Florida: Welding repairs begin on shuttle Atlantis

Intricate welding repairs began Friday on space shuttle Atlantis, sidelined by three small cracks in a hydrogen fuel line.

Atlantis is the first of NASA’s four shuttles to undergo the unprecedented repair work. The entire fleet has been grounded by the mysterious fuel-line cracks.

The cracks are on the liner of a 1-foot-diameter pipe just inside Atlantis’ tail. The work was expected to last through today.

If all goes well, NASA hopes to launch Atlantis on a space station assembly mission as early as Sept. 28.

The flight originally had been scheduled for late August.

Endeavour will be next up for welding.

NASA suspects the cracks 11 across the fleet have been present for years and possibly date all the way back to the first space shuttle flight in 1981.

Massachusetts: Kasparov, computer to play rematch

Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov announced this week in Wayland that he will play his first public match against a computer since his stunning loss to IBM’s Deep Blue machine five years ago.

The match will take place in October in Jerusalem at about the same time Vladimir Kramnik, the man who took Kasparov’s title from him in 2000, will be playing against a different computer in Bahrain.

Each man will be playing for a $1 million purse. Kramnik’s match was scheduled for last fall, but was postponed because of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The dueling matches involving two of the world’s top players are marked by some of the politics that have surrounded the game for the past decade.

Kramnik will be playing the Deep Fritz computer, which has defeated the Israeli program Deep Junior that Kasparov will be playing.

Detroit: DaimlerChrysler recalls 460,000 PT Cruisers

DaimlerChrysler AG on Friday recalled all 460,000 of its popular, retro-styled PT Cruisers because of a fuel pump leak.

The PT Cruiser has been one of the most successful vehicles in the Chrysler Group’s lineup since it was introduced two years ago.

Officials discovered the leak following a government crash test in May, Chrysler spokeswoman Ann Smith said. The leak could ignite a fire if sparked, she said.

There are no known incidents or customer complaints related to the problem, DaimlerChrysler said. The company will install a secondary seal to the top of the fuel pump module.

Los Angeles: Separated twins show signs of progress

Doctors began intravenous feeding Friday for twin Guatemalan girls who were born joined at the head and separated in a lengthy surgery this week.

Maria de Jesus Quiej Alvarez and sister Maria Teresa remained in critical condition, with stable vital signs, and were progressing exactly as doctors had hoped.

Both twins were moving their hands and feet and opening their eyes, said Dr. Andy Madikians, attending physician in the pediatric intensive care unit at UCLA’s Mattel Children’s Hospital.

“That’s what we’d like to see,” Madikians said.

The 1-year-old girls remained under sedation but were “very responsive” to the touch of the nurses, said Clarice Marsh, director of pediatric nursing at the hospital.

“Every recovery is individualized, but they are definitely showing improvement day-by-day,” Marsh said.

The sisters were separated Tuesday in an operation that lasted more than 22 hours. Maria Teresa had additional surgery Tuesday.