In brief: Rocket carries Navy satellite into space
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A Navy communications satellite is bound for orbit.
The Air Force launched an unmanned Atlas V rocket Tuesday night from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The rocket hoisted the third in a series of Mobile and User Objective System satellites.
The first satellite in the MUOS network was launched in 2012 and the second in 2013. A fourth is set to fly this summer. The satellite system is intended to improve ground communications for U.S. military forces. It’s expected to achieve full operational capability in two more years. United Launch Alliance provided the rocket.
Doctor shot inside hospital; gunman dead
BOSTON – A man shot a doctor inside a leading Boston hospital Tuesday, critically wounding the physician before killing himself.
Authorities said Stephen Pasceri, 55, entered Brigham and Women’s Hospital sometime before 11 a.m. and specifically requested the doctor, who police declined to name because he is a victim.
Pasceri, of Millbury, shot the doctor twice just outside an examination room on the second floor of the Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center; he then turned the gun on himself, police said.
Boston Police Commissioner William Evans said officers conducting a room-by-room search found the gunman dead in an exam room with the weapon. The doctor, meanwhile, suffered life-threatening injuries.
The hospital, affiliated with Harvard Medical School, said the doctor was in surgery as of Tuesday evening.
Police said Pasceri wasn’t a patient of the doctor’s and they didn’t specify a motive for the shootings.
Court rules for bearded Muslim inmate
WASHINGTON – A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a Muslim prison inmate in Arkansas can grow a short beard for religious reasons.
The court’s decision in a case about religious liberty stands in contrast to the Hobby Lobby case that bitterly divided the justices in June over whether family-owned corporations could mount religious objections to paying for women’s contraceptives under the health care overhaul.
The justices said that inmate Gregory Holt could maintain a half-inch beard because Arkansas prison officials could not substantiate claims that the beard posed a security risk.
Holt claimed that he has a right to grow a beard under a federal law aimed at protecting prisoners’ religious rights. The law is similar to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that the court said in a 5-4 outcome in late June could be invoked by business owners who object to paying for contraceptives. This time around, the Obama administration, religious groups and atheists alike backed Holt, also known as Abdul Maalik Muhammad. More than 40 states allow inmates to keep beards.
Rubbery goo blamed in death of 100 birds
SAN FRANCISCO – The death of 100 birds in the San Francisco Bay Area has baffled wildlife officials who say the creatures’ feathers were coated with a mysterious substance that looks and feels like rubber cement.
The birds began turning up on a beach Friday. Necropsies and lab tests will be done Tuesday, but results may not be known until later this week, California Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesman Andrew Hughan said.
International Bird Rescue Interim Executive Director Barbara Callahan said she has never seen anything like the sticky gray goo in 20 years in the business.
Officials were investigating whether the substance could be polyisobutylene, which is sticky, odorless, largely colorless, and killed thousands of seabirds in the United Kingdom in 2013.
Officials believe the culprit substance was dumped into the San Francisco Bay and is not a public health or safety risk to humans.
Callahan said it’s likely a man-made product, meaning a pipeline might have burst or someone intentionally dumped the substance.
Model killed was running on tracks
LOS ANGELES – A fitness model and actor who was killed when he was hit by a train was running on the tracks ahead of the train while filming a promotional video for his website.
Burbank police Officer Joshua Kendrick said video from a camera atop the Metrolink commuter train shows 37-year-old George Gregory Plitt Jr. running between the rails Saturday afternoon in Burbank.
Kendrick said the conductor was braking and blowing the train’s horn, but Plitt didn’t get off the tracks.