Colorado's expanding federal presence

Many of you already know about North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and U.S. Northern Command being based in Colorado Springs. Well, according to media reports in the Denver Post and Washington Post the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA) are now coming to the Denver metro area. The presence of all these government agencies means that Colorado will now be a major intelligence hub.

Remembering the Challenger

20 years ago today the space shuttle Challenger exploded soon after takeoff. In addition to 6 astronauts, one middle school teacher, Christa McAuliffe, was on board. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has put together a Flash presentation on the tragedy. If you are interested in how the explosion occurred and the changes NASA has made, check out the Challenger STS 51-L Accident web site. We also have the five volume report to the President available for checkout here in Government Publications.

Palestinian Elections

Yesterday parliamentary elections were held in Palestine. Preliminary reports in the media (link good until 2/8/06) give Hamas a substantial victory. The Central Elections Commission will release final results on their web site sometime this afternoon. Want to learn more about the Arab-Israeli conflict? Check out our subject guide at: http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/govpubs/us/arabisrael.htm.

Death in 2003

The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has just released the final data for deaths in 2003. The top cause of death was heart disease followed by cancer and stroke. For a more positive look, why not check out information on births? In 2003, according to "Births: Final Data for 2003," there were 4,089,950 births, up 2 percent from 2002.

Federal government web changes

This article on llrx.com is a round up of recent changes to federal government web sites:
http://www.llrx.com/columns/govdomain12.htm#top