Thomas called off the effort about 12:30 PM, the third weather postponement in as many days for the flight. Officials rescheduled the launch for 9:38 AM tomorrow. The seven astronauts, including 37-year-old McAuliffe, the first ordinary citizen named to a space flight, had grim looks on their faces as they returned to their quarters.
The shuttle will spend a second night in the sub-freezing Florida air, its vulnerable solid rocket booster O-rings exposed to temperatures they cannot withstand. Test data since 1977 had demonstrated a potentially catastrophic flaw in the SRBs’ O-rings, but neither NASA nor SRB manufacturer Morton Thiokol had addressed this known defect. NASA managers also disregarded engineers’ warnings about the dangers of launching in low temperatures and did not report these technical concerns to their superiors.
The air temperature on January 28 was predicted to be a record low for a Space Shuttle launch. The air temperature was forecast to drop to 18 °F (−8 °C) overnight before rising to 22 °F (−6 °C) at 6:00 AM and 26 °F (−3 °C) at the scheduled launch time of 9:38 AM. Based upon O-ring erosion that had occurred in warmer launches, Morton Thiokol engineers were concerned over the effect the record-cold temperatures would have on the seal provided by the SRB O-rings for the launch. Cecil Houston, the manager of the KSC office of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, set up a three-way conference call with Morton Thiokol in Utah and the KSC in Florida on the evening of January 27 to discuss the safety of the launch. Morton Thiokol engineers expressed their concerns about the effect of low temperatures on the resilience of the rubber O-rings. As the colder temperatures lowered the elasticity of the rubber O-rings, the engineers feared that the O-rings would not be extruded to form a seal at the time of launch. The engineers argued that they did not have enough data to determine whether the O-rings would seal at temperatures colder than 53 °F (12 °C), the coldest launch of the Space Shuttle to date. During this discussion, Lawrence Mulloy, the NASA SRB project manager, said that he did not accept the analysis behind this decision, and demanded to know if Morton Thiokol expected him to wait until April for warmer temperatures. Morton Thiokol employees Robert Lund, the Vice President of Engineering, and Joe Kilminster, the Vice President of the Space Booster Programs, recommended against launching until the temperature was above 53 °F (12 °C).
When the teleconference prepared to hold a recess to allow for private discussion amongst Morton Thiokol management, Allan J. McDonald, Morton Thiokol’s Director of the Space Shuttle SRM Project who was sitting at the KSC end of the call, reminded his colleagues in Utah to examine the interaction between delays in the primary O-rings sealing relative to the ability of the secondary O-rings to provide redundant backup, believing this would add enough to the engineering analysis to get Mulloy to stop accusing the engineers of using inconclusive evidence to try and delay the launch. When the call resumed, Morton Thiokol leadership had changed their opinion and stated that the evidence presented on the failure of the O-rings was inconclusive and that there was a substantial margin in the event of a failure or erosion. They stated that their decision was to proceed with the launch. When McDonald told Mulloy that, as the onsite representative at KSC he would not sign off on the decision, Mulloy demanded that Morton Thiokol provide a signed recommendation to launch; Kilminster confirmed that he would sign it and fax it from Utah immediately, and the teleconference ended. Mulloy called Arnold Aldrich, the NASA Mission Management Team Leader, to discuss the launch decision and weather concerns, but did not mention the O-ring discussion; the two agreed to proceed with the launch.
The next morning, NASA’s live feed showing launch preparations included this announcement from the launch control team: “I have polled the technical community, and you have our consensus to proceed with this launch. Good luck and Godspeed.” Morton Thiokol engineers Brian Russell, Bob Ebeling, and Roger Boisjoly knew that wasn’t true. They were part of the “technical community,” and they never backed down from their recommendation to delay. But the launch director and other top NASA officials didn’t know it. All they knew was what the lower-level officials at the Marshall Space Flight Center told them: Thiokol and its rockets were “go” for launch. At the time, that’s all that was expected. The Marshall Space Flight Center supervised Thiokol’s booster rockets, and the Marshall officials simply told the launch control team that the boosters were ready. Leslie Ebeling watched the launch with her dad and the other engineers in the Thiokol conference room. The elder Ebeling and a few others expected a disastrous explosion at ignition. So when Challenger lifted off and cleared the launch tower, there was some relief. But not for Bob Ebeling. “My dad bent down to tell me that it wasn’t over yet, that things weren’t clear. And I could feel him trembling,” recalled Leslie Ebeling. Then launch control announced, “Challenger, go with throttle up.” Suddenly, there was a moment of static on the audio feed, along with billowing smoke and flames in the video, as well as pieces of the spacecraft shooting wildly across the sky. “Obviously a major malfunction,” said a voice on the NASA feed. “And then he wept, loudly,” Leslie Ebeling said of her dad’s response. “And the silence in that room was deafening. There was no one talking. It was just dead silence.”
