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The nation in brief
Compiled from Times wires Cockpit fire forces emergency landingTEXARKANA, Ark. -- A cockpit fire forced a United Airlines 757 to make an emergency landing at Texarkana Regional Airport on Tuesday. None of the 106 people on board was injured. "There was no type of commotion, the passengers are just calm," said Carri Jones, the airport's finance administrator. "The landing went very smoothly." United spokesman Joe Hopkins said pilots aboard Flight 275 from Orlando to San Francisco reported smoke and a small fire in the cockpit. He said the fire was extinguished before the plane landed at Texarkana. The fire occurred because a cracked window in the cockpit caused a window heater to overheat, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman told television station KTBS in Shreveport, La. United spokesman Chris Brathwaite said he couldn't confirm the report. Ninety-nine passengers and a crew of seven were aboard. Families outraged over leaked Columbine photosDENVER -- Dozens of top secret, crime-scene photos from the Columbine High School massacre, showing the two killers' bodies, their victims and even their bombs, have leaked out. Families of some victims are outraged and say the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office has failed to keep a promise that the photos would never leave that office. "People don't want the pictures of their dead kids circulating on the Internet, which it appears likely is what's going to happen," said Brian Rohrbough, whose son Dan was one of the 13 killed when shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold rampaged through the school on April 20, 1999. The Rocky Mountain News has copies of a number of the photos, as do some Columbine families. The sheriff's department has launched an investigation to confirm the authenticity of the photos and to figure out how they could have been leaked, spokeswoman Jacki Tallman said. "These photos are potentially stolen property if they're determined to be authentic," she said. Mom believed she had to kill kids, psychiatrist saysHOUSTON -- A psychiatrist testifying for the defense Tuesday said that a psychotic Andrea Yates believed she had no choice but to drown her five children to save them from "eternal damnation." Yates, 37, has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity and could get the death penalty if convicted of capital murder charges. Under cross-examination Tuesday, psychiatrist Phillip Resnick agreed with prosecutor Joe Owmby that Yates knew she was legally wrong when she killed her children in the bathtub on June 20. But Resnick said Yates believed she had no choice. "Because of her dilemma, what she perceived as right was to take her children's life on Earth to prevent them from eternal damnation," he said. Yates believed she was sacrificing her life in this world and eternity to spare her children from hellfire, Resnick testified. Yates' mother, Jutta Karin Kennedy, took the stand later Tuesday, saying her daughter was a "wonderful mother." Hubble telescope readied for risky procedure todayCAPE CANAVERAL -- Spacewalking astronauts prepped the Hubble Space Telescope on Tuesday for its riskiest surgery yet: a power-unit replacement that has been likened to a heart transplant. If the operation fails, the $2-billion-plus telescope could be crippled or rendered useless. The procedure was set for this morning during the third spacewalk in as many days for Columbia's astronauts. The 12-year-old unit has a loose screw that is hampering its ability to circulate electricity through the telescope. The problem has occurred on and off for the past eight years. On Tuesday, spacewalkers James Newman and Michael Massimino loosened bolts on the doors leading to the power control unit and batteries. The men also installed Hubble's second new solar wing and replaced an unreliable steering mechanism.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
