Ukraine announces plans to build a large steel covering over the radioactive site of the Chernobyl disaster, the world's largest nuclear disaster. The cover is to be built by a French company and will cost $1.4 billion over five years. It is now more than 20 years since the disaster and levels of radiation still make the area uninhabitable.

Columbia Phonograph Broadcasting System went on the air with 47 radio stations. However, the radio network lost money in its first year, and on 18 Jan 1929 Columbia Records sold out to a group of private investors for $400,000, headed by William S. Paley, a Philadelphia cigar manufacturer. The radio network was renamed The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS).