Glenn honored with supply ship

Glenn honored with supply ship

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

A space station supply ship named for John Glenn is bound for orbit.

An Atlas rocket provided Tuesday’s lift, just as it did for Glenn 55 years ago. The unmanned rocket took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The commercial cargo ship, dubbed the S.S. John Glenn, holds nearly 7,700 pounds of food, equipment and research for the International Space Station. It’s due there Saturday.

The shipper, Orbital ATK, asked Glenn’s widow, Annie, for permission to use his name for the spacecraft, after his December death.

Glenn, an original Mercury 7 astronaut, became the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962. He launched again in 1998 aboard shuttle Discovery at age 77, the oldest person ever in space.

Man sentenced in case of missing boy

NEW YORK

Almost four decades after first-grader Etan Patz set out for school and ended up at the heart of one of America’s most influential missing-child cases, a former store clerk convicted of killing him was sentenced to at least 25 years in prison.

In a few angry words, Etan’s father condemned the convicted man.

“Pedro Hernandez, after all these years, we finally know what dark secret you had locked in your heart,” Stan Patz said. “I will never forgive you. The god you pray to will never forgive you. You are the monster in your nightmares.”

Hernandez, 56, didn’t look at the Patzes, speak or react as he got the maximum allowable sentence: 25 years to life in prison, meaning he won’t be eligible for parole until he has served the quarter-century.

UK leader seeks snap June 8 election

LONDON

Delivering the latest jolt in Britain’s year of political shocks, Prime Minister Theresa May called Tuesday for a snap June 8 general election, seeking to strengthen her hand in European Union exit talks and tighten her grip on a fractious Conservative Party.

With the Labour opposition weakened, May’s gamble will probably pay off with an enhanced Conservative majority in Parliament – but it’s unlikely to unite a country deeply split over the decision to quit the EU.

Since taking office after her predecessor David Cameron resigned in the wake of Britain’s June 23 vote to leave the EU, May had repeatedly ruled out going to the polls before the next scheduled election in 2020. But on Tuesday, she said she had “reluctantly” changed her mind because political divisions “risk our ability to make a success of Brexit.”

Viewership drops without O’Reilly

NEW YORK

Through four days of Bill O’Reilly’s vacation, his show’s viewership declined by 23 percent in the hands of substitutes Dana Perino, Eric Bolling and Greg Gutfeld.

O’Reilly is on a nearly two-week vacation at the same time Fox News Channel’s parent company looks into a woman’s accusation that her career was slowed when she spurned his advances. Dozens of his show’s advertisers have fled after reports of harassment settlements paid to other women. O’Reilly has denied any wrongdoing.

Nielsen company figures show that so far, viewers aren’t as interested in “The O’Reilly Factor” without O’Reilly. Perino has done the best, with her 3.15 million viewers on Monday down 16 percent from O’Reilly’s performance a week earlier. Bolling also showed a 16 percent drop from O’Reilly a week earlier, and he reached 3.11 million viewers.

Associated Press