Saturday, November 22, 2008

Water-Recycling Device Shuts Down in Space

CAPE CANAVERAL -- NASA's revolutionary water-recycling system is having serious hiccups.

The $154 million device for turning astronauts' urine and sweat into drinking water aboard the international space station shut down again Friday, and engineers on the ground were scrambling to figure out what was wrong.

The astronauts and flight controllers are up against the clock: NASA wants samples of the processed urine before space shuttle Endeavour pulls away from the space station late next week. The recycled water needs to be tested on Earth before anyone up there can drink it and NASA commits to doubling the size of the space station crew next year.

No one was surprised by the startup trouble. Space station commander Mike Fincke said it is common for things to go wrong in a flight test, and he stressed that he is not worried. Nor is he concerned about eventually drinking the final product.

"It's just the water that's taken out," Fincke said. "It's really clean and purified water."

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Bob Jones University has apologized for racist policies including a onetime ban on interracial dating that was not lifted until nine years ago and its unwillingness to admit black students until 1971.

The private fundamentalist Christian school founded in 1927 in South Carolina said its rules on race were shaped by culture instead of the Bible, in a statement posted on the university's Web site.

The university, with about 5,000 students, did not admit black students until nearly 20 years after the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling found public segregated schools unconstitutional.

"We failed to accurately represent the Lord and to fulfill the commandment to love others as ourselves. For these failures we are profoundly sorry," a statement said.

Former Lobbyist to Be Charged

A former GOP lobbyist with ties to Jack Abramoff will be charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and may be moving toward a plea agreement with the Justice Department in its wide-ranging corruption investigation, court filings showed Friday. A spokesman for James F. Hirni said he is cooperating with the Justice Department.

Nebraska Alters Safe-Haven Law

LINCOLN, Neb. -- Gov. Dave Heineman signed into law a bill adding a 30-day age limit to a safe-haven law that allowed 35 children -- including teenagers as old as 17 -- to be abandoned at state hospitals. The law, approved hours earlier by the legislature in a 45 to 3 vote, makes Nebraska the 14th state to make abandonment legal only for infants up to 30 days old.

Black Infantry Unit Reactivated

BOSTON -- An all-black Civil War infantry unit honored in the Oscar-winning movie "Glory" is making a real-life comeback. The 54th Massachusetts -- praised for a doomed charge in South Carolina in 1863 -- became a ceremonial unit for the state's National Guard. As a ceremonial unit, the 54th will conduct military honors at state functions and funeral services for veterans.

-- From News Services