The European Common Market agreed today to ban arms sales to countries that were “clearly implicated in supporting terrorism.” A declaration by the 12 member nations did not mention Libya, which President Reagan has accused of being behind the recent airport attacks. However, one of the participants in the meeting, Linda Chalker, who is British Minister of State at the Foreign Office, said, “There is absolutely no doubt at all that it is Libya the text refers to.”
A senior State Department official explicitly warned for the first time today that the Administration would consider military action against Libya if the nonmilitary sanctions already imposed by Washington fail to achieve results. The official, John C. Whitehead, Deputy Secretary of State, said President Reagan “reserved the right” to use military force against Libya if Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi “doesn’t change the pattern of his actions.” Mr. Whitehead made his remarks in a news conference reporting on his recent trip to rally support for actions against Libya among the allies. ‘Cannot Tolerate’ Qaddafi He said that until Colonel Qaddafi “changes his conduct” in support of terrorists, “it seems to me that Americans cannot tolerate a man living in this world, as part of the world community, and condoning these actions.”
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher told Parliament today that her Government had mishandled aspects of the controversy over the future of a British helicopter company, but denied that there had been any wrongdoing. During a stormy three-hour debate in the House of Commons, the two former Cabinet ministers who took opposing sides in the controversy and subsequently resigned each praised Mrs. Thatcher’s leadership and integrity. At the end of the debate, Conservative Party members backed her with a 160-vote margin on a technical motion and party leaders declared the matter closed. Leaders of the opposition, however, insisted afterward that the Prime Minister still had not answered important questions. “If we accept the explanation that has been given to us,” said John Smith, the Labor Party spokesman on trade and industry, “it is a sorry tale of woeful incompetence. If we cannot accept it, the whole integrity of the administration is suspect.”
A White House spokesman denied published reports that a senior Soviet KGB major-general defected to the United States last spring, and intelligence experts questioned the reports. An FBI spokesman said: “We know of nobody who fits that description.” Asked to comment on a report in a news magazine about the purported highranking defector, White House spokesman Larry Speakes said: “This KGB defector described in U.S. News & World Report is not so.”
For nearly two centuries, Fleet Street has been not only the London district where this nation’s newspapers are printed, but also a bastion of union strength in resisting new printing technology. But Rupert Murdoch, the Australian-born publisher, has directly challenged the unions by introducing computer technology at four newspapers despite a strike by 6,000 of his company’s printers and other production workers. Derek Terrington, a publishing analyst at Grieveson Grant & Company, a London brokerage house, said Mr. Murdoch’s action spelled “the death of Fleet Street, as a way of doing things and as a way of life.” Mr. Murdoch’s modernization drive is also becoming a test of union solidarity, especially since he appears to have won the first round in publishing his papers on Sunday and Monday without the striking workers. The Trades Union Congress, the British labor federation, is trying to close ranks among its member organizations to prevent distribution of the Murdoch papers. The congress tonight termed Mr. Murdoch’s actions “industrial dictatorship” and called on all unions to support the striking workers.
Shimon Peres, making the second visit to West Germany by an Israeli Prime Minister, laid a wreath today at the site of the Bergen-Belsen death camp and later met with Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Under a light snowfall, Mr. Peres prayed briefly at a monument bearing the words “Israel and the World Shall Remember” in the huge Bergen-Belsen site, in northern West Germany. Julius Stolberg, the cantor for the tiny Jewish population in Hanover, recited the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. “I was very moved,” Mr. Peres said afterward. “I prayed as I stood there.”
