US NATIONAL NEWS

Official: Clinic Suspect Made ‘No More Baby Parts’ Comment

Published

10 years ago

November 29, 2015

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Robert Lewis Dear was reclusive, and he seldom spoke to neighbors in a quiet patch of woods in rural Colorado where he lived.

Now, it’s his words that are drawing the most attention as police try to discern his motivations for a shooting attack they say he carried out Friday at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs that killed three people, including a police officer.

After his arrest, Dear said “no more baby parts,” said a law enforcement official, who could not elaborate and spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation.

Planned Parenthood cited witnesses as saying the gunman was motivated by his opposition to abortion.

The attack thrust the clinic to the center of the ongoing debate over Planned Parenthood, which was re-ignited in July when anti-abortion activists released undercover video they said showed the group’s personnel negotiating the sale of fetal organs.

Planned Parenthood has denied seeking any payments beyond legally permitted reimbursement costs for donating the organs to researchers. Still, the National Abortion Federation says it has since seen a rise in threats at clinics nationwide.

Anti-abortion activists, part of a group called the Center for Medical Progress, denounced the “barbaric killing spree in Colorado Springs by a violent madman” and offered prayers for the dead and wounded and for their families.

The Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs provides women’s health services and has long been the site of regular anti-abortion protests. A Roman Catholic priest who has held weekly Mass in front of the clinic for 20 years said Dear wasn’t part of his group.

“I don’t know him from Adam,” the Rev. Bill Carmody said. “I don’t recognize him at all.”

Police haven’t said what motivated Dear, 57, to carry out the attack.

Dear, who was in custody and is expected to make his first court appearance on Monday, was described by neighbors as reclusive. They said he stashed food in the woods, avoided eye contact and warned neighbors about government spying.

At a vigil Saturday at All Souls Unitarian Church, Rev. Nori Rost called the gunman a “domestic terrorist.” In the back of the room, someone held a sign that said: “Women’s bodies are not battlefields. Neither is our town.”

Vicki Cowart, the regional head of Planned Parenthood, drew a standing ovation when she walked to the pulpit. She promised to quickly reopen the clinic. “We will adapt. We will square our shoulders and we will go on,” she said.

After her remarks, a woman in the audience stood up, objected to the vigil becoming a “political statement” and left.

Cowart said the gunman “broke in” to the clinic Friday but didn’t get past a locked door leading to the main part of the facility. She said there was no armed security when the shooting began. He later surrendered to police after an hourslong standoff.

In the parking lot of the two-story building, one man said the gunman shot at him as he pulled his car out, blasting two holes in his windshield. Inside, one worker ducked under a table and called her brother to tell him to take care of her kids if she was killed.

At one point, an officer whispered reports into his radio as he crept through the building. Others relayed information from surveillance cameras and victims in hiding. “We’ve got a report of a victim texting from just east of the lobby,” someone said.

In the end, a six-year veteran University of Colorado police officer was killed. Two civilians also died, though their identities weren’t immediately released. Five other officers and four people were hospitalized.

Cowart said all 15 clinic employees survived and worked hard to make sure everyone else got into safe spaces and stayed quiet.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said the city is mourning and praised the bravery of first responders. He said the nation is wrestling with the causes of violence but that it’s too early to discuss that while the city is reeling.

“This is the kind of thing that hits the entire community in the gut,” he said.

Cowart said the organization would learn from the attack. When asked if the clinic should have more security, she said the clinic’s clients shouldn’t have to walk through metal detectors.

The attack marked the latest mass shooting to stun the nation. It drew the now-familiar questions about a gunman’s motives and whether anyone, from government to relatives, could have done anything to prevent an attack.

Those who knew the 6-foot-4-inch, 250-pound Dear said he seemed to have few religious or political leanings.

Neighbors who lived beside Dear’s former South Carolina home say he hid food in the woods as if he was a survivalist and said he lived off selling prints of his uncle’s paintings of Southern plantations and the Masters golf tournament.

John Hood said Saturday that when he moved to Walterboro, Dear was living in a doublewide mobile home next door. Hood said Dear seemed to be a