Category: News

The shuttle touched down under clear blue skies at 8:39 a.m. PDT (11:39 a.m. EDT/1539 GMT) after foul weather stymied two days of landing attempts at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

“Welcome home Atlantis, congratulations on a very successful mission giving Hubble a new set of eyes that will continue to expand our knowledge of the universe,” radioed astronaut Greg H. Johnson from Mission Control in Houston.

Bolden, 62, a retired Marine general, flew on four shuttle missions before leaving the U.S. space agency in 1994 to return to the military.

Bolden, who would become the 12th administrator in NASA’s 51-year history and its first black head, is seen as a strong advocate for human space flight.

The controversy over the sharing of the mighty rivers at the root of Iraq’s ancient name of Mesopotamia — meaning “between the rivers” in Greek — is almost as old as the country itself.

But for Baghdad, the current shortage demands an urgent response from Turkey.

With first-quarter earnings reports winding down and recent optimism about economic stabilization already factored into stock prices, analysts said there appears to be very little on the horizon to help extend the recent run-up.

Quarterly earnings from rival home-improvement chains Home Depot Inc (HD.N) and Lowe’s Cos Inc (LOW.N) may shed some light on the consumer’s ability and inclination to spend. The numbers may also give a hint of any further fallout from the housing slump.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s coalition defied predictions of a tight election and was only about 12 seats short of an outright majority from the 543 seats at stake, according to election commission data.

In a country where unwieldy coalitions were becoming the order of the day and hobbling policy, the electoral verdict this time means Congress will call the shots in coalition building rather than being dependent on the goodwill of regional parties.

Singh’s Congress-led coalition, riding on the back of years of economic growth, did better than expected and will probably be only just short of an outright majority, according to data from the election commission and projections by TV channels.

“The people of India have spoken, and spoken with great clarity,” Singh told reporters.

Atlantis and its seven-member crew blasted off from Florida on Monday on an 11-day mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.

It will be the U.S. space agency’s last chance to tinker with the telescope — which has vastly expanded scientists’ knowledge of the universe — before NASA ends the shuttle program in 2010.

In early March, a month after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced the tests on February 10 to help restore investor confidence in the major banks, the scene was much bleaker: major stock indexes had slumped to 12-year lows on persistent fears about the financial weakness. It looked possible that a major bank might need an emergency government rescue even before the stress test results could be announced.

But since the trough, markets improved steadily with rising share prices and volumes, better liquidity and other signs of stabilization, and regulators gained comfort that capital markets would be willing to fill any holes the stress tests unearthed at banks.

Army General David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, said Pakistan’s fierce campaign against the Taliban in the Swat valley was a sign its political leaders, people and military were united against the Islamist fighters.

“The actions of the Pakistani Taliban … seem to have galvanized all of Pakistan,” he told the “Fox News Sunday” program.