Federal judge orders removal of monument
Federal judge ordersremoval of monument
MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- The chief justice of Alabama's Supreme Court vowed to appeal a federal judge's order that he remove a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the state's judicial building.
Attorney Stephen Melchior said Chief Justice Roy Moore would ask the appellate courts to allow the 5,300-pound granite monument to stay in the judicial building until the appeals process is completed.
U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled Monday that the monument installed by the chief justice goes too far in promoting religion and ordered it removed within 30 days.
Thompson said he does not believe all Ten Commandment displays in government buildings are illegal, but he said the monument Moore placed in the rotunda of the state building crosses the line "between the permissible and the impermissible."
"Its sloping top and the religious air of the tablets unequivocally call to mind an open Bible resting on a podium," Thompson said.
Thompson said if Moore fails to remove the monument at his own expense, the federal court will issue an injunction forcing him to remove it.
Democratic governorconcedes Alabama race
MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Gov.-elect Bob Riley began trying to unite the state after Democratic incumbent Don Siegelman conceded the race after a two-week dispute over which candidate was the winner.
Siegelman said he didn't want to hurt Alabama with a drawn-out legal battle as he announced Monday that he was quitting the nation's last undecided gubernatorial race, giving the GOP a 26-24 advantage in governorships.
Riley, 58, will become just the third Republican governor in Alabama since Reconstruction when he is inaugurated Jan. 20.
The three-term congressman called President Bush his role model. He said Bush phoned him after unofficial returns showed him winning the Nov. 5 election by 3,117 votes out of 1.3 million cast.
"He said that was a landslide. He won a national election by 500 votes," Riley said.
Riley said his first job will be bringing Alabamans together with a common vision.
Leonid meteor showerdelights spectators
LOS ANGELES -- People around the world broke out lawn chairs and bundled up to watch what was expected to be one of the best light shows that Mother Nature would put on this century.
As promised, the annual Leonid meteor shower produced a few shooting stars a minute that lit up the evening sky and delighted viewers who opted for star-gazing over sleep.
"In the last 10 minutes I've observed no less than about 20 Leonids. The moon is high and bright, but they are clearly visible," Mike Walsh of Coatesville, Pa., wrote on spaceweather.com, a Web site that devoted its main page to the Leonids.
In Paradise, Texas, which is 35 miles northwest of Fort Worth, about 40 people gathered early today on a site owned by the Fort Worth Astronomical Society. The crowd responded favorably when an especially bright meteor crossed the sky. Several meteors could be seen streaking across the night with bright tails.
"It's just one of those lifetime events," said Richard Brown, a member of the astronomical society.
At NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., an all-night "Leonids Live" show was being broadcast on the Internet.
In Europe, astronomers had their view spoiled by clouds, mist and fog early today. Most Canadian star gazers also were disappointed by bad weather.
Merging black holes
WASHINGTON -- In a very bright galaxy 400 million light-years away, two black holes are drifting toward each other and in millions of years will merge with an eruption of energy and a burst of gravitational waves that could warp the very fabric of space, astronomers said today.
The scientists said the Chandra X-ray Observatory has found the first evidence that two immense black holes can coexist in the same galaxy and that they are moving toward each other for an eventual merger.
The double black holes were found in a bright, highly active galaxy known as NGC6240, some 400 million light-years from the Earth.
Astronomers studied NGC6240 because it produced unexplained bursts of X-rays that appeared to come from one of two nuclei at the galactic center. Images collected by radio, infrared and optical observations showed two bright spots, but did not pinpoint the origin of the X-rays.
Associated Press