|
(Continued from page 22)
• Meteorologist Don Day said the weather forecast remained favorable for former Austrian paratrooper Felix Baumgartner's jump, scheduled for early Sunday near Roswell, N.M.
• Baumgartner will be prepared at sunrise to launch his 30 million cubic foot helium balloon to hoist a 3,000-pound capsule that will carry the jumper 23 miles up in the sky. The jump has already been canceled twice due to high winds, once damaging the balloon and forcing use of a backup for Sunday's planned launch.
• Baumgartner will try to break a 1960 high-altitude parachuting record. He will also test a pressurized suit that is designed for stratospheric jumps.
• He called Tuesday's postponement nerve-wracking but said Sunday's date is one already steeped in aviation history. On October 14, 1947, an experimental rocket plane Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier for the first time over Edwards Air Force Base in California.
• ___
Syrian official says gunmen open fire on workers' bus, killing 4
• AMMAN, Jordan (AP) -- A Syrian official says gunmen have fired on a bus transporting workers to a blanket factory, killing four and wounding eight others.
• He says the attack happened at the entrance of the central city of Homs on Sunday. No other details were immediately available.
• He spoke anonymously as he was not authorized to make press statements.
• Meanwhile, Syria's state news agency says a suicide bomber crashed an explosives-laden sedan into a coffee shop at a Damascus residential neighborhood, causing damage but no fatalities.
• SANA says the explosion took place at dawn on the capital's Masseh highway.
• ___
Fed Chairman Bernanke defends moves to aid US economy as beneficial for global growth
• Chairman Ben Bernanke is rejecting arguments that the Federal Reserve's bold moves to bolster U.S. job growth could have unwanted consequences in emerging market countries.
• In a speech Sunday, Bernanke disagreed with criticism that the Fed's efforts to drive U.S. interest rates lower could result in higher inflation in emerging markets or trigger a destabilizing flood of investment money into those nations.
• In fact, he said, the efforts of the Fed and the central banks of other industrial (Continued on page 24)
|
|