Christian and Muslim militiamen battled along the Green Line today after Muslim Cabinet members, including Prime Minister Rashid Karami, refused to meet President Amin Gemayel to debate a Syrian-brokered peace pact. The police said two soldiers were killed and eight people wounded in artillery duels throughout the night on the three-mile front. It was the first major clash on the line that divides the capital into Christian and Muslim sectors since the armistice accord was signed in Damascus on December 28 by Lebanon’s three main militia chiefs. Muslim politicians refused to attend the meeting President Gemayel called and said they would take no orders from him because he vetoed the pact. “The President’s stand regarding the accord is the reason behind the country’s present crisis,” said Mr. Karami, a Sunni Muslim. Mr. Gemayel had said he would submit the accord to Parliament if the Government failed to meet.
Hard-line Marxist rebels, now backed by Moscow, were reported consolidating their hold on South Yemen while opening a diplomatic drive for support from their oil-rich Arab neighbors. An official in Aden dismissed ousted leader Ali Nasser Hasani’s ultimatum to the rebels to return to their barracks or face a counteroffensive. Hasani reportedly has massed 40,000 regulars and tribal warriors in his stronghold in Abyan province. Meanwhile, the new leader, Haider abu Bakr Attas, was reported to be consolidating his ties with Moscow.
Iraq said that 6 civilians were killed today and 21 wounded in an Iranian air raid on the northern town of Siddiq, and that Iraq had retaliated with air strikes against military camps in Iranian Kurdistan. Iran had earlier reported a raid by its aircraft on a garrison at Ruwandiz in Iraqi Kurdistan, three miles from Siddiq and 230 miles north of Baghdad. An Iraqi military spokesman said the dead were four women, a child and an elderly man, and the wounded included eight women and nine children. Four houses were destroyed and 10 damaged in the two-plane attack, the spokesman said. The spokesman said Iraq would retaliate “in such a way as to create much damage to Iran” and later reported Iraqi air strikes against four military camps in Iranian Kurdistan. The raid at Ruwandiz was the third reported by Iran on targets in northern Iraq in the last four days.
A leading Indian scientist and an investigator with the Boeing Company testified today that their own investigations had led them to conclude that a bomb had caused the crash of an Air-India jumbo jet last summer in which 329 people died. Harold Piper, the retired investigator, said at a hearing of a commission investigating the crash that “my personal opinion is that an explosive device was planted in the aft end of the airplane.”
A crowd greeted Corazon C. Aquino with adulation as she campaigned for the presidency of the Philippines. A crowd of 50,000 or more choked Manila’s main intersection in the city’s business center where the candidate addressed them. A snowstorm of yellow confetti swirled in the updrafts between office buildings as Mrs. Aquino’s supporters chanted her nickname, “Cory! Cory! Cory!” The candidate stood on a platform in the glare of a spotlight, dressed as always in yellow, her hands at her sides. She smiled in what seemed a mixture of pleasure and embarrassment and turned, sometimes to the left and sometimes to the right, as if unsure quite how to respond. Mrs. Aquino now seems to have a coherent position to offer on such issues as the presence of two large American bases, on the growing Communist insurgency, and on economic reform.
President Marcos shows the boldness of the guerrilla fighter in his attacks from the political stump, whatever the doubts about his war record. In a campaign speech on the outer Philippine islands he invoked the spirit of his assassinated opponent, Benigno S. Aquino Jr., as his secret supporter and accused Mrs. Aquino of planning to decree martial law if she is elected President. Campaigning tirelessly through a day on the outer islands, Mr. Marcos thus sought a strategic refutation of two of Mrs. Aquino’s major campaign arguments: Her focus on the fact that martial law was introduced by Mr. Marcos himself 13 years ago, and her bitter accusation that the President was behind her husband’s assassination in 1983. The tactic of asserting that Mr. Aquino had secretly agreed to a political peace added a barbed element to what has become Mr. Marcos’s set campaign speech for the February 7 election.
President-for-Life Jean-Claude Duvalier of Haiti fired a dozen military officers and dismantled a special police unit in a shake-up of his security operations, state-run television reported. The changes were seen as a move to head off any possible coup attempt amid a growing popular movement against Duvalier. The discharged officers included the head of the so-called Investigation Commission, which kept tabs on political activists. The commission itself was abolished, and several officers considered loyal to the president were brought out of retirement to replace those dismissed. Troops patrolled the streets of Cap Haitien, Haiti’s second city, after a weekend of antigovernment protests there.
