Los Angeles

Fireworks expected when NASA blows up comet

Not all dazzling fireworks displays will be on Earth this Independence Day.

NASA hopes to shoot off its own celestial sparks in an audacious mission that will blast a stadium-sized hole in a comet half the size of Manhattan. It would give astronomers their first peek at the inside of one of these heavenly bodies.

If all goes as planned, the Deep Impact spacecraft will release a wine barrel-sized probe on a suicide journey, hurtling toward the comet Tempel 1 – about 80 million miles away from Earth at the time of impact.

Scientists hope the July 4 collision will gouge a crater in the comet’s surface large enough to reveal its pristine core and perhaps yield cosmic clues to the origin of the solar system.

Utah

Blazes char thousands of acres in West

Firefighters battled in hot, dry and windy weather Sunday to contain wildfires that have prompted evacuations, closed a major highway and covered much of southwest Utah with a dark, smoky haze.

Officials said one of the fires had quadrupled in size in less than 12 hours, and by late Sunday was within five miles of New Harmony.

The fire was started Saturday by lightning strikes and at one point jumped Interstate 15.

About 20 miles to the southwest, firefighters were continuing to battle a blaze that has consumed nearly 70,000 acres.

Elsewhere, firefighters struggled to extinguish blazes in California, Arizona, Nevada, Alaska and Washington state that have consumed more than 350,000 acres.

Washington, D.C.

Web effort opens congressional research

A new Web site aims to make widely available to the public certain government reports about topics from terrorism to Social Security that congressional researchers prepare and distribute now only to lawmakers.

The site, www.opencrs.com, links more than a half-dozen existing collections of nearly 8,000 reports from the Congressional Research Service and centrally indexes them so visitors can find reports containing specific terms or phrases.

It also encourages visitors to ask their lawmakers to send them any reports not yet publicly available so these can be added to the collection. None of the reports is classified or otherwise restricted.

Florida

Teen far from shore when shark attacked

Beaches reopened Sunday with extra lifeguards along a stretch of the Florida Panhandle coast where a shark killed a 14-year-old girl, as coastal residents reported seeing at least one shark hunting fish close to shore.

Jamie Marie Daigle of Gonzales, La., was swimming on a boogie board with a friend at least 100 yards from shore when she was attacked Saturday in the Gulf of Mexico, said Walton County sheriff’s Capt. Danny Glidewell. Jamie was vacationing with friends while the rest of her family was home.

An autopsy was planned for today, and a shark expert was invited to attend to help determine the type and size of the shark involved, Glidewell said Sunday.

After the attack Saturday, a 20-mile stretch of shore was closed to swimmers, with twin red flags warning people to stay out of the water, but beaches reopened Sunday with a double staff of sheriff’s beach patrol officers, Glidewell said.

Washington

Bush renews White House T-ball

President Bush and two dozen kids from inner-city teams kicked off the fifth season of White House T-ball Sunday on the South Lawn.

The president performed the equivalent of throwing out the first pitch when he leaned over, placed a ball on the tee at home plate and shouted, “Play ball!”

The one-inning game set the Jackie Robinson South Ward Little League Black Yankees of Newark, N.J., against the South Side Little League Memphis Red Sox from Chicago. The teams are named after Negro League teams of the early 1900s and are part of the Little League Urban Initiative, an effort to get urban youth to take up baseball.

Bush launched White House T-ball to promote interest in baseball and foster a spirit of teamwork and service. No one keeps score. Every player gets to bat and run the bases, and Bush presents each with a commemorative ball at the end.