Washington
Senate office opening delayed
The planned reopening of the Hart Senate office building was postponed for at least another day Thursday as tests for anthrax were performed on a bag of cleanup gear found in a hallway ceiling.
The building, across the street from the Capitol, was to reopen at noon today to the public and staffs of the 50 senators who normally have offices there. It has been shuttered since Oct. 17, two days after an anthrax-laden letter was opened there in the suite of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
But officials announced Thursday that they had found a bag of gear, including gloves and hazardous material body suits, in the ceiling above a sixth floor corridor outside Daschle's office.
Congress is out of session until Wednesday.
An initial test for anthrax on the bag's contents was negative and final results were expected today, said Capitol Police spokesman Lt. Dan Nichols.
GENEVA
Smallpox stance reversed
Acting on fears of bioterrorism, the World Health Organization's governing body on Thursday reversed a long-standing order for the destruction of all smallpox virus stocks and recommended they be retained for research into new vaccines or treatment.
The U.N. health agency's 32-member Executive Board endorsed a recommendation by WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland to drop a 2002 deadline for destroying the virus, held at top security laboratories in the United States and Russia.
It set no new target for destroying the stocks, saying only that a report on the progress of research should be drawn up in "two to three years."
U.S. assistant surgeon general Kenneth Bernard told the meeting that research into improved vaccines was vital following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States and the subsequent anthrax scare. The risk of the highly contagious virus being used as a bioterrorism weapon can no longer be considered remote, he said.
"We regard the potential release of smallpox as a critical national and international security issue," he said. "We all know the impact of such an event would be devastating for everyone."
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