USA
A Mars orbiter, originally scheduled to launch Thursday, is set to lift off Friday instead from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The launch was postponed with only minutes to go after NASA discovered a glitch with the computer software used to monitor rocket fuel. The mission, which will spend four years circling Mars, will use the largest telescopic camera yet sent to another planet to study the weather, climate, and geology.
A tractor-trailer carrying more than 35,000 pounds of explosives overturned and exploded Wednesday 60 miles south of Salt Lake City, injuring at least 19 people. A 30-foot-deep crater spanned the entire width of US Route 6, a two-lane highway. The driver, who appeared to lose control of the truck, was listed in fair condition.
A fugitive prison inmate and his wife, wanted in the ambush of two guards outside a Tennessee courthouse, were arrested without incident Wednesday night at a Columbus, Ohio, motel. A taxi driver who'd dropped off the couple contacted authorities with the whereabouts of George and Jennifer Forsyth Hyatte, who were attempting to disguise their identities. Mrs. Hyatte, a former prison nurse, helped her husband escape Tuesday by fatally shooting one guard and wounding another. Reports said she was lightly wounded by return fire. The couple will be returned to Tennessee to face first-degree murder charges. Hyatte, who was in court on a robbery charge, has a long criminal record that includes a handful of escapes.
A Virginia law that requires public school students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance daily was upheld Wednesday by a three-judge US appellate court in Richmond, Va. Edward Myers, who belongs to the Anabaptist Mennonite faith, which opposes the mingling of church and state, filed the suit because he claims the pledge's reference to God is an unconstitutional promotion of religion.
Seeking to secure his third major golf title of the year, Tiger Woods teed off in Thursday's opening round of the PGA Championship at the Baltusrol course in Springfield, N.J. Woods already has won the Masters and the British Open. Victories in three majors is a feat he accomplished once before, in 2000, when he became the first golfer since Ben Hogan in 1953 to do so.
