DeLay will make court appearance
Austin, Texas A state court issued an arrest warrant on Wednesday for Rep. Tom DeLay, requiring him to appear in Texas for booking on state conspiracy and money laundering charges.
The court set an initial $10,000 bail as a routine step before the Texas Republican’s first court appearance Friday.
DeLay, R-Texas, could be fingerprinted and photographed, although his lawyers had hoped to avoid this step. DeLay probably will surrender in his home county of Fort Bend, near Houston, but he could go to any law enforcement office in Texas. His court appearance will be in Austin.
The warrant, known as a capias, is “a matter of routine, and bond will be posted,” said DeLay’s lawyer, Dick DeGuerin.
DeLay has stepped down as U.S. House majority leader – at least temporarily – under a Republican rule requiring him to relinquish the post if charged with a felony.
Titan rocket makes its final space flight
Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. For the 368th and last time, the United States launched a Titan rocket into space Wednesday.
The blastoff of the 16-story, unmanned Titan IV signaled the end of an era that began in 1959, as the U.S. military converts to cheaper space boosters.
The last Titan carried a secret payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, which oversees the nation’s spy satellites.
Titan’s past included many high-profile missions, including boosting Gemini manned spacecraft into orbit in the mid-1960s as preparation for the Apollo moon landings.
Titan’s retirement will make way for a new generation of rockets, including Lockheed Martin’s Atlas 5 and Boeing’s Delta 4.
Climbers likely found World War II airman
Fresno, Calif. Two climbers on a Sierra Nevada glacier discovered an ice-encased body believed to be that of an airman whose plane crashed in 1942.
The man was wearing a World War II-era U.S. Army Corps parachute when his frozen head, shoulder and arm were spotted on 13,710-foot Mount Mendel in Kings Canyon National Park, park spokeswoman Alex Picavet said Wednesday.
Park rangers and specialists camped on the mountainside in freezing weather for an excavation expected to take several days. The body was 80 percent encased in ice, Picavet said.
Park officials believe the serviceman may have been part of the crew of an AT-7 navigational training plane that crashed on Nov. 18, 1942. The wreckage and four bodies were found in 1947 by a climber.
Lawsuit against Navy seeks to save whales
Santa Monica, Calif. Environmentalists sued the Navy on Wednesday, claiming that a widely used form of sonar for detecting enemy submarines disturbs and sometimes kills whales and dolphins.
The sonar “is capable of flooding thousands of square miles of ocean with dangerous levels of noise pollution,” according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles.
The Navy settled a similar lawsuit two years ago by agreeing to limit the peacetime use of experimental low-frequency sonar. The new lawsuit, by the Natural Resources Defense Council and other plaintiffs, seeks a court order to curb mid-frequency sonar, the most common method of detecting enemy submarines.