He has a reputation among his countrymen as an unusually hardheaded politician who resigned from the Government three years ago rather than bend to the political dictates of the Honduran President. But today Jose Azcona Hoyo returned in style to be sworn in as President of Honduras himself, a position that most political commentators here say will require not only hardheadedness but also a goodly measure of political savvy and compromise if he is to manage the country’s severe economic and political problems. Merely by becoming President Mr. Azcona, who is 59 years old, set a record of sorts. In a country where power has normally changed hands by military coup, he became the first elected civilian leader to succeed another elected civilian as President in more than 50 years.
A report on Ethiopian resettlement has divided the Ethiopian Government and a private relief organization. A report by a Paris-based organization known as Doctors Without Borders says more Ethiopians are dying as a result of a resettlement program than as a result of famine. Ethiopia denied the charge, which appears in a report titled “Mass Deportations in Ethiopia,” a study of the Marxist Government’s efforts to resettle 1.5 million famine victims. The report says that as many as 300,000 people are likely to die in the process, a death rate of 20 percent.
Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, acclaimed by many American conservatives as a “freedom fighter,” will arrive today for a 10-day U.S. visit, seeking financial aid in his battle against Angola’s Marxist government. He comes at a time when the Reagan Administration, debating how best to aid Savimbi’s National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, appears to be favoring covert military assistance, coupled with an expression of moral support by Congress. The guerrilla chief will meet with President Reagan, Secretary of State George P. Shultz and members of Congress.
Victorious Ugandan rebel forces consolidated their hold on the East African country, taking control of the eastern city of Jinja, the nation’s second largest. Their leader, Yoweri Museveni, said he plans to form a nonaligned government committed to protecting human rights. He also said tribalism will not be a consideration under the new regime. However, an anonymous eyewitness in Kampala, the capital, said he saw five summary street executions by victorious guerrillas hours after the city fell last weekend. And diplomats warned that tribalism may get even worse, noting that the defeated soldiers “are running, fleeing and breaking down along tribal lines.”
South African Bishop Desmond Tutu returned from a controversial three-week trip to the United States and defended remarks he made about the African National Congress. “I can’t understand why there should be so much hoo-ha,” he said. “I’ve said before — long ago — that I support the ANC in its objectives of working for a non-racial, democratic and just society, and I have said I have not supported its methods.” Tutu accused the South African media of distorting his remarks to make it appear that he supports violent revolution rather than peaceful protest.
Lesotho’s King Moshoeshoe II swore in a new Cabinet headed by Major General Justin Lekhanya, the military officer who overthrew the government of Prime Minister Leabua Jonathan a week earlier. Lekhanya is chairman of the council of ministers and of a six-man military council exercising power in the name of the king. The coup followed a virtual blockade by South Africa, which accused Lesotho of harboring guerrillas of the African National Congress.
The Exxon Corporation will have to pay $2.1 billion in refunds and interest to the Government for overcharges to customers in the 1970’s because the Supreme Court turned down its final appeal today. The money is to be distributed to the states, which will generally be required to spend it on such conservation projects as insulating schools, reducing consumption of energy and aiding the poor with utility bills. It was the second-largest monetary award by a court in United States history, and the largest ever upheld on final appeal. The $10.53 billion, plus interest, awarded the Pennzoil Company in its challenge of Texaco Inc.’s acquisition of the Getty Oil Company is being appealed. The Supreme Court, in another case, also ruled, by 5 to 4, that trustees for bankrupt companies may not abandon toxic waste dumps in disregard of state regulations “reasonably designed to protect the public’s health or safety.” The case suggests that payments for such cleanups take precedence over creditor claims.
A bitter White House debate ended with President Reagan agreeing to a broad, thematic State of the Union speech on Tuesday night that will focus on family values as well as on his domestic and foreign policy agenda, White House officials said. The debate pitted Patrick J. Buchanan, the White House director of communications, against several key aides to Donald T. Regan, the White House chief of staff. A revision of the original draft largely shaped by Mr. Buchanan, who has strong conservative views, was accepted by Mr. Regan and the President. The Regan aides are said to have wanted a stronger focus on domestic and economic proposals and less ideological content in the address, which is to be delivered to a joint session of Congress and will be televised at 9 PM Tuesday. Mr. Buchanan gained the upper hand after months of virtually open conflict over the President’s speeches, officals report. On one side was Mr. Buchanan’s speechwriting staff, who largely believe the President should hew to strong expressions of conservative ideology, and on the other the chief of staff’s aides, who have reshaped and, in some cases, softened Mr. Reagan’s rhetoric.
