Mission to Mars begins smoothly
A robotic dirt and ice digger rocketed toward Mars on Saturday, beginning a 422 million-mile journey that NASA hopes will culminate next spring in the first landing within the red planet’s Arctic Circle.
The Phoenix Mars Lander blasted off before dawn, precisely on time, hurtling through the clear moonlit sky aboard an unmanned Delta rocket.
Not quite six hours later, the Phoenix Mars Lander was already 365,000 miles from Earth and had settled into a cruising speed of more than 12,000 mph. Everything seemed to be working fine, mission officials said.
If all goes as planned – a big if considering only five of the world’s 15 attempts to land on Mars have succeeded – the spacecraft will set down on the Martian arctic plains on May 25, 2008, and spend three months scooping up soil and ice, analyzing the samples in minuscule ovens and mixing bowls.
Oakland, Calif.
Handyman admits to killing editor
A 19-year-old man arrested in raids connected to a Black Muslim bakery in Oakland was booked on murder and weapons charges Saturday after he reportedly confessed to the street slaying of a journalist in that city.
Devaughndre Broussard, a handyman at Your Black Muslim Bakery, admitted to investigators that he shot Chauncey Bailey because he was upset with the Oakland Post editor’s past stories about the bakery and its leaders and was concerned with stories he thought Bailey might have in progress, the Oakland Tribune reported Saturday.
Bailey, a former Oakland Tribune and Detroit News reporter, recently became editor of the Oakland Post, a black community newspaper. Walter Riley, attorney for the newspaper, said Friday that Bailey had been working on a story detailing financial allegations against the bakery, which has filed for bankruptcy, but that the story needed additional work before possible publication.
Washington
House approves Pentagon budget
The House approved modest changes to President Bush’s record Pentagon budget proposal early today, but Democrats signaled plans to resume a more contentious debate over the Iraq war after the August recess.
The House’s $459.6 billion version of the defense budget, approved on a 395-13 vote, would add money for equipment for the National Guard and Reserve, provide for 12,000 additional soldiers and Marines, and increase spending for defense health care and military housing.
The measure does not include Bush’s 2008 funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Democrats say they want to consider that money in separate legislation in September. This approach would set the stage for a major clash over the war; Democrats are likely to try to impose conditions on the money.