Bush aide makes emergency landing
Nashville, Tenn. A small, twin-engine plane carrying White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card made an emergency landing in Nashville Saturday after smoke began pouring into the cockpit, officials said.
Card and 12 others on board were not injured when the Gulfstream IV plane bound for Washington landed at the Nashville International Airport around 4 p.m., said Lynne Lowrance, an airport spokeswoman.
“They thought they could be having some trouble with the avionics instruments, but they weren’t sure what was causing the smoke,” Lowrance said.
The plane left Texas, where Card has been meeting with President Bush at his ranch in Crawford, White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said.
“They made the decision to be safe rather than sorry,” Lisaius said. “I was told it was a fairly routine matter.”
Falcon 1 developers delay maiden flight
El Segundo, Calif. The maiden flight of a new rocket designed to break into the orbital-launch business was scrubbed Saturday because of problems with a liquid-oxygen tank and an engine computer.
The rocket builder, SpaceX, said in a statement it hoped to reschedule the launch within a week. The company is the latest enterprise of Elon Musk, whose previous endeavors include PayPal, the online payment service now owned by eBay.
The two-stage rocket, Falcon 1, is powered by liquid oxygen and kerosene. SpaceX says it would be the first privately developed, liquid-fueled rocket to reach orbit and the first all-new orbital rocket in more than a decade. Its price of $6.7 million would give it the lowest cost per flight to orbit of any launch vehicle, according to the company.
Three people killed in Thanksgiving robbery
Birmingham, Ala. Three people were killed during a Thanksgiving motel robbery, and the robbers escaped with a cash drawer and safe, police said.
The shootings at the Airport Inn were captured by a security camera, police said. Police had the tape, but no arrests had been made as of Saturday.
Police Capt. Herman Hinton said the men may have killed the three victims to eliminate witnesses. The dead included the front desk clerk, a Texas truck driver staying at the motel and a woman who may have arrived to check in.
“This is a heinous crime,” Hinton said.
Motel manager Rufus Carroll said that the video showed the two robbers entering the lobby about 3 p.m. They approached the truck driver first and shot him before he had a chance to stand up, according to the video. The clerk was shot when she attempted to flee, Carroll said. The third victim was apparently shot before the men went behind the front desk to grab the safe and a drawer filled with $300 in cash.
African history museum opens in San Francisco
San Francisco A new museum dedicated to Africa’s history and influence opened Saturday in a neighborhood that’s fast becoming the city’s cultural center.
The Museum of the African Diaspora is aimed at exploring how Africa has influenced the world as people left the continent and settled elsewhere.
“Just the way that ‘Roots’ made us think about our ancestry, we hope this museum will help deepen people’s understanding of their place in the human family and evolution,” said Belva Davis, president of the museum’s board of directors.
The museum, known as MoAD, depicts the struggle and violence that has marked the African continent and the human experience.
Its displays range from ancient stone tools found in Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge to contemporary African art depicting the exploitation of black women.
An oral history project will collect stories from Hurricane Katrina survivors who relocated to the Bay Area.
The three-story museum opened near the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Yerba Buena Gardens in the heart of downtown.