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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 15, 2017)
Page 10A East Oregonian NATION/WORLD Cassini spacecraft acted as ‘Magnifying glass’ at Saturn until final moments CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — For more than a decade, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft at Saturn took “a magnifying glass” to the enchanting planet, its moons and rings. Cassini revealed wet, exotic worlds that might harbor life: the moons Enceladus and Titan. It unveiled moonlets embedded in the rings. It also gave us front-row seats to Saturn’s changing seasons and a storm so vast that it encircled the planet. “We’ve had an incredible 13-year journey around Saturn, returning data like a giant firehose, just flooding us with data,” project scientist Linda Spilker said this week from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “Almost like we’ve taken a magnifying glass to the planet and the rings.” Cassini was expected to send back new details about Saturn’s atmosphere right up until its blazing finale on Friday. Its delicate thrusters no match for the thickening atmosphere, the spacecraft was destined to tumble out of control during its rapid plunge and burn up like a meteor in Saturn’s sky. Seniors fight post-hurricane heat with Popsicles, compresses HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (AP) — Florida seniors were ushered out of stifling assisted-living centers Thursday while caregivers fought a lack of air conditioning with Popsicles and cool compresses after eight people died at a nursing home in the post-hurricane heat. Dozens of the state’s senior centers still lacked electricity in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, and several facilities were forced to evacuate. While detectives sought clues to the deaths, emergency workers went door to door to look for anyone else who was at risk. Fifty-seven residents were moved from a suburban Fort Lauderdale assisted-living facility without power to two nearby homes where power had been restored. Owner Ralph Marrinson said all five of his Florida facilities lost electricity after Irma. Workers scrambled to keep patients cool with emergency stocks of ice and Popsicles. “FPL has got to have a better plan for power,” he said, referring to the state’s largest utility, Florida Power & Light. “We’re supposed to be on a priority list, and it doesn’t come and it doesn’t come, and frankly it’s very scary.” Stepped-up safety checks were conducted around the state after eight deaths at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, which shocked Florida’s top leaders as they surveyed destruction from the punishing storm. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute via AP) This July 23, 2008 image made available by NASA shows the planet Saturn, as seen from the Cassini spacecraft. After a 20-year voyage, Cassini is poised to dive into Saturn on Friday. As Mueller probe intensifies, so do attacks on Comey WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican attacks that accompanied the firing of FBI Director James Comey have sharply intensified in the last two weeks, with broadsides delivered on Twitter, public statements and even from the White House podium. Comey, who in June said President Donald Trump and the White House had lied about him and the law enforcement agency he led, has been repeatedly accused of delivering false testimony, of prematurely exonerating Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server and of improperly leaking details about his private conversations with the president. The attacks, which come as Congress and federal investigators probe the circumstances of his dismissal, appear clearly designed to undercut the credibility of a veteran lawman whose testimony and vivid first-person accounts loom as central to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Though Trump’s lawyers over the summer had been mulling ways to undermine the legitimacy of Mueller’s investigation, the stepped-up salvos suggest White House officials and Trump’s legal team see Comey — who, despite enjoying broad support from within the FBI, also received bipartisan criticism for his handling of the Clinton probe — as a more vulnerable target for attack. Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s lawyers, told The Associated Press this week that he did not consider Comey to be a “credible witness” and that there were multiple reasons for Comey’s firing. “I’m not looking at this as a legal strategy. I’m just discussing facts. Read Hillary Clinton’s book,” said Sekulow, referring to the newly released post- mortem of last year’s election that harshly criticizes Comey’s oversight of the email investigation. U.S. nuke commander ‘assumes’ North Koreans tested H-bomb OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb. (AP) — The top commander of U.S. nuclear forces said Thursday he assumes the Sept. 3 nuclear test by North Korea was a hydrogen bomb, suggesting a heightened U.S. concern that the North has advanced to a new level of nuclear firepower, even as it launched yet another ballistic missile over Japan into the Pacific Ocean. Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten, commander of Strategic Command, told reporters that while he was not in a position to confirm it, he assumes from the size of the underground explosion and other factors that it was a hydrogen bomb — which is a leap beyond the fission, or atomic, bombs North Korea has previously tested. Just moments after Hyten spoke at his headquarters near Omaha, word spread that North Korea had launched a mid-range ballistic missile over Japan. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who was with Hyten at Strategic Command headquarters at the time of the launch, said afterward that it was a reckless act. “It was fired over Japan and put millions of Japanese in the duck-and-cover,” he told a small group of reporters. “Landed out in the Pacific.” Asked about a possible American military response, Mattis said, “I don’t want to talk on that yet.” CIA director cancels Harvard speech over ‘traitor’ Manning WASHINGTON (AP) — CIA Director Mike Pompeo scrapped his appearance Thursday at Harvard University over the school’s decision to make Chelsea Manning, who was convicted of leaking classified information, a visiting fellow. Pompeo called Manning an “American Friday, September 15, 2017 traitor.” He said he agreed with military and intelligence officials who believe Manning’s leak endangered the lives of CIA personnel. Pompeo was scheduled to appear at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government to discuss allegations of Russian involvement in last year’s presidential election, the nuclear standoff with North Korea and other global security concerns. Minutes after the event was to begin, Douglas Elmendorf, dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, took the stage and told the audience Pompeo was not there and would not speak. “We will try to reschedule it as soon as we can, but the CIA director, is obviously, in charge of his schedule,” Elmendorf said. “We are not in charge of his schedule and he gets to decide when and where he speaks, of course.” Several hours later, the CIA released a letter that Pompeo wrote to a Harvard official. Pompeo, who has a law degree from Harvard, said he didn’t make the decision lightly. He wrote that he would betray the trust of CIA employees if he appeared. Catalans begin campaigning for independence referendum TARRAGONA, Spain (AP) — Political tension in Spain mounted Thursday as Catalonia’s president opened the “yes” campaign for a regional independence referendum that has been suspended by the courts. Catalan President Carles Puigdemont and other supporters of secession gathered at an arena in Tarragona, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Barcelona, to address thousands of people at the kickoff for the two-week campaign. “Somebody thinks that we won’t vote on Oct. 1? What kind of people do they think we Catalans are?” Puigdemont asked the crowd. “In Catalonia, we are democrats.” “Hello Republic” was one of the slogans unveiled at the rally. There is no official “no” campaign for the Oct. 1 referendum, as most of the regional and national opposition are refusing to participate in the vote. Spain’s central government insists the referendum is illegal and the Constitutional Court has suspended it pending a formal decision by judges. Police have orders to prevent preparations for the ballot, and Spain’s top prosecutor has said that anybody collaborating in its organization would also be legally liable. The threats have so far had a limited effect beyond making regional authorities take lengths to try to sidestep the legal obstacles. To shield Barcelona’s civil servants from possible prosecution, Mayor Ada Colau refused to make municipal premises available as polling places. Colau announced Thursday that voting stations would instead open in facilities owned by the regional government.