NATION
Astronauts finish exterior cable job
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Spacewalking astronauts successfully completed a three-day cable job outside the International Space Station on Sunday, routing several-hundred feet of power and data lines for new crew capsules commissioned by NASA.
It was the third spacewalk in just over a week for Americans Terry Virts and Butch Wilmore, and the quickest succession of spacewalks since NASA’s former shuttle days.
The advance work was needed for the manned spacecraft under development by Boeing and SpaceX. A pair of docking ports will fly up later this year, followed by the capsules themselves, with astronauts aboard, in 2017.
Once safely back inside, Virts reported a bit of water in his helmet again for the second time in as many spacewalks. He stressed it was “not a big deal” and said there was no need to hurry out of his suit.
Virts and Wilmore installed two sets of antennas Sunday, as well as 400 feet of cable for this new communication system. They unreeled 364 feet of cable on Feb. 21 and last Wednesday.
It was complicated, hand-intensive work, yet the astronauts managed to wrap up more than an hour early Sunday, for a 5½-hour spacewalk. Their three outings spanned 19 hours.
Sunday’s 260-mile-high action unfolded 50 years to the month of the world’s first spacewalk.
Soviet Alexei Leonov floated out into the vacuum of space on March 18, 1965, beating America’s first spacewalker, Gemini 4’s Edward White II, by just 2½ months. Leonov is now 80; White died in the Apollo 1 fire on the launch pad in 1967.
Cosby’s lawyers want suit tossed
BOSTON — Bill Cosby’s lawyers asked a federal judge on Friday to throw out a defamation lawsuit filed by three women accusing the comedian of decades-old sexual offenses.
The women, all of whom have stepped forward in recent years, say Cosby’s representatives publicly branded them as liars while trying to defend Cosby’s innocence.
But Cosby’s lawyers say the actor was merely acting in self-defense as his character was under attack.
“The law does not require that one stand idly by while he is publicly attacked,” the lawyers argue in their 38-page filing. “Instead the law entitles an individual who is accused of serious wrongdoing to rebut the allegations without facing defamation claims.”
The lawyers said Cosby denies all of the allegations of sexual misconduct.
Cosby, who famously starred as Dr. Cliff Huxtable on the beloved sitcom “The Cosby Show” from 1984 to 1992, hasn’t been charged with any crime.
Homeland Security faces new deadline
WASHINGTON — With a partial shutdown of the Homeland Security Department possible at week’s end, Speaker John Boehner said the House wants to enter talks with the Senate on a final bill funding the agency. Senate Democrats are not interested in joining those talks.
The Senate is holding a vote today on whether to proceed on the question of talks between the two chambers. Congress late Friday cleared a one-week extension for the department after 52 House conservatives defied their leadership and helped scuttle legislation that would have given the agency a three-week reprieve.
House Republican leaders on Sunday demanded that Democrats begin negotiations on funding for the Homeland Security Department and President Barack Obama’s unilateral actions on immigration. But even some Republicans said the party should simply surrender and give the agency money without conditions.
By The Associated Press
