Astronauts get shuttle ready to return to Earth

March 28, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Their mission almost complete, space shuttle Discovery’s astronauts checked out their ship’s flight systems Friday to ensure a safe return to NASA’s spaceport.

Discovery and its crew of seven were due back this afternoon, ending a nearly two-week mission that left the international space station fully powered with a new set of solar wings. Favorable landing weather was expected.

“We’ll keep our fingers crossed,” said shuttle commander Lee Archambault.

Late Friday afternoon, NASA cleared Discovery’s heat shield for re-entry based on the astronauts’ inspection the day before with a laser-tipped boom.

Also Friday, the astronauts exchanged a warm “aloha” with students at the Honolulu school President Barack Obama graduated from 30 years ago. Archambault passed on Obama’s regards — the president asked the crew in a phone call to do so earlier this week.

Experimental vaccine used in Ebola exposure case

BERLIN — It was a nightmare scenario: A scientist accidentally pricked her finger with a needle used to inject the deadly Ebola virus into lab mice.

Within hours, members of a tightly bound, yet far-flung community of virologists, biologists and others were tensely gathered in a trans-Atlantic telephone conference trying to map out a way to save her life.

Less than 24 hours later, an experimental vaccine — never before tried on humans — was on its way to Germany from a lab in Canada.

And within 48 hours of the March 12 accident, the at-risk scientist, a 45-year-old woman whose identity has not been revealed, was injected with the vaccine.

So far, so good. If the woman is still healthy by Thursday, she can consider herself safe.

Doctor acquitted in abortion case

WICHITA, Kan. — One of the nation’s few late-term abortion providers was acquitted Friday of misdemeanor charges stemming from procedures he performed, but moments after the verdict the state’s medical board announced it was investigating allegations against him that are nearly identical to those the jury had rejected.

Prosecutors had alleged that Dr. George Tiller had in 2003 gotten second opinions from a doctor who was essentially an employee of his, not independent as state law requires, but a jury took only about an hour to find him not guilty of all 19 counts.

Tiller, who could have faced a year in jail for even one conviction, stared straight ahead as the verdicts were read, with one of his attorneys patting his shoulder after the decision on the final count was declared. His wife, seated across the courtroom, fought back tears and nodded. The couple declined to speak to reporters afterward.

Blizzard conditions close roads in Southern Plains

DALLAS — A major spring blizzard plodding eastward over the Southern Plains shut down major highways and paralyzed the region as residents braced Friday for up to a foot of snow, freezing 45-mph winds and massive snowdrifts.

Schools and government offices were closed, and hundreds of travelers were stranded by the storm, which left some areas under a coat of ice. The snowfall was expected to be unprecedented for this time of year in Oklahoma, and the National Guard was called out in the Texas Panhandle, where snowdrifts as high as 20 feet and up to a foot of snowfall were predicted before the storm moves on today. In photo above, an Amarillo, Texas, firefighter rescues a girl who was injured in an accident on icy and snowy roads.

Associated Press