■UNITED STATES
‘Endeavour’ blasts off
The space shuttle Endeavour blasted off late on Friday carrying seven US astronauts on a “home improvement” mission that will expand living quarters on the orbiting International Space Station (ISS). Endeavour twisted up and away from the Kennedy Space Center launchpad at 7:55pm. Four minutes into flight, NASA’s shuttle was racing along at 9,600kph and continued to pick up speed before leaving Earth’s atmosphere eight minutes 33 seconds after liftoff, hurtling towards a rendezvous today with the space station that will last 12 days. The mission of the Endeavour, which launched nearly 10 years to the day since a shuttle crew first began constructing the ISS on November 20, 1998, will be to repair the station’s power-generating solar arrays and expand its living quarters to accommodate bigger crews.
■MEXICO
Body partially stuffed in pot
Two bullet-ridden bodies were found on Friday at the foot of a monument in Ciudad Juarez, one of them partially stuffed into a large pot. Police had not identified the bodies and had no immediate suspects. The bodies were discovered before dawn at the bottom of the Juan de Onate monument on John Paul II boulevard, said Alejandro Pariente, a spokesman for the regional Attorney General’s Office. One of the bodies was sitting inside a large pot commonly used for cooking pork, with his legs sticking out. The other had his hands tied.
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