Endeavour, crew head to landing

Endeavour, crew head to landing

cape canaveral, fla.

Endeavour and its crew of six zoomed toward a middle-of-the-night landing to bring NASA’s second-to last shuttle flight to a close, as Atlantis slowly made its way to the launch pad Tuesday night for the grand finale in just five weeks.

Atlantis crept out of the mammoth Vehicle Assembly Building a little after sunset. At 2:35 a.m. today, Endeavour was due to touch down on the shuttle landing strip just a few miles away.

Mladic extradited

the hague, netherlands

Former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic was placed in a U.N. detention unit Tuesday to await trial on genocide charges, 16 years after he was indicted in the killing of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the worst massacre of civilians in Europe since World War II.

War crimes tribunal spokeswoman Nerma Jelacic said tribunal staff were handing Mladic his indictment and explaining the rules and procedures to him before placing him in an isolation cell for the night. She said isolation is standard for new arrivals at the prison.

Mladic also was being given a list of defense lawyers who could help him through the initial proceedings of the war-crimes court.

Supreme Court throws out case

washington

The Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out damage claims against former Attorney General John Ashcroft over an American Muslim’s arrest, but four justices said the case raises serious questions about post-9/11 detentions under a federal law intended to make sure witnesses testify.

The justices were unanimous, 8-0, in holding that Ashcroft cannot be personally sued over his role in the arrest of Abdullah al-Kidd in 2003.

The court sets a high bar for suing high-ranking officials, and all the justices agreed al-Kidd did not meet it, even though he was never charged with a crime or called to testify in the terrorism-related trial for which he ostensibly was needed.

Crews rush to raise levees in S. Dakota

pierre, s.d.

Crews raced approaching floodwaters Tuesday to complete emergency levees aimed at protecting South Dakota’s capital city and two other towns as the swollen Missouri River rolled downstream from the Northern Plains. Meanwhile, the mayor of Minot, N.D., ordered a quarter of the city’s residents to evacuate areas along the flooding Souris River.

Residents of the upscale community of Dakota Dunes in southeastern South Dakota, below the final dam on the river, have been told to move their possessions to higher ground and be ready to leave their homes by Thursday, a day before releases from the dams are set to increase again.

At 34, entrepreneur Bevacqua dies

los angeles

Jonas Bevacqua, who co-founded the popular street clothing brand LRG in 1999 and presided over its rapid rise as a major fashion force among young people, was found dead Tuesday.

He was 34.

Orange County sheriff’s officials said Bevacqua’s body was found in his Laguna Beach home.

“There were no obvious signs of the cause of death,” sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino told The Associated Press.

He added that the county coroner would conduct an autopsy today.

Calls to LRG’s headquarters in Irvine rang unanswered.

Associated Press