Ex-astronaut wins motion

Ex-astronaut wins motion

ORLANDO, Fla. — A judge agreed Friday to toss much of the evidence against a former astronaut accused of making a diaper-assisted, 1,000-mile drive to confront a woman vying for the affections of the same space shuttle pilot. Investigators took advantage of 44-year-old Lisa Nowak, who had not slept for more than 24 hours, coercing her into giving information in a lengthy arrest interview, Orange County Circuit Judge Marc L. Lubet said. Lubet granted a defense motion to throw out comments she made during the six-hour interview and items seized during a search of her BMW, including maps to alleged victim Colleen Shipman’s home, large garbage bags, latex gloves and some soiled toddler-sized diapers. The ruling was a big win for the defense. But evidence from a duffel bag Nowak was carrying — a steel mallet, buck knife, BB gun resembling a real 9mm handgun, gloves and 6 feet of rubber tubing — remains in the case.

Passport price-gouging?

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government has overcharged Americans by more than $100 million a year in its fee for new passports, according to cost figures uncovered by congressional investigators and analyzed by two senators and The Associated Press. The two senators said Americans have been quietly gouged since 2002. The report they initiated showed the costs incurred by the State Department and the U.S. Postal Service, for accepting passport applications, were considerably less than the fee charged. The $97 adult fee for new passports is set by the State Department, which denied Friday that it overcharges anyone.

Civil-rights museum crisis

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The National Civil Rights Museum, built around the motel where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, is drawing criticism that its governing board is too white and too closely tied to big business to watch over such an important piece of black history. “The board should more nearly approximate the soldiers of the civil rights movement that it celebrates, and they were overwhelmingly African-American,” said D’Army Bailey, a black Tennessee judge who played a major role in the museum’s founding but resigned from the board in 1991 when it refused to make him chairman. The museum opened 16 years ago at the old Lorraine Motel and is run by a foundation under a lease from the state. A citizens group largely inspired by Bailey opposes renewal of the foundation’s lease and argues that the museum should instead be run by the government, whether local, state or federal.

Giving Chavez more power

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s pro-government National Assembly overwhelmingly approved constitutional reforms Friday that would greatly expand the power of President Hugo Chavez and permit him to run for re-election indefinitely. The 69 changes to Venezuela’s Constitution now go to citizens for a Dec. 2 vote. The proposed changes, Chavez’s most radical move yet in his push to transform Venezuela into a socialist state, threaten to spur a new wave of political upheaval in this oil-rich South American country already deeply divided over Chavez’s rule.

Immigrants flee camps

ROME — Dozens of immigrants were fleeing their shantytown homes on the outskirts of Rome on Friday after a string of attacks attributed to foreigners prompted authorities to crack down on camps inhabited mainly by Gypsies. Carrying their belongings in bundles and plastic bags, and sometimes atop bicycles, residents left a camp on the northern edges of the capital where police arrested a Romanian accused in the savage beating of an Italian woman near the camp who died Thursday after two days in a coma. The attack on the woman prompted Premier Romano Prodi’s center-left Cabinet to give authorities the power to expel European Union citizens “for reasons of public safety.”

Inventive Ohio twins

COLUMBUS — Wedgie-proof underwear earned 8-year-old twin boys a spot Friday on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” Using rigged boxers and fabric fasteners to hold together some seams, Jared and Justin Serovich came up with the “Rip Away 1000.” “When the person tries to grab you — like the bully or the person tries to give you a wedgie — they just rip away,” Justin explained Thursday by phone from Los Angeles, where the TV segment was taped Wednesday. The third-graders from Gables Elementary School began brainstorming one day after they were horsing around, giving each other the treatment. Their mother’s partner sarcastically said someone ought to invent wedgie-proof underwear, the family said. The project got the boys to the finals of a central Ohio invention competition earlier this year, followed by the television appearance.

Associated Press