Nation in brief: Voters approve spaceport tax

Voters in a southern New Mexico county have approved a tax to raise an estimated $49 million toward a $198 million tourism spaceport, according to unofficial returns Thursday.

Residents of Dona Ana County voted on the sales tax Tuesday in what backers said was a make-or-break election for the state-supported Spaceport America.

The complex would cover 27 square miles of desert near White Sands Missile Range, where the U.S. launched its first rocket after World War II. Its anchor tenant would be British millionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

Branson envisions starting suborbital rocket flights, at about $200,000 a person, in 2009. Eventually, the spaceport could offer trips into orbit and beyond.

Raleigh, N.C.

Legislature offers slavery apology

The North Carolina Senate apologized Thursday for the Legislature’s role in promoting slavery and Jim Crow laws that denied basic human rights to the state’s black citizens.

Following the lead of lawmakers in neighboring Virginia, the Senate unanimously backed a resolution acknowledging its “profound contrition for the official acts that sanctioned and perpetuated the denial of basic human rights and dignity to fellow humans.”

Pensacola, Fla.

Video maker says judge ‘gone wild’

The founder of the “Girls Gone Wild” videos defied a federal judge Thursday, calling him a “judge gone wild” and refusing to surrender to U.S. marshals on a contempt citation.

U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak ordered Joe Francis into custody after settlement negotiations soured in a lawsuit brought by seven women who were minors when Francis’ company filmed them.

Francis drew the contempt order Wednesday after lawyers for the women said Francis threatened them during negotiations.

Francis told the Associated Press late Thursday that Smoak “had lost his mind.”

Francis’ attorneys appealed the order that would send him to jail.