NASA program faces delays
WASHINGTON — NASA’s $23 billion program to build a powerful new rocket and spacecraft that could carry astronauts to the moon or even Mars faces potential cost overruns and schedule delays, a government watchdog warned Wednesday.
The findings released in a pair of reports by the Government Accountability Office are the latest concerns about the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft, and come as NASA “struggles with poor cost estimation, weak oversight and risk underestimation,” the GAO said.
While there are technical difficulties that are expected to be associated with complex vehicles designed to launch humans deep into space and keep them alive for an extended period, the GAO also found management challenges that could create future problems and lead to cost overruns.
The SLS and Orion would be NASA’s first vehicles in more than 40 years capable of sending humans beyond what’s known as low Earth orbit, where the International Space Station circles Earth at an altitude of about 250 miles.
Girls to be tried as adults
MADISON, Wis. — A Wisconsin state appeals court ruled Wednesday that two girls accused of trying to kill their classmate in an attempt to please the fictional horror character Slender Man should be tried as adults.
Investigators say the girls, who were 12 at the time of the attack in 2014, plotted for months before luring their classmate into some woods after a birthday sleepover and repeatedly stabbing her. The victim, who was also 12, was found along a road, bleeding from 19 stab wounds that nearly killed her.
The girls have been charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide and if convicted could go to prison for up to 65 years. As juveniles, they could be incarcerated for up to three years then supervised until age 18.
Abused boy finds allies
WASHINGTON — A California boy convicted of killing his abusive neo-Nazi father has allies in high places as he seeks a Supreme Court review of his case.
The Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center joined with the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth in filing an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to hear the case during the next term, which starts in October. Human Rights Watch and the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children filed similar briefs pressing the high court.
Orlando case for review
ORLANDO, Fla. — The chairman of a Senate homeland security committee on Tuesday called for an independent review of the FBI’s investigations into the Pulse nightclub shooter and an assessment of the terrorism watch list criteria.
Federal authorities had no way to know that 29year-old Omar Mateen, the subject of two FBI investigations in two years, purchased firearms after being plucked from the database, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., wrote in the letter, made available Wednesday.
“If this information convinced the FBI to reopen its investigation of Mateen, law enforcement potentially could have uncovered information on social media or elsewhere of Mateen’s radicalization,” wrote Johnson.
Also in the nation …
The water at a North Carolina whitewater recreation center will be treated with 10 times the amount of chlorine typically needed to kill a brain-eating amoeba to get rid of the microorganism that caused the death of a rafter last month.