Liberty Island to reopen to visitors this week

Liberty Island to reopento visitors this week
NEW YORK -- For the first time since Sept. 11, Liberty Island will soon reopen to tourists, but the home of the Statue of Liberty will be under extremely tight security.
Liberty Island, which is just across the harbor from the World Trade Center site, will begin accepting visitors Thursday, park spokesman Brian Feeney said.
However, visitors won't be able to go inside of Lady Liberty until next year due to security reasons, the park service said. The Ellis Island immigration museum, part of the same tour as Liberty Island, will also accept visitors beginning Thursday.
"For over a century now, the statue has represented the ideal of America and liberty," Feeney said. "After Sept. 11, people want to reconnect."
Tightened security means tourists will have to go through screening long before they get near the statue, Feeney said.
"We're going to engage in offsite screening, before the people even get on the boats," Feeney said. "It's going to be similar to airport screening in that anything you're carrying goes through an X-ray machine and you go through a magnetometer."
Space station crewreturn to Earth
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- An American and two Russians returned from their four-month space station mission with "smiles on their faces" and a bounce in their steps, despite all the changes in the world around them.
"We're very grateful to be home for Christmas," astronaut Frank Culbertson said shortly after space shuttle Endeavour brought him back to Earth amid heightened security on Monday.
Culbertson and his international space station crewmates walked off Endeavour, ending an expedition that began in August and persevered through one of America's darkest days.
"To be able to walk off on your own two feet is a testament to what those guys did on orbit on their exercise program and their determination to come back in great shape," said shuttle commander Dominic Gorie.
Culbertson and cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin also were aboard the international space station on Sept. 11 and watched the horrifying smoky scenes from 250 miles up. The space station's cameras captured images of the World Trade Center that were relayed by NASA to news agencies around the world.
2001 expected to be2nd hottest on record
WASHINGTON -- This year will sizzle into the record books as the second hottest ever, according to global temperature data announced on Monday by the U.S. government.
The National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., projected the 2001 average worldwide temperature to be 57.8 degrees Fahrenheit, nine-tenths of a degree above the average temperatures calculated from 1880 through 2000.
That is a significant spike -- average annual temperatures tend to fluctuate by mere fractions -- and it will stir more debate about how fast the planet is warming and what to do about it. Figures are based on more than 14,000 land and sea measurements.
With two weeks still remaining, projections from the first 50 steamy weeks put 2001 as a solid No. 2 for global temperatures, slightly behind the 58.1 degrees in 1998. The eight hottest years on record have occurred since 1990. In order, they are 1998, 2001, 1997, 1995, 1990, 1999, 2000 and 1991.
"This adds evidence to the idea that humans are influencing the climate," said Climactic Data Center chief scientist David Easterling. "There's no denying the numbers here."
Abuse trial to go on
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- A judge Monday refused a defense request to drop elephant abuse charges against a Ringling Bros. and Barnum & amp; Bailey circus star, setting up a closely watched trial this week.
Mark Oliver Gebel, 31, is accused of using a hooked stick known as an ankus to wound an elephant that was being paraded into a circus performance in San Jose on Aug. 25. The misdemeanor charge of elephant abuse carries up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Animal rights groups hope the case supports their long-held claims that circuses with wild animals are cruel and outdated.
Defense attorney James McManis told the judge Monday that even if Gebel did what prosecutors allege, the wound in question was the size of a pinprick and left a blood stain as big as a nickel.
Prosecutor Carolyn Powell said, however, there's no evidence the wound was merely equivalent to a pinprick.
Judge Linda Condron agreed to let the case proceed, and set jury selection for this morning.
Combined dispatches