Bias complaints skyrocket

WASHINGTON -- The number of workplace discrimination complaints filed by Arab-Americans, Muslims and Sikhs has more than doubled since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported Tuesday.

Between Sept. 11 and Dec. 6, officials said, the EEOC received 166 complaints of illegal discrimination from members of those groups, mostly Muslim workers who were fired from their jobs. During the same period one year ago, 64 such claims were filed.

But there were different views at the hearing about how widespread the problem is.

Commissioner Paul Igasaki said that despite the surge in numbers, the EEOC -- which gets 80,000 complaints a year -- has received a "relatively small number." He said the agency has had "trouble getting cases we can move" into the courts.

In contrast, Arshad Majid, an official of the National Association of Muslim Lawyers, said his organization is aware of "hundreds, thousands" of such cases, which he called "incredibly troubling."

Some disagree on time jet hit trade center

NEW YORK -- Accounts have varied by up to three minutes of the exact moment the first hijacked jetliner struck the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.

President Bush spoke Tuesday of "the 46th minute on the eighth hour" as the time American Airlines Flight 11 struck the center's north tower. The White House said the time was based on seismograph recordings from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y.

The crash was also "estimated" at 8:46 a.m. by the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado Springs, Colo.

New York City, however, scheduled its one-month memorial ceremony at 8:48 a.m. Oct. 11. Detective Kevin Czartoryski, a police spokesman, said 8:48 remains the official time in police records, based on 911 calls and witnesses.

Audiotapes from air traffic control centers that were in contact with the jetliners reported the plane striking the first tower at 8:47 a.m. And some news accounts placed the impact at 8:45.

But David Phelan, a spokesman for Lamont-Doherty, said the observatory recorded the first impact at 8:46:26. The impact registered 0.7 on the observatory's seismograph, which measures ground vibration in earthquakes.

NASA's 3-D maps of Earth start to trickle out

SAN FRANCISCO -- NASA has begun giving scientists access to portions of extraordinarily accurate 3-D maps of Earth's surface that were placed under a security embargo after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The agency allowed scientists to begin downloading data for U.S. sites on Friday, but is withholding maps of foreign territories. Scientists are prohibited from making the information public.

The digital maps are being processed from data gathered during the February 2000 Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, which made 1-trillion measurements.

Scientists had planned to present the first large maps Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union's annual meeting in San Francisco. Instead, scientists displayed only one map: a digital mosaic of California.

NASA officials said that they were not yet allowed to publicly release the other maps because of security concerns, but that they could be made public soon.

Officials: Salt Lake airport workers to be arrested

Authorities said Tuesday that they planned to arrest 69 Salt Lake City International Airport workers for lying about their backgrounds to get jobs and security passes, in the largest such crackdown since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Most were said to be illegal immigrants and worked in jobs ranging from security screening to cargo handling and airplane maintenance.

An additional 200 Salt Lake City airport workers who were judged to have committed less serious infractions will face administrative action from the Immigration and Naturalization Service for being in the country illegally.

The workers aren't thought to have coordinated their efforts or to have attempted any type of threat, said Paul Warner, the Utah U.S. attorney who won indictments against the workers from a federal grand jury Thursday.

Also . . .

'PATRIOT BOND' ON SALE: Standing in front of World War II-era posters, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill on Tuesday officially launched sales of the new war bonds, the "Patriot Bond."

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