In the Nation
Atlantis heading back from space
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The shuttle Atlantis undocked from the International Space Station and headed home yesterday, with one astronaut eager to hold his newborn daughter for the first time and another who has been away from her 7-year-old son since the summer.Before signing off from Mission Control, flight director Mike Sarafin wished the seven crew members a happy Thanksgiving and a good landing tomorrow.
Astronaut Nicole Stott, on her way home after three months in orbit, said goodbye to the five colleagues she left behind on the space station.
A few hours after the undocking, the shuttle astronauts used a 100-foot, laser-tipped boom to conduct a final inspection of their ship's wings and nose, to make sure the vulnerable thermal shielding was not damaged over the last week. - AP
Kennedy's widow talks of his illness
CHICAGO - Vicki Kennedy, the widow of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D., Mass.), told Oprah Winfrey in an interview broadcast yesterday that even as her husband knew he was dying of brain cancer, he had been "in training" to make sure he had enough strength to attend President Obama's inauguration.Vicki Kennedy said she wouldn't try to run for her husband's former Senate seat. She would not talk about the last thing he said to her before he died in August.
She told Winfrey how her husband kept working on his book after his diagnosis and even called Senate colleagues to talk about legislative strategy as he traveled to North Carolina to undergo brain surgery.
Despite initially being told he had just a few months to live, she said, he was determined to survive long enough to see Obama sworn in. "He was exercising every single day to be strong enough to be there," she said, even calculating how many steps he would have to take that day. - AP
Ruling may delay executions in Ky.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the state improperly adopted the same three-drug lethal-injection protocol that was upheld in the U.S. Supreme Court and is used by dozens of other states.The ruling does not challenge the execution technique; it says only that state did not follow proper administrative procedures, including public hearings, before putting it in place. The development could delay three executions the state attorney general seeks to schedule, including that of convicted killer Ralph Baze, a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
In Ohio yesterday, a federal appeals court ruled that Kenneth Biros, a convicted killer whose execution was delayed as he argued that his state's lethal-injection method was unconstitutional, can die as scheduled next month, now that Ohio has instituted a different, single-drug method. - AP
Elsewhere:
A nurse anesthetist in metro Atlanta, Paul Patrick Serdula, 47, has been charged with molesting and sodomizing anesthetized patients in dental and medical offices. Police say the videotaped abuses could involve 100 or more victims.
