NASA's next-to-last space shuttle flight is set to blast off Monday morning, now that mission managers gave the green light Saturday for Endeavour's final voyage.
Forecasters put the odds of good weather at 70%.
Endeavour will fly to the International Space Station under the command of astronaut Mark Kelly, the husband of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The Arizona Democrat, who is recuperating from an assassination attempt, will be at Cape Canaveral, Fla., for the second launch attempt.
Late last month, an electrical problem in Endeavour's engine compartment halted the launch. Only one other shuttle mission remains: Atlantis will soar for the last time in July.
Aid to terrorists
3 charged with funding Taliban
A Miami imam and two of his sons were arrested Saturday on charges that they gave about $50,000 to the Pakistani Taliban, officials said.
The indictment lists about $50,000 in transactions. The money was used to buy guns, support militants' families and promote the cause of the Pakistani Taliban, the indictment charges. It also alleges the imam owns a madrassa, or religious school, in northwest Pakistan that shelters members of the Taliban and trains children to become militants.
If convicted, the men -- all U.S. citizens -- could get 15 years in prison for each of the four counts listed in the indictment. Their mosques are not suspected of wrongdoing.
Assault investigation
IMF leader removed from plane
The leader of the International Monetary Fund, who is a possible candidate for president of France, was pulled from an airplane moments before he was to fly to Paris and was questioned by police Saturday in connection with the sexual assault of a hotel maid, police said.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, 62, was taken off the Air France flight at Kennedy airport by officers from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and turned over to police Saturday, a New York police spokesman said. No charges have been filed.
A spokesman for the IMF in Washington had no immediate comment.
Strauss-Kahn was investigated briefly in 2008 over whether he had an improper relationship with a female employee.
Strauss-Kahn, rejected by the French Socialists as their presidential candidate in 2006, gained international recognition as France's finance minister in 1997-99.
Strauss-Kahn is not a formally declared candidate for the French presidency but has topped polls for months as a potential presidential contender. The arrest comes as a grave blow to what was widely believed to be his ambition to run against French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2012 election.
Deadly disease
Ebola kills girl in Uganda
A 12-year-old Ugandan girl died this month in a new outbreak of the Ebola virus, the health ministry said Saturday.
Health authorities isolated 33 people who had been in direct contact with the unnamed girl.
The African nation's first severe outbreak of Ebola was in 2000 in northern Uganda, where it killed 170 people and left more than 400 hospitalized. The second occurred four years ago in western Uganda and killed more than 20 and left dozens of others hospitalized.
Quick hit
Not in: Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Saturday that he will not seek the Republican nomination for president.
Mideast unrest: Masked Palestinians whirling slingshots clashed with Israeli riot police in two Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem on Saturday after the shooting death of a teen who had cast stones. It was a sign of rising tensions on the eve of Palestinian commemorations of their uprooting during the 1948 creation of Israel.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment