Ohio

Sixth-grader suspended for swimsuit issue

A Belpre sixth-grader started serving a three-day suspension Tuesday because he refused a lesser punishment for bringing the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue to school, the schools superintendent said.

Justin Reyes had the magazine in the gymnasium at Belpre Middle School before classes Feb. 18, and Principal Kathy Garrison cited him for violating school’s policy on nonverbal harassment and possession of lewd or suggestive material, Supt. Tim Swarr said.

Garrison ordered the 12-year-old boy to spend two days at an alternative school where students from several area districts are sent when they get into trouble.

But Swarr said Justin and his mother, Nicole Reyes, refused to accept the alternative school punishment, so the penalty was increased to three days of out-of-school suspension.

Los Angeles

Mars rover drills for water in rock

NASA’s Opportunity rover drilled into a rocky outcrop Tuesday on Mars as scientists prepared to examine the stone to learn whether it was formed under watery conditions that may have been favorable to life.

The wheeled robot used its rock-abrasion tool to grind 0.16 inch into the surface of a rock dubbed “El Capitan,” project manager Richard Cook said.

The rover then began to inspect the round hole with other instruments designed to analyze the composition of the freshly exposed rock, as well as photograph it in microscopic detail.

Results were expected to take several days to reach Earth.

Washington, D.C.

Cronkite joins campaign against Medicare plan

Opponents of the new Medicare prescription drug law have recruited Walter Cronkite for a campaign that highlights what they see as the law’s shortcomings.

Cronkite, the 87-year-old broadcasting legend, appears in and narrates an 11-minute video that the nonprofit Families USA plans to send to 10,000 senior citizen centers and retirement communities to explain changes in Medicare.

Families USA plans to spend $500,000 on the campaign, which also will include events in two dozen cities.

The Bush administration is spending more than $12 million on a television, radio, newspaper and Internet campaign in support of the law and an additional $10 million on a mailing to each of the nation’s 40 million older and disabled Americans.

Florida

Spacewalk will leave space station empty

The two men aboard the international space station will venture outside on Thursday, leaving the orbiting complex unattended during a spacewalk for the first time ever.

NASA gave its final approval Tuesday in Cape Canaveral for the spacewalk and insisted that the safety precautions would be ample, even though no one would be inside the space station to serve as a watchman.

Normally, two crew members go out at a time, employing the buddy system for safety reasons, while the third astronaut stays behind to watch over them and the spacecraft. But the station has had just a two-man crew since last spring to reduce the need for supplies while the shuttles are grounded because of the Columbia disaster.

During the spacewalk, astronaut Michael Foale and cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri will retrieve some science experiments and set up others. They will also will check the exterior of the station for any signs of a blow from debris. Last November, the crewmen heard a strange metallic noise, possibly from a piece of space junk hitting something.

Maryland

America’s oldest man dies at age 114

William Coates, 114, who was believed to be America’s oldest man, died Tuesday at Southern Maryland Hospital Center.

Coates was born June 2, 1889, making him the oldest known man in America. At one time he was believed to be the second-oldest man in the world, although his lack of a birth certificate makes it impossible to determine.

Coates had nine children, 21 grandchildren and 37 great-grandchildren from two relationships.

Florida

Greyhound must pay diabetic who fell ill

A Broward Circuit Court jury on Tuesday ordered Greyhound Lines Inc. to pay $245,000 to a diabetic mother who endured a nightmarish bus ride from Fort Lauderdale to Newark without her insulin.

Maureen Fitzpatrick, 44, suffered diabetic seizures and a heart attack after she said she wasn’t allowed to get an emergency vial of insulin that was in her suitcase, stored in the bus’s luggage compartment.

Russell Adler, Fitzpatrick’s attorney, argued Fitzpatrick’s medical problems could have been prevented if a bus driver in Jacksonville simply had allowed her to go through her suitcase. Fitzpatrick said the driver had told her it would be against company policy to open the luggage compartment, accessible only from the outside, for her.

Wisconsin

Attorney general cited for drunken driving

Wisconsin’s attorney general was cited for drunken driving and had her driver’s license revoked after her car went off the road and into a ditch.

Peg Lautenschlager also was fined $784 and could lose her driving privileges for a year because she refused to take a blood test. She was not injured, and the car was not damaged, officials said Tuesday in Madison.

Lautenschlager maintained she fell asleep Monday night and drove off the road.

Her blood-alcohol level was 0.12 percent, a breath test showed.