NEWS OF THE DAY
From Across the Nation
1 Supersonic fall: The countdown is on for skydiver Felix Baumgartner. On Oct. 8, he will attempt to go supersonic when he jumps from a record altitude of 23 miles over New Mexico, project managers said Tuesday in Florida. The Austrian parachutist jumped from 13 miles in March and 18 miles in July. This time, he hopes to break the record of 19.5 miles set in 1960. A giant helium balloon will hoist a pressurized capsule with Baumgartner inside, dressed in a pressure suit. Baumgartner expects to reach a top speed of 690 mph and break the sound barrier with only his body, less than 30 seconds after he hops from his capsule.
2 No reprieve: A former Army recruiter failed to win a fourth reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court and was executed Tuesday in Huntsville, Texas, for participating in the shooting death of a woman he and a buddy met 10 years ago at a bar. Cleve Foster’s attorneys argued he was innocent of the 2002 slaying of Nyaneur Pal, 30, an immigrant from Sudan. Three times last year the high-court justices stopped his scheduled punishment, once when he was moments from being led to the death chamber. Foster, 48, also was charged but never tried for the rape-slaying a few months earlier of another woman in Fort Worth, Rachel Urnosky.
3 Katrina reversal: A federal appeals court reversed itself, ruling this week that the Army Corps of Engineers is not liable for devastation caused in Hurricane Katrina from a government-built navigation canal. The Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, in New Orleans, ruled that the government is immune from lawsuits for decisions made by the corps that might have left the 76-mile channel, the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, vulnerable. In March, the same panel had ruled that the government was liable for some of the flooding, affirming a 2009 ruling by a federal judge.
4 Manhattan madam: A prostitution case that became a sensational tale of a suburban mother moonlighting as a high-end Manhattan madam ended Tuesday with a guilty plea sparing her further jail time and parting shots from prosecutors and the judge suggesting the hype was of her own making. Prosecutor Charles Linehan said Anna Gristina made empty boasts that she had connections in the FBI and the New York Police Department, among other agencies, who would tip her off.
5 DNA backlog: The FBI’s crime lab has reduced its backlog of forensic DNA cases by 87 percent over two years, according to a report released Tuesday by the Justice Department’s inspector general. In his 38-page report, Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz attributed the significant reduction to an increase in staffing and more automation. In his report, Horowitz found that the nuclear unit had effectively eliminated its backlog, reducing the number of its cases from 2,722 in March 2010 to 110 as of March 2012. The remaining cases are a “monthly work-in-progress,” the report concluded.