MYRTLEWOOD, Ala. – A freight train carrying segments of the space shuttle’s solid rocket boosters derailed Wednesday after a bridge sank over boggy ground, authorities said. Six people aboard the train were reported injured, one critically. NASA said it was not immediately known whether the equipment was damaged. A space agency spokesman said the accident should not delay any shuttle launches. The shuttle’s twin boosters are 150 feet tall and consist of four propellant segments each. They are used during liftoff and the first two minutes or so of flight to help the spacecraft break free of Earth’s orbit, and are then jettisoned into the sea, after which they are recovered, refurbished and reused.
The state House on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill to require all hospitals to offer rape victims emergency contraception, over objections from Catholic leaders who say it infringes on their religious rights. The legislation, which passed the Democratic-controlled Senate last week, now moves to Republican Gov. Jodi Rell. The governor said she was inclined to support it but would not decide until she saw the bill. Church leaders say the pills could cause an abortion.
Two men robbed an armored truck of $1.8 million as it delivered money to a Hialeah Gardens check cashing store Wednesday, authorities said. Shots were fired, but no injuries or arrests were reported. The truck belonging to AT Systems was making a delivery to E-Z Checks Cash when a person approached a messenger who was with the vehicle, police said. What felt like a gun was pointed at the back of the messenger, who was told to walk over to a car and throw the money in the backseat, the FBI said. A getaway car fled with two robbers.
The bodies of two climbers who apparently fell to their deaths on Grand Teton were recovered with the help of a helicopter, a national park official said Wednesday. “They were roped together,” the spokeswoman said. “We still don’t know what happened and how it happened.” The climbers were reported overdue at 8:20 a.m. Monday, and rangers spotted their bodies Tuesday at about the 12,000-foot elevation of the 13,766-foot mountain.
The nation’s first openly gay governor has become an Episcopalian and been accepted into a seminary, according to a report in The Star-Ledger of Newark. Former Gov. James McGreevey, who was raised as a Roman Catholic, was officially received into the Episcopal religion on Sunday at St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York, a vicar at the church said. McGreevey, 49, in August 2004 proclaimed himself “a gay American” who had an extramarital affair with a male aide, and said he would resign that November.
From Herald news services
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