Challenger Explosion 40th Anniversary and Amazon Layoffs

Forty years ago today, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after taking off at Cape Canaveral's Kennedy Space Center; New Hampshire Public Radio spoke to people who knew Christa McAuliffe, who was going to be the first teacher in space. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve voted to keep interest rates unchanged on Wednesday, despite heavy pressure from the White House to lower borrowing costs. Also, new data shows median rent in LA dropped to about $2,100 in December, the lowest in four years. And for the first time since the pandemic, California's population has stalled. In business, California Covered enrollees may see higher premiums now that pandemic-era health insurance subsidies have expired, and Amazon says it will layoff 16,000 workers and shut down its brick-and-mortar stores. Read more at LATimes.com.