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'Swift' lifts off to chase gamma rays

The Swift spacecraft launched into orbit Saturday, carrying a payload of scientific instruments designed to probe some of the most powerful - and fleeting - explosive forces in the universe.

After delays caused by weather and an equipment malfunction on the venerable Delta 2 launch vehicle, the rocket lifted off shortly after noon from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The 20-foot-tall spacecraft successfully separated from the rocket booster a little over an hour later, NASA announced.

Orbiting Earth at 325 miles, the nimble Swift spacecraft will try to unravel one of the strangest phenomena in the cosmos, an awesome fireworks display known as a gamma-ray burst. These bursts of energy, which occur almost daily in some corner of the universe, are the most intense burst of electromagnetic radiation ever measured.

The gamma-ray bursts it will try to catch "burn as brightly as a billion, billion suns," said Anne Kinney, director of the Universe division at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Although not visible to the naked eye, in the few seconds before they flicker out, they release more energy than the sun will in its entire lifespan.

During its two-year mission, Swift is expected to pinpoint as many as 150 bursts. It is expected to take four months or more to activate and calibrate the instruments on board, at which point the spacecraft will begin serious work.

SAN FRANCISCO - The Oracle Corp. proclaimed a symbolic victory Friday night after a majority of PeopleSoft stockholders accepted its offer of $24 a share, thus keeping alive Oracle's 17-month-old effort to acquire its closest competitor for $9.2-billion.

"The owners of PeopleSoft have spoken and have overwhelmingly chosen to sell to Oracle at $24 per share," Lawrence J. Ellison, Oracle's chief executive, said in prepared statement early Saturday. Ellison said the company was prepared to close the deal over the weekend.

But in a hastily called meeting Saturday, PeopleSoft's board of directors unanimously decided that it would continue to oppose the deal at that price.

A. George Battle, a director of PeopleSoft who leads the company's transaction committee, said the board believed that most PeopleSoft stockholders still thought Oracle's offer of $24 a share was too low.

Both companies make software that large corporations use to manage business operations such as payroll, inventory and human resources.

NEW YORK - Thousands of New Yorkers visited their new MoMA Saturday and were happy to find there was so much more to see.

The newly expanded Museum of Modern Art threw open its doors to the general public for the first time, with an estimated 15,000 visitors expected before the day was out.

The renovated museum, which had moved temporarily to Queens in 2002, is nearly twice the size of the original.

Art enthusiasts braved the drizzle and began queueing up before 7 a.m. to welcome MoMA back on a day when admission to the museum was free for one day only.

Manhattan "seemed empty without it," said Padma Von Muhlendahl, 56, who came from Spain for the opening and was one of the first to enter, to loud applause from museum staff.

WASHINGTON - National security adviser Condoleezza Rice returned home Saturday after a one-night hospital stay where she was treated for noncancerous growths in the uterus.

"She's out of the hospital and doing well," said White House spokesman Fred Jones.

Rice had uterine fibroid embolization at Georgetown University Hospital on Friday.

Uterine fibroid embolization blocks blood flow to fibroids, which are benign tumors in the uterus. For some women it is an alternative to hysterectomy.

Rice could return to work as early as Monday, Jones said.

SAN FRANCISCO - In San Francisco, the free grocery bag soon might go the way of the full-service gas station.

City officials are considering charging grocery stores 17 cents apiece for the bags, 90 percent of which are plastic - and are blamed by environmentalists for everything from clogging recycling machines to killing marine life and suffocating infants.

Although the environmentalists are not as concerned about the effect of recyclable paper bags on the environment, the proposal would include them, too, with the idea of reducing waste in general.

The proposal, set to be considered by the Commission on the Environment on Tuesday, imitates efforts around the world to stem the use of plastic bags - known in China as "white pollution." Ireland, South Africa, Bangladesh, Australia, Shanghai and Taiwan are just a few of the places where the government either bans plastic bags outright or charges a fee to use them.