Nation in brief: Rangers sent to patrol border
Houston – Special teams of Texas Rangers will be deployed to the Texas-Mexico border to deal with increasing violence because the federal government has failed to address growing problems there, Gov. Rick Perry said Thursday.
The forces, dubbed “Ranger recon” teams, are the latest effort “to fill the gap that’s been left by the federal government’s ongoing failure to adequately secure our international border with Mexico,” Perry said.
The governor early this year asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for 1,000 National Guard troops and renewed his call last month in a letter to President Barack Obama. The request is bogged down over who will pay for the troops and how they will be deployed.
Shuttle may land at Edwards
Cape Canaveral, Fla. – Bad weather prevented space shuttle Discovery from returning home Thursday and kept its astronauts circling the world for at least an extra day.
Mission Control skipped the first landing attempt because of wind and rain. The wind eased but the rain lingered for the second attempt.
Discovery’s next chance at returning will be today at 2:48 p.m. PST. Forecasters already are dubious; conditions are expected to be even worse than Thursday.
Late Thursday, Flight director Richard Jones decided to call up the backup landing site in Southern California – Edwards Air Force Base – for the next go-around. He made it clear that if the weather remains poor in Florida, then the shuttle will be diverted to Edwards.
ACORN fires two workers
Baltimore – The group ACORN has fired two employees who were seen on hidden-camera video giving tax advice to a man posing as a pimp and a woman who pretended to be a prostitute.
Fox News Channel broadcast excerpts from the video Thursday. On the video, a man and woman visiting ACORN’s Baltimore office asked about buying a house and how to account on tax forms for the woman’s income. An ACORN employee advised the woman to list her occupation as “performance artist.”
The pair also claimed they planned to employ teenage girls from central America as prostitutes, and an ACORN employee suggested that up to three of the girls could be claimed as dependents, according to transcripts of the video posted online by conservative activist James O’Keefe.