U.S. MILITARY
INSPECTIONS MIGHT GROUND FIGHTER JETS
The latest Air Force inspectors have discovered major structural flaws in eight older-model F-15 fighters, sparking a new round of examinations that could ground all of the older jets into January or beyond, senior Air Force and defense officials said.
The background: The Air Force's 442 F-15A through F-15D planes, the mainstay of the nation's air-to-air combat force for 30 years, have been grounded since November, when one of the airplanes broke into large chunks and crashed in rural Missouri.
The assessment: "This is going to be a major problem, and it's going to be a difficult one to recover from," said retired Air Force Gen. Dick Hawley. "You could basically be without the nation's primary air superiority capability for an extended period of time, which puts us at risk."
ART HISTORY
MOLD DISCOVERED IN DA VINCI COLLECTION
The latest: Leonardo da Vinci's "Codex Atlanticus," a collection of drawings and writings by the Renaissance master, has been infiltrated by mold.
How bad is it? Until a scientific analysis is done, the extent of the damage and its cause will not be identified, said Cecilia Frosinini, deputy director of the Florence-based state conservation institute, Opificio delle Pietre Dure.
Officials, however, say it appears the mold -- first noticed last year -- isn't spreading. But they also say that any conservation measures will be expensive and that there are no funds for the work. "I feel a moral responsibility now that we are aware of the problem, because it belongs to the whole world, not just Italy," Frosinini said.
The background: The roughly 1,120-page Codex contains Da Vinci's drawings and writings from 1478 to 1519 on topics ranging from flying machines to weapons, mathematics to botany. The Codex is kept in a vault at Milan's Biblioteca Ambrosiana, where temperature and humidity are constantly monitored. Most scholarly research is now done using photocopies, and 400 pages are available for viewing on the Internet.
SPACE EXPLORATION
CONFLICT ON BOARD DELAYS MARS SCOUT
The latest: NASA will wait two years longer than planned and spend another $40 million to launch its $475 million Mars Scout atmospheric probe because of an unspecified conflict of interest in the purchasing process.