■ United States
Detainees potty about Potter
Books about boy wizard Harry Potter have become favorite reading material among terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the Washington Times reported yesterday. Citing a librarian working at the center, the newspaper said J.K. Rowling's tales about the boy and the school of wizardry are on top of the request list for the camp's 520 al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects, followed by Agatha Christie novels. The librarian said she is compiling a list to provide to various lawmakers in Washington, according to the report.
■ United States
Fourth craft headed for Mars
A fourth Mars orbiter is set to blast off tomorrow. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will scan the desolate surface of the Red Planet in search of sites to land more robotic explorers in the next decade. "It's time we start peeling back the onion layer and start looking at Mars from different vantage points," said project manager James Graf of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The probe will seek evidence of water and other signs that Mars could once have hosted life. The mission, which launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida, will also serve as a communications link to relay data to Earth.
RSS