There was news on water, too, of a sort. The General AccountingOffice told a House panel that some bottled drinking waters may notbe as safe as the much cheaper tap version. That's because the Foodand Drug Administration hasn't tended to its regulatory duties theway it should, the congressional watchdog agency said.
GRUNTS, GIGGLES AND GAMMAS: Look, ma, no weight. That's howJerry L. Ross entered the record book. Not since Dec. 1, 1985, hadan American walked in space. Now Ross has logged more time at it (23hours, 9 minutes) than anyone else. He and fellow Atlantis crewmanJay Apt were out there testing contraptions designed to help thepeople who will assemble a U.S. orbiting station in this decade. Thefive-member Atlantis team also fired off the $617 million Gamma RayObservatory, which is to study the most powerful radiation emitted bythe most violent events in the universe.
HOLE STORY NOT KNOWN YET: It's an object, perhaps 200 billiontimes as massive as the sun. Joss Bland-Hawthorn of Rice University,Andrew Wilson of the University of Maryland and R. Brent Tully of theUniversity of Hawaii discovered it while looking for something elsethrough an 88-inch telescope atop an extinct Hawaiian volcano. Themass may equal that of all the stars in the Milky Way, yet it iscompressed into a space 10,000 times smaller. It's 'the largestblack hole' ever found, or. . . ? No one is sure.
IT'S OVER: The Persian Gulf war is. Officially. Peace brokeout at 5 p.m. Thursday, Chicago time. The United Nations said so.
NOW THE HARD PART: Secretary of State James A. Baker III took upthe search for a permanent peace by traveling to the Middle East fortalks with the leaders of Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria andJordan. Israel agreed to the concept of a regional peace conferencebut not on exactly who would participate, particularly who wouldrepresent the Palestinians.
BACK FROM RECESS: It's time to hit the books again inWashington, but where does class pick up? The Democrats, solidunderdogs before the Republican administration took on new lusterwith the Persian Gulf military success, launched a pre-election yearassault on President Bush's social policies. Hoping to focus oncivil rights, family leave, health insurance and crime in thestreets, they unveiled a largely domestic spending plan for nextyear. That groan is from the White House.
JOE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE: More than 200,000 workers pouredout of the city's factories. They had the right to strike, even ifbusiness wasn't good. They had freedom of speech, too, so governmentofficials could only stand by while a statement was read out loud.It said the party in power was 'guilty of the collapse of the economy. . . of lies. . . .' The government suggested the next day thatboth sides talk things over, so the strikers went back to work. Thecity was Minsk, Byelorussia. In the Soviet Union. The Communistswere the 'guilty' party. Joseph Stalin would not have approved.
BLUNT LI SPEAKING: Premier Li Peng insists that China wasjustified in suppressing the June, 1989, pro-democracy demonstrationsas forcefully as it did. If the government faced the situationagain, it would react the same, Li told a press gathering in Beijing.
