Test rocket completes its 6-minute mission
h Test rocket completes its 6-minute mission
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — After a one-day wait for the clouds to clear, the Ares I-X test rocket finally blasted off from Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday morning in a picture-perfect launch that is certain to heat up the debate about the future of NASA’s human spaceflight program.
Looking like a giant white pencil gleaming in the midday sun, the 327-foot-tall rocket soared off launchpad 39B at 11:30 a.m., riding a huge column of flame and almost 3 million pounds of thrust. Two minutes later and 24 miles high, the first stage burned out and parachuted down to the Atlantic Ocean to be recovered.
The entire mission — which carried a throwaway second stage and capsule — lasted about six minutes from launch to splashdown and cost $455 million.
Radical Muslim leader killed during shootout
DETROIT — Federal authorities in Detroit say they fatally shot the leader of a radical fundamentalist Sunni Islam group after he failed to surrender on several criminal charges.
The U.S. attorney’s office says Luqman Ameen Abdullah was killed while exchanging gunfire with federal agents Wednesday at a warehouse in Dearborn.
A court document says Abdullah is an imam, or prayer leader, of a radical group whose primary mission is to establish an Islamic state within the United States. Authorities say he’s also known as Christopher Thomas.
The FBI was trying to round up Abdullah and 10 followers on many charges, including conspiracy to sell stolen goods and illegal possession and sale of firearms.
Musician-hiker attacked by coyotes dies of wounds
TORONTO — Two coyotes attacked a promising young musician as she was hiking alone in a national park in eastern Canada, and authorities said she died Wednesday of her injuries.
The victim was identified as Taylor Mitchell, 19, a singer-songwriter from Toronto who was touring her new album on the East Coast.
She was hiking solo on a trail in Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia on Tuesday when the attack occurred. She was airlifted to a Halifax hospital in critical condition and died Wednesday morning, authorities said.
Coyotes, which also are known as prairie wolves, are found from Central America to the United States and Canada.
No stalking indictment
SAVANNAH, Ga. — A grand jury on Wednesday refused to indict a 53-year-old man jailed since August on charges that he tried to stalk Miley Cyrus as the teen star filmed a movie on the Georgia coast.
The Chatham County grand jury decided prosecutors had insufficient evidence to charge Mark McLeod of Appling, Ga., in Superior Court, which hears felony cases.
A spokeswoman for District Attorney Larry Chisolm said he still plans to prosecute McLeod on two misdemeanor charges, attempted stalking and disorderly conduct, in a lower court.
McLeod has been jailed since Aug. 4 after police arrested him twice over the summer on nearby Tybee Island, where 16-year-old Cyrus was filming the movie “The Last Song.”
Bigfoot sought in W.Va.
ELKINS, W.Va. — A team of Bigfoot enthusiasts is hoping to find the legendary creature in the bogs and barrens of a West Virginia wilderness area.
Members of Sasquatch Watch of Virginia went camping in the rugged Allegheny Mountain highlands of the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area with GPS navigators, cameras, voice recorders and plaster of Paris to make casts of huge footprints.
Billy Willard, founder of the group, says they’re looking in places where people have reported sightings. He says he has never seen Bigfoot himself.
Vindicator wire services