President Reagan participates in a meeting to discuss the 1987 budget proposal with a group of corporate chief executive officers.
President Reagan places a call to former President Richard M. Nixon.
President Reagan’s high esteem among the American people continues, according to a New York Times/ CBS News Poll, but there is no clear evidence that he has achieved his long-sought ideological realignment. About two-thirds of the 1,581 people interviewed — 65 percent of the total — said they approved of the way Mr. Reagan is handling his job five years after he took office. No President in the last 50 years had demonstrated that much staying power; at comparable stages of their incumbencies, Dwight D. Eisenhower had 60 percent of the public with him and Franklin D. Roosevelt had about the same. On the eve of his State of the Union Message, which is to be delivered today, 39 percent of the public think most Americans are politically more conservative than they were five years ago, but 23 percent think they are more liberal. But on a range of ideological questions first asked about five years ago, no clear swing to the right has been discerned.
Blacks support Mr. Reagan more than they did four years ago, but they are far more critical than whites, according to the New York Times/CBS News Poll. The latest survey, conducted from January 19 through 23, shows that 37 percent of blacks approve and 49 percent disapprove. In all of 1982, in contrast, 10 percent of blacks approved and 76 percent disapproved. Among whites in the latest poll, 68 percent approved and 21 percent disapproved.
Despite his earlier opposition, President Reagan will propose keeping the cigarette tax at 16 cents a pack in his 1987 budget, Administration officials said today. They said that with this shift and several other changes, the Administration now believes that Mr. Reagan needs to propose $38 billion in spending cuts, rather than the roughly $50 billion that had been anticipated. The cuts are an effort to lower the projected Federal defict for 1987 to $144 billion, a target set in the new budget-balancing act. The cigarette tax is scheduled to drop to 8 cents March 15, and the President has argued that blocking the scheduled reduction is tantamount to a tax increase, which he opposes. The shift is part of an Administration effort to make the cuts needed to meet the 1987 deficit target look more palatable.
The Reagan Administration today ordered a halt to approximately $200 million in Congressionally approved spending for urban development. Alfred C. Moran, the Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in charge of community planning and development, told local H.U.D. officials in a letter, “Your staff should immediately return any new proposals received during January for the March 1986 small-cities round” of grants. The Urban Development Action Grants program was given $330 million to spend this fiscal year.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that the First Amendment does not necessarily bar use of state vocational rehabilitation money to finance religious studies by a partly blind student at a Christian college. The Court reversed a Washington Supreme Court ruling that it would be an unconstitutional “establishment of religion” for the state to grant the request of Larry Witters of Spokane for vocational rehabilitation assistance. But it rested today’s ruling on such narrow grounds that it neither guarantees that Mr. Witters will ultimately win the money nor clarifies substantially the confused state of constitutional law as to various forms of government aid to religious education. Underlining the Court’s continuing fragmentation over this politically charged issue, four of the nine Justices wrote opinions, each giving somewhat different reasons for reaching the same result.
A shakeup at the Postal Service was begun by the new Postmaster General, Albert V. Casey. He ousted its top finance, operations and public relations officials, agency and industry officials said. In a news release Mr. Casey announced that a number of officials were “reassigned” or asked to work on “special assignment” in the Postal Service. However, according to industry and agency officials, some of those named in the news release had been asked to resign or were demoted.
James C. Sanders, head of the Small Business Administration since 1982 and a foe of the Reagan Administration’s continuing efforts to abolish his agency, said he will resign his post. “I have pretty much completed all the things that we set out to do. I am very proud of what the SBA has accomplished,” Sanders said in an interview. “It is not my job to determine what agencies get cut,” Sanders said. He said his decision to step aside was not prompted by his differences with the White House budget office. “I have always supported the Administration’s position and I support the President’s final decisions.”
A second witness at the Washington court-martial of Dr. Donal Billig said that Billig accidentally punched a gash into a patient’s aorta, then “stepped back, staring, eyes glazed, as though he was stunned.” Surgeon Charles K. Lee said he stepped in and put his finger on the three-quarter-inch hole in the aorta to stem the spreading blood. He said Billig later did the repair of the aorta badly and the patient died. The case forms one of the five involuntary manslaughter charges that Billig faces for his work at Bethesda Naval Hospital.
