Nation in brief

Panel: NASA needs better launch cameras

CAPE CANAVERAL - Columbia accident investigators Tuesday said NASA botched the photographing of the ill-fated launch, and urged the space agency to do a better job of filming shuttle liftoffs to detect potentially catastrophic problems.

Two sets of long-range cameras provided usable images for evaluating the blow to Columbia's left wing from a piece of foam, but a third set that would have provided a better view was out of focus and yielded fuzzy pictures.

Sharp pictures of the 11/2-pound chunk of foam insulation smashing into the wing's leading edge at more than 500 mph might have led NASA to take the mishap more seriously.

The evaluation "was hampered by lack of high-resolution, high-speed cameras," the investigators said in a statement.

While Columbia was still in orbit, the NASA engineer in charge of Kennedy Space Center's launch data analysis team complained about the disappointing film results.

"The loss of one camera can be, and is, significant. This proved that and then some," Armando Oliu wrote in an e-mail dated Jan. 21, five days after Columbia's liftoff. He said he was not sure the out-of-focus camera "would have given us the information we desire, but we certainly will not know now."

Oliu concluded: "This is simply unacceptable from an engineering perspective."

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - For the third consecutive time, California began the new fiscal year Tuesday without a state budget after lawmakers were unable to break a partisan impasse over spending and taxes.

Five other states also took their budget deliberations to the June 30 deadline without reaching a final agreement.

Lawmakers in Oregon, New Hampshire and Connecticut approved short-term spending plans allowing government to operate while debate continued. Residents in Nevada and Rhode Island also began the year without a new budget but their governments continued to operate.

TEN COMMANDMENTS: A federal appeals in Montgomery, Ala., court ruled that Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is not above "the rule of law" and must remove a Ten Commandments monument the size of a washing machine from the lobby of the state judicial building. A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta unanimously affirmed an order from U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson that the monument violates the Constitution's prohibition on government promotion of religion. "This case is far from over," said Moore's spokesman, Tom Parker.

OKLAHOMA EXECUTION: Lewis Eugene Gilbert, 31, was executed in Oklahoma after receiving a lethal mix of drugs. He was executed for killing Roxanne Ruddell in 1994, and had also been sentenced to death for murdering a Missouri couple. Authorities said he also confessed to an Ohio killing for which he was indicted but never tried.

VIRGINIA STAY: Gov. Mark R. Warner postponed the execution of a convicted murderer Bobby Wayne Swisher to give the attorneys time to file a petition for a new sentencing hearing with the Virginia Supreme Court. Warner stepped in less than four hours before the scheduled execution. The U.S. Supreme Court had rejected Swisher's appeal for a stay about two hours earlier.

PORCH COLLAPSE: Chicago officials plan to sue the owners and managers of a building where 13 people died in a porch collapse over the weekend, claiming there was no permit to build the porch. The complaint also will allege the three-story apartment building was illegally converted from five units to three.

SALMONELLA OUTBREAK: At least 99 people have contracted salmonella at St. Louis Children's Hospital, and the source of the intestinal illness remains a mystery. The number of cases could rise because several people are still being tested, a hospital spokeswoman said. The most recent case of the bacterial infection was confirmed Friday.

CUOMO DIVORCE: Andrew Cuomo, son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo, and Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, daughter of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, announced they are separating after 13 years of marriage. Her lawyer, William Zabel, issued a statement saying she plans to seek a divorce. Cuomo, 45, is a former U.S. housing secretary who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for governor last year.

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