UNITED STATES
Rocket motors arrive in LA
Two giant rocket motors required to display the retired NASA space shuttle Endeavour as if it is about to blast off arrived at a Los Angeles museum on Wednesday, completing their long journey from the Mojave Desert. The 35.3m motors, which are giant white cylinders, were trucked for two days from the Mojave Air and Space Port to Exposition Park, where the California Science Center’s Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center is being built to display the Endeavour. Donated by Northrop Grumman, the motors are the largest components of the two solid rocket boosters that would be attached to a space shuttle’s external tank to help the main engines lift the orbiter off the launch pad. Schoolchildren were among several hundred people who watched the move — the latest spectacle in the yearslong process of preparing to put Endeavour on permanent display vertically as if it was about to blast off.
UNITED STATES
Officer loses finger to bite
A New York City police officer lost his left ring finger up to the first knuckle when a reckless driving suspect bit him, prosecutors said on Wednesday. Lenni Rodriguez Cruz, 28, faces 25 years in prison for leading police on a car chase, crashing into several vehicles and biting a sergeant who was trying to put him in a holding cell, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said. On Sept. 20, an officer patrolling in the Jamaica section of Queens spotted Rodriguez Cruz driving a car with license plates that were not registered to the vehicle, Katz said in a news release. The officer tried to pull Rodriguez Cruz over, but he sped off, mounted a sidewalk and drove through a park, scattering parkgoers as they ran to safety, Katz said. Rodriguez Cruz kept driving and hit four vehicles, including an unmarked police car that was part of a barricade set up to stop him, Katz said. When officers pulled Rodriguez Cruz out of his crashed car, his breath smelled of alcohol, his speech was slurred and there was a cup containing an alcoholic beverage inside the car, Katz said. Officers took Rodriguez Cruz to the local police station, where he spit on the sergeant and bit the sergeant’s finger tip off, Katz said.
UNITED STATES
Man gives back cash
A Connecticut man who found a bag containing nearly US$5,000 in cash outside a bank had a criminal charge against him dropped on Wednesday after he gave the money back. Robert Withington, 57, went to Bridgeport Superior Court for a court hearing, but a state prosecutor informed Withington’s lawyer the charge was being dropped. Withington found the bag with US$4,761 on May 30 outside a bank in his hometown of Trumbull. It belonged to the Trumbull tax collector’s office, and a town employee had dropped the bag while walking to the bank to deposit the money, police said. A police officer had escorted the town employee to the bank, but neither noticed the bag being dropped, police said. Withington, a dog trainer, picked up the bag and drove off, police said. He was identified through surveillance video and arrested on Aug. 25. Before Wednesday’s court appearance, Withington had given the town a check in the amount of the missing money. Withington said that he did not do anything wrong. “They dropped the money. Someone from the town should be fired for being so irresponsible, but I did nothing wrong,” Withington said in a telephone interview. “I just found a money bag. It was just a big joke. They wasted my time. They slandered my name. It was very upsetting.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home