Nation in brief: Space shuttle lands in California

Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. – Space shuttle Discovery and its seven astronauts took a cross-country detour and landed safely in California on Friday after stormy weather prevented them from returning home to Florida for the second day in a row.

Discovery swooped through the sky, breaking through clouds, and touched down at Edwards Air Force Base north of Los Angeles an hour before sunset, ending its delivery trip to the International Space Station.

NASA prefers Florida landings because the cross-country ferry trip, which involves transporting the shuttle atop a modified jumbo jet, costs about $1.7 million and takes more than a week.

Census Bureau cuts ACORN ties

Washington – The Census Bureau on Friday severed its ties with ACORN, a community organization that has been hit with Republican accusations of voter-registration fraud.

“We do not come to this decision lightly,” bureau director Robert Groves wrote in a letter to ACORN, which was obtained by the Associated Press.

In splitting with ACORN, Groves sought to tamp down GOP concerns and negative publicity that the partnership will taint the 2010 head count.

“It is clear that ACORN’s affiliation with the 2010 census promotion has caused sufficient concern in the general public, has indeed become a distraction from our mission, and may even become a discouragement to public cooperation, negatively impacting 2010 census efforts,” Groves wrote.

Gunman kills two; police mystified

Owosso, Mich. – A man carrying grudges against several people set off on a shooting spree Friday morning, authorities said, killing an abortion protester outside a high school because he didn’t like the activist holding a sign with graphic images of a fetus in front of students.

The gunman drove next to a gravel pit business and shot and killed the owner, who apparently also upset him, police said. Authorities believe they stopped a third slaying by catching up with the gunman before he could kill again.

“The defendant had ill will toward these three individuals – not for the same reason necessarily, but had a grudge,” said Shiawassee County Prosecutor Randy Colbry.

Police charged Harlan James Drake, 33, with first-degree murder. Authorities said he was a truck driver who mostly lived on the road in his cab and had family in the area, but they were mystified by what may have led him to kill.