Published: Saturday, June 23, 2007
Atlantis returns
Atlantis returns
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — Atlantis and its seven astronauts took a cross-country detour and landed safely in the Mojave Desert on Friday, ending a two-week mission of construction on the international space station and bring a crew member home from the outpost.
Atlantis' homecoming was the 51st time a space shuttle touched down at the Edwards Air Force Base since 1981.
"It's just great to be back on planet Earth," shuttle commander Rick Sturckow said while standing on the tarmac. "There were a lot of challenges on this mission and they were all dramatic. All the solutions worked well."
NASA had hoped to bring Atlantis home to Florida, but bad weather two days straight forced them to divert it to California — a move that will cost $1.7 million.
Dog won't be voting
SEATTLE — Duncan M. MacDonald can't vote, which could be a relief to politicians who otherwise might have to outline their positions on chew toys, postal carriers and squirrels.
Jane Balogh, the owner of the Australian shepherd-terrier, is in trouble for submitting voided ballots in his name in three elections. One tipoff for authorities: One of the envelopes was signed with a picture of a paw print.
Balogh said she was protesting a 2005 state law that she says makes it too easy for noncitizens to vote. She put her phone bill in Duncan's name, then used the phone bill as identification to register him as a voter.
"I wasn't trying to do anything fraudulent. I was trying to prove that our system is flawed. So I got myself in trouble," she says.
Prosecutors have offered the grandmother and Army veteran a deal: plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of making a false statement to a public official and they will not file a felony charge of providing false information on a voter-registration application.
Balogh said she doesn't plan to contest the charge because "I know I'm guilty." She said she submitted ballots in the dog's name in the September and November 2006 and May 2007 elections. She wrote "VOID" on the ballots and didn't cast any votes.
Prosecutors said they would recommend she be sentenced to 10 hours of community service, pay a $250 fine and commit no other crimes for a year.
Prosecutor Dan Satterberg said his office "can't simply look the other way. They say you should let sleeping dogs lie, but you can't let voting dogs vote."
Belvedere's winner
TULSA, Okla. — R.E. Humbertson, wherever you are, you are the winner of "Miss Belvedere," the rusty 1957 Plymouth hauled from its leaky vault last week after being buried for a half century.
Humbertson, born July 1921, or his or her closest living relative, has five years to claim the two-door hardtop that drew international attention when it was unearthed, organizers announced Friday.
When the car was buried in 1957, hundreds of people submitted guesses on what Tulsa's population, which was around 250,000 in 1957, would be in 2007. Humbertson's guess of 384,743 was only slightly off the official U.S. Census count of 382,457.
There were more than 800 guesses, ranging from zero to 2 billion, written on a paper list and postcards inside a time capsule buried in the concrete vault, supposedly tough enough to withstand a nuclear attack.
Ring case taken to court
LONDON — A teenage girl banned from wearing a chastity ring in class took her case to Britain's High Court on Friday, arguing that her school had violated her religious freedom.
Lydia Playfoot, a 16-year-old student at Millais School in Horsham, about 40 miles south of London, wears the ring as a sign of her commitment to abstain from sex until marriage. Many Christian teenagers worldwide wear the chastity rings, which were inspired by "The Silver Ring Thing," an abstinence program launched in the United States in 1996.
The school said the ring fell outside its uniform policy, which makes exceptions for Muslims wearing head scarves and Sikhs wearing steel bracelets. Headmaster Leon Nettley said chastity rings do not form an integral part of the Christian faith.
That violated Playfoot's freedom of religion, her lawyer Paul Diamond argued before the court.
"Secular authorities and institutions cannot be arbiters of religious faith," he said.
Associated Press
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