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City putting its own tough immigration policies into effect

HAZLETON, Pa. - The mayor signed an immigrant ordinance Friday that is one of the nation's harshest, punishing people who do business with illegal immigrants or provide them with jobs or housing.

Critics called the measure unenforceable, and lawsuits challenging it were expected.

The ordinance fines landlords $1,000 per day for each illegal immigrant living on their properties.

Mayor Lou Barletta said his office will soon begin to train city workers how to check people's immigration or citizenship status.

Barletta said he wore a bulletproof vest to the City Council vote Thursday because the issue was so emotionally charged.

Minor leak found in shuttle not expected to be serious

NASA engineers have discovered a small leak in one of three auxiliary power units that control the Discovery's hydraulic steering and brakes, a rare complication that could alter the orbiter's Monday morning landing plans.

Deputy shuttle program manager John Shannon said circumstantial evidence suggests the leak involves nitrogen, which would be "no issue at all."

But preliminary tests have not ruled out the possibility that the leak involves hydrazine, a volatile compound used as rocket fuel that could spark a fire if it accumulated in an adjacent compartment during the shuttle's re-entry and landing.

He said the current rate of the leak - equivalent to about 1.2 tablespoons per hour - has resulted in a net loss of about two gallons of fuel. If that rate holds up, tests suggest, it would be 100,000 times lower than what NASA has established as the flammability danger rate for the shuttle.

Engineers will monitor the leak during a trial run of the power unit on Sunday, he said, and any sign of a worsening rate will likely force them to burn off the tank's fuel before the shuttle's re-entry as a safety precaution. Under that scenario, the shuttle crew would use a backup system

More flaws found in Boston's Big Dig tunnel

BOSTON - Gov. Mitt Romney said Friday that inspectors continued to find trouble spots in a Big Dig tunnel where a woman was killed Monday by a 3-ton concrete ceiling tile and that the tunnel would be reopened in phases.

But Romney would not speculate as to when that might happen.

"We're not going to be open until I don't have to cross my fingers, and at this stage they could fall down," the governor said.

Post office puts baseball greats on stamps, cards

WASHINGTON - The post office hopes to hit a grand slam by honoring a quartet of baseball's great sluggers on postage.

Ceremonies are scheduled for Yankee Stadium today to release new 39-cent stamps and 24-cent postal cards honoring Mickey Mantle, Roy Campanella, Hank Greenberg and Mel Ott.

[Last modified July 15, 2006, 00:21:52]