Federal offices in Washington, closed Monday for the holiday, remained closed Tuesday to reduce traffic and help crews clear the streets of snow and Washington Mayor Anthony Williams said it could take up to three days to clear the streets of snow.

"Once you've plowed this stuff, where do you dump these mountains of stuff?" Williams told a local television station. "You can't just dump it in the river. That's an environmental hazard."

Even though this snow total was higher than in the Blizzard of '78, most people agreed the earlier storm was much more severe because of higher winds and the damage caused by coastal flooding.

In the nation's capital, many monuments and museums that were closed on Monday for the holiday reopened to the public on Tuesday.

Airports shut down by the weather also were re-opening, although many cancellations and delays were still reported. Thousands of flights were canceled, and officials said it would take several days to get back to normal schedules.

Some 17 to 18 inches of snow fell in the District of Columbia, the sixth largest snowfall in the capital. A record 26 inches was recorded at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

In Baltimore, the weather service recorded 26.6 inches of snow, surpassing the city's record snowfall of 26.5 inches in late January 1922.

Analysts have been able to salvage about five seconds' worth of additional data about the shuttle, which broke up over Texas on Feb. 1, killing seven astronauts. Initially, the data show two thruster jets firing to counteract an excessive and uneven drag on the shuttle's left side. In the final second of telemetry from the shuttle, a third and then a fourth thruster jet joined the losing tug-of-war to steady the ship.

"That is an unusual thing," said James Hallock, chief of the Department of Transportation's Aviation Safety Division, who is serving on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. "When you get up to the point where you have three, and then four of these (thrusters) firing, then things are really starting to happen fast."

The telemetry is among key evidence being collected by the investigation team tasked to determine the root cause of the accident as well as any contributing factors. Panel Chairman Harold Gehman says his team is casting a wide net, looking simultaneously into budget issues, management practices, the aging of the shuttle fleet as well as technical, engineering and scientific issues that may have affected the orbiter's performance.

"No matter what we find here, the report we write will be deep enough and rich enough that it will be the foundation for a good intellectual debate about what we (as a country) do next," Gehman said.

Gehman also confirmed the panel has obtained pictures of the shuttle taken by a high-resolution Air Force telescope in Hawaii. He said the images show no apparent damage to the untrained eye, but specialists were studying the photographs to determine whether the shuttle showed any signs of damage before it approached the California coast.

Eyewitnesses have filed reports and sent videotapes and photographs of debris shedding from the orbiter as it crossed the western United States. So far, attempts to locate debris that may have fallen west of Fort Worth, Texas, have been unsuccessful.

About 14,000 pieces of wreckage have been recovered from Texas and Louisiana, with almost 4,000 pieces already transferred to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for analysis and reconstruction efforts. Gehman said the total weight of the debris represents only a tiny fraction of the entire ship and its contents.

Blair's current troubles stem from the fact that he is hated and despised by his own party -- the blend of socialist Old Labor that survives from the past and reformist New Labor that he helped to create in the last decade. Whatever the other differences between Old and New Labor, they tend to agree on the importance of the United Nations, the need to tie down Uncle Sam with international ties and treaties, and the Texan recklessness of George W. Bush (or any Republican president, come to that.)

By taking up a firm position as Tonto to the Lone Bushranger, Blair has outraged the deepest sensibilities of his own party on foreign policy. If the U.N. Security Council eventually blesses a liberation of Iraq, he will have enough of a fig leaf to carry the great majority of Labor MPs with him in supporting the war. If the U.S.-led coalition invades Iraq without U.N. approval, then Blair will face a serious rebellion on the enemy benches.

That rebellion might be kept small if Blair enjoyed the affection and respect of his party on other political issues. In the last few months, however, he has also adopted domestic political positions that both run directly counter to the outlook of Old Labor and make New Labor nervously uncomfortable.

It is hard to think of a precise American comparison, but all this is a little like the Rev. Jesse Jackson coming out against affirmative action racial preferences.

It is easy to guess whom Blair would want as his allies -- and whom he would prefer to avoid. Because most Tories are Euroskeptics hostile to Britain joining the Euro single currency, he would prefer to keep them on the opposition benches and off the enemy ones. Blair dreams of taking Britain in the Euro and receiving the European presidency as his reward after Downing Street. He wants the Tories out of power indefinitely.

Like many British politicians of the last century, including Lloyd George and Churchill, he would like to create a Center Party that combines the New Labor Right, the centrist Liberal Democrats, and the shrinking pro-European wing of the Tories. And that is a coalition he might be able to put together in the heat of a government crisis -- even though some Lib-Dems currently posture as being to New Labor's left.

Something very similar happened in 1922 when the glittering Coalition of Lloyd George, Churchill, Birkenhead and practically every other prominent British statesmen of the day was humiliatingly defeated by the Tories under Bonar Law who promptly went on to become famous as "the unknown prime minister."

Blair will probably remain prime minister until he decides to step down voluntarily. But there are rapids ahead --and as history shows, no one can tell in advance who will sink and who swim when the boat capsizes.

Non-members of the council began delivering their views on Iraq to the 15-member panel as a follow-up to Friday's session in which the top U.N. weapons inspectors delivered their positive reports on the resumed searches in Iraq, while Washington and London considered a new resolution to authorize the use of force. Council members and Iraq spoke Friday.

Western diplomatic sources in the council said a British-U.S. draft resolution could come as early as Wednesday but thought it more likely later in the week, and possibly even next week. While London's and Washington's envoys met in New York over Iraq and discussed the possibility of a new measure, it was clear from the diplomats that Washington was making the decision on what would go into it and when it would be proposed.

This session was requested by the NAM with more than 60 nations listed to speak Tuesday and Wednesday.

"Resorting to war without fully exhausting all other options represents an admission of failure by the Security Council in carrying out its mandate of maintaining international peace and security," Kumalo said, who opened the debate in late afternoon. The opening was postponed from the morning by a massive snowstorm through the United States' Northeast.

Kumalo called for the body to redouble its efforts to bring about a peaceful resolution to the situation.

Speaker after speaker were against a military move on Baghdad, none more so than Iraqi Ambassador Mohammed Aldouri, who was the first in line behind Kumalo and said his country's record of compliance with Security Council resolutions is "unprecedented in this international organization or in the history of international relations."

Expressing his thanks to Kumalo for seeking the open session, Aldouri said the debate came as members were seeking to manage "the current crisis and resolving it peacefully at the time when the United States of America and Britain continue their feverish efforts to launch an aggressive war against my country which has been subject of an unjust and comprehensive embargo for the past 12 years."

Iraq's active cooperation since agreeing last October to the return of U.N. inspectors had resulted in the refutation of all allegations from the United States and Britain, he said.

"Reason and wisdom make it incumbent upon us to ask if there is any justification for the United States and Britain to launch war against Iraq under the pretext of their concern about Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction, even at a time when Iraq is under an ongoing monitoring and verification system," Aldouri said.