Ukrainian Orthodox Church leader dies

Ukrainian Orthodox Church leader dies

PITTSBURGH

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of America says its leader has died.

The church says in a statement that 75-year-old Metropolitan Constantine died Monday morning after a serious illness.

He was a lifelong resident of Pittsburgh and had led the church since 1993. His secular name was Theodore Buggan.

N. Korea upgrading rocket-launch site

WASHINGTON

Satellite imagery shows North Korea is upgrading its old launch site in the secretive country’s northeast to handle larger rockets, such as space launch vehicles and intercontinental missiles, a U.S. institute claimed Tuesday.

The U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies said the upgrade of the Musudan-ri site began last summer and reflects North Korean determination to expand its rocket program.

Ashes of ‘Scotty’ blasted into space

WASHINGTON

James Doohan, Scotty from “Star Trek,” spent his acting career whizzing through the cosmos. Gordon Cooper was one of America’s famous Mercury seven astronauts. And Bob Shrake spent his work life anonymously helping send NASA’s high-tech spacecraft to other planets.

Now the three men who made space their lives are making space their final resting place. Their ashes — and those of about 300 others — were aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket that blasted into orbit Tuesday as part of an in-space for-profit burial business.

Mountain lion killed in downtown area

LOS ANGELES

Police shot and killed a mountain lion that somehow made its way through an urban landscape before it was found early Tuesday in a downtown Santa Monica office-building courtyard near an outdoor mall and a bluff-top park that offers tourists views of the ocean and the city’s famed pier.

Authorities made multiple attempts to try to subdue the young male cat, including use of a tranquilizer and a pepper ball, before killing it, said Capt. Daniel Sforza of the state Fish and Game Department.

Plane diverted after passenger’s claims

BANGOR, Maine

A US Airways jet traveling from Paris to North Carolina was diverted to Maine on Tuesday after a French passenger handed a note to a flight attendant mentioning that she had a surgically implanted device, raising fears of a terror scenario that security officials had warned about.

There is no evidence the plane ever was in danger, officials said. An examination by two doctors aboard the plane found that the passenger, a French citizen born in Cameroon, had no scars or incisions, said U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who was briefed by Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole.

The FBI and Homeland Security Department warned airlines last summer that terrorists are considering surgically hiding bombs inside humans to evade airport security.

White supremacist gets 40-year term

PHOENIX

A white supremacist likely will spend the rest of his life behind bars after a federal judge sentenced him to 40 years in prison Tuesday for a 2004 bombing that wounded a black city official in suburban Phoenix.

Jurors in February convicted Dennis Mahon, 61, of three federal charges stemming from a package bomb that injured Don Logan — Scottsdale’s diversity director at the time — and a secretary.

Associated Press