Nation in brief: Space shuttle cleared for launch
A two-day flight readiness review ended Thursday with NASA formally clearing shuttle Atlantis and its seven astronauts for a long-delayed mission to the International Space Station.
Liftoff of the first shuttle flight of the year is scheduled for 7:38 p.m. EDT June 8 from Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.
Originally planned for March 15, the mission was postponed after a freak Feb. 26 thunderstorm pelted Atlantis with hail. Ground crews spent months repairing thousands of divots and dings in the insulation of the ship’s external fuel tank.
Once in space, the crew will spend 11 days delivering components and supplies to the space station.
Concord, N.H.
Governor signs civil unions law
Gov. John Lynch signed a law Thursday establishing civil unions for same-sex couples in New Hampshire, allowing them to apply for the same rights as married people as early as January.
New Hampshire has “a long and proud tradition taking the lead in opposing discrimination,” Lynch said. “Today that tradition continues.”
It will be the fourth state to offer civil unions and the first to do so without a court order or threat of one.
The bill passed both chambers of the Democrat-controlled Legislature last month, largely along party lines.
San Francisco
Dog owner faces tougher sentence
A woman whose dogs fatally mauled a neighbor could get more prison time, after the California Supreme Court on Thursday ordered a trial judge to consider convicting her of second-degree murder rather than involuntary manslaughter.
A jury had first found Marjorie Knoller guilty of second-degree murder in the 2001 death of 33-year-old Diane Whipple. However, the presiding judge ruled that Knoller wasn’t aware her two leashed Presa Canario dogs, each weighing more than 100 pounds, would escape her control and kill Whipple. The judge lowered the conviction to involuntary manslaughter.
An appeals court later reinstated the second-degree murder conviction, saying Knoller should have known the dogs were at risk to cause “great bodily harm.”
The state Supreme Court said the trial judge set too lenient a standard, while the appeals court set too harsh a standard. It said “the awareness of engaging in conduct that endangers the life of another – no more, and no less” is what’s needed to obtain a second-degree murder conviction.
Knoller has served two years of her original four-year manslaughter sentence and faces an additional 15 years to life in prison if she is convicted of second-degree murder.