The Public Health Service has drafted new guidelines that urge surgeons, dentists and obstetricians to take even greater precautions to avert any transmission of the AIDS virus. It has also drafted recommendations designed to prevent the spread of AIDS in prisons. The government has already issued general guidelines for health-care workers and says the risk that they will transmit or receive acquired immune deficiency syndrome is “extremely low.” Federal health officials said that three health-care workers in the United States had been exposed to the AIDS virus after being scratched or jabbed with contaminated needles, but none have developed symptoms of AIDS. The officials said they had no evidence of transmission of the AIDS virus to a patient from a health-care worker.
Major collective bargaining settlements in 1985 provided first year pay increases averaging only 2.3%, the lowest ever recorded, the Labor Department reported. With December-to-December consumer prices increasing 3.8% last year, economists looked upon the figures from the department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics as further evidence of waning of union power.
Louisiana Governor Edwin W. Edwards conceded he did not have enough votes in the Legislature to pass either his state lottery or casino gambling proposals, and backed off plans for a February 3 special legislative session. Edwards predicted, however, his opponents would not be able to trim the already pared state budget or raise taxes. Meanwhile, the governor and four associates are scheduled to ask a federal judge today to dismiss racketeering and fraud charges against them.
The National Vietnam Veterans Coalition in San Antonio, Texas, urged Congress to set up a commission headed by Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot to resolve the fate of more than 2,000 missing American soldiers who served in Vietnam. “He can negotiate things that the government can’t do because he’s a businessman and, through these negotiating techniques available to him that maybe the U.S. government isn’t in the position to use, he would follow through and resolve this,” said Kent Farquhar, spokesman for the Washington-based coalition of 27 organizations.
After more than a decade of debate, government officials and environmentalists have agreed on a sweeping zoning plan for California’s Big Sur coast that they say will preserve its spectacular beauty. Karin Strasser Kauffman, a Monterey County Supervisor, said, “What this means is that when you look around you 100 years from now, Big Sur will be essentially unchanged from the way it looks today.” The plan, which has been approved in principle and is awaiting only minor technical revisions before final adoption, severely limits development along a 68-mile stretch of twisting, mountainous shoreline whose soaring cliffs, rocky outcroppings and rugged beauty have long caused it to be regarded as one of the most stunning meetings of land and sea in the world. Under the plan, no additional buildings will be permitted along the Big Sur coast that can be seen from any angle: from beaches, parks, campgrounds, major trails or from State Highway 1, a two-lane road that was blasted into the steep coastline with tons of dynamite in the 1930’s and is now traveled by millions of tourists annually.
Immigration agents went aboard a Coast Guard cutter today to question 68 Haitians rescued from an overcrowded sailboat foundering in the Atlantic. Three Coast Guard helicopters and two cutters Sunday rescued 71 Haitians from a 40-foot sailboat that had begun taking on water in 20-foot seas.
13th American Music Awards: Whitney Houston, Huey Lewis and Crystal Gayle win.
It was 6 degrees above zero with a wind-chill factor of minus 25, real Bears weather, and simply a perfect day for the new National Football League champions to come home. And so several hundred thousand screaming men and women lined the streets and windows of Chicago’s financial canyons this afternoon to see and cheer the team that finally ended this city’s long sports championship drought yesterday, routing the New England Patriots, 46-10. “They’ve given us something we’ve been looking for a long time — a winning team,” said Keith Anderson, a city bus driver, as he eased his vehicle through the chilled throngs standing shoulder to shoulder in a blizzard of paper. Anderson wasn’t allowed to wear his Bears hat on duty, so he displayed it proudly on his dashboard.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1537.61 (+7.68)
Born:
Kendall Langford, NFL defensive end (Miami Dolphins, St. Louis Rams, Indianapolis Colts, Houston Texans), in Petersburg, Virginia.
Robert Henson, NFL linebacker (Washington Redskins), in Richmond, California.
Johan Petro, French NBA center (Seattle SuperSonics, Oklahoma City Thunder, Denver Nuggets, New Jersey Nets, Atlanta Hawks), in Paris, France.
Liam Reddox, Canadian NHL left wing (Edmonton Oilers), in East York, Ontario, Canada.
Yohan Flande, Dominican MLB pitcher (Colorado Rockies), in El Seibo, Dominican Republic.
Died:
Lilli Palmer [Peiser], 90, German actress (“Cloak and Dagger”, “Anastasia: The Czar’s Last Daughter”), from abdominal cancer.
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