Shuttle tool bag is really lost in space

Cape Canaveral, Fla.

A spacewalking astronaut accidentally let go of her tool bag Tuesday after a grease gun inside it exploded, and she helplessly watched as the tote and everything inside floated away.

The mishap occurred during an unprecedented attempt to clean and lube a gummed-up joint on a solar panel at the international space station.

Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper was just starting to work when she said her grease gun exploded, getting the dark-gray stuff all over a camera and her gloves. While wiping off, the white, backpack-size bag slipped out of her grip, and she lost all her other tools.

She and her fellow spacewalker, Stephen Bowen, went on to finish their tasks in six hours and 52 minutes by sharing tools

Earlier, the spacewalkers saw a screw floating by but were too far away to catch it. Flight director Ginger Kerrick said neither the bag nor the screw posed hazards to the spacecraft.

Lincoln, Neb.

30-day limit OK'd for safe-haven law

Nebraska lawmakers gave preliminary approval Tuesday to a new 30-day age limit for children who can be legally abandoned under the state's safe-haven law.

The restriction is designed to stop parents and guardians from using the law to drop off older children at Nebraska hospitals.

The state's safe-haven law is the only one in the country without an age limit and has led to the drop-off of 34 children — none of them infants — since July.

The age-limit measure advanced by lawmakers faces two more votes but doesn't appear to face any major obstacles.

St. Johns, Ariz.

Video shows boy, 8, admitting shootings

An 8-year-old boy accused in the deaths of his father and another man gave police conflicting accounts about the shootings, at one point saying, "I wasn't shooting any guns" before admitting to firing at least two shots at each of the men.

In an hourlong police video released Tuesday, the boy told law-enforcement officers that he found the bodies of his father, Vincent Romero, 29, and Timothy Romans, 39, when he returned home from school.

"I was thinking, 'What the heck is going on?' " the boy said. He eventually admits to having pulled the trigger Nov. 5. As the video wraps up, he buries his head in his jacket. "I'm going to go to juvie," he says after an officer asks what he's thinking.

The boy has been charged in juvenile court with two counts of murder. Police say the boy used a .22-caliber rifle to kill the men in St. Johns, about 170 miles northeast of Phoenix, as his father and his co-worker, Romans, came home from work.

A defense attorney has said police overreached in their questioning of the boy, who was not represented during the interview.

Also

Nestlé has recalled select Lean Cuisine frozen-chicken meals because they may contain small pieces of plastic. Included in the recall are: 9.5-ounce packages of Pesto Chicken with Bow Tie Pasta; 10.5-ounce packages of Chicken Mediterranean; and 12.5-ounce packages of Chicken Tuscan. For details, call Nestlé at 800-227-6188.

Seattle Times news services