Anthrax-Free Hart Senate Building to Reopen

— -- The Hart Senate Building is anthrax-free and will reopen Friday. Tighter baggage security may cause airport delays. Firefighters are protesting a "politically correct" memorial. Punxsutawney Phil gets a security overhaul. Sept. 11 families find sympathy online.

Senate Building Safe From Anthrax

W A S H I N G T O N, Jan. 16 — The Hart Senate Office Building has beendeclared free of anthrax and will reopen Friday for the first timesince October, when an anthrax-tainted letter was opened inMajority Leader Tom Daschle's office, The Associated Press learnedtoday. An e-mail memo being circulated in the Senate says the Centersfor Disease Control and the Environmental Protection Agency havecertified that the building is safe after weeks of decontaminationprocedures. "We expect the Hart building to reopen at noon on Friday, Jan.18, 2002," said the e-mail memo, which was addressed to allsenators and Senate staff. The memo was confirmed by two Senate staff sources and by anelectronic message from the Senate sergeant-at-arms. "The cleanup achieved the goal of eliminating viable anthraxspores detected in the Hart building, and that it is now safe andclean to release to the Architect of the Capitol for rehabilitationand subsequent re-occupancy," the message says. A Daschle spokeswoman referred questions to Capitol Policespokesman Dan Nichols, who did not immediately return telephonecalls. A letter opened in Daschle's office on Oct. 15 exposed more thantwo dozen people to anthrax spores and led to the closure of theHart Senate Office Building. Cleanup and testing efforts included floor vacuuming, wiping ofdesks, tables, walls and other surfaces, sample swabs taken frommonitor screens and air conditioning grills, air sampling and theuse of chlorine dioxide liquid, chlorine dioxide gas andanti-bacterial foam. "Senator Daschle's suite where the anthrax spill occurred wasfumigated successfully with chlorine dioxide gas," a second memofrom the Senate sergeant-at-arms office says. The chlorine gas has been removed and rendered nontoxic, thesecond memo said. Senators will be briefed Thursday on the reopening, the memosaid.

—The Associated Press

More Delays From Baggage Screening Law?

D E N V E R, Jan. 16 — Across the country, more airline passengers couldfind themselves standing in line or sitting on planes delayed atthe gate when a federal law requiring the screening of all checkedbaggage for bombs takes effect Friday.

The law requires airlines to use any of four methods: handsearches, bomb detection machines, bomb-sniffing dogs or thematching of every piece of luggage to a passenger on board a plane.

Currently, less than 10 percent of the 1.4 billion bags flown indomestic airliners' holds annually are screened for explosives bysuch methods.

For security reasons, airline officials declined to comment onhow they plan to comply on Friday. But airport officials around thecountry said most airlines apparently will use bag-matching.

The technique is designed to prevent someone from checking a bagwith a bomb and never boarding the aircraft. The approach alreadyis used on international flights.

The precaution means that if a passenger fails to board a plane,or gets off just before takeoff, airline workers will have to climbinto the hold to remove his or her luggage. That could createdelays in pulling away from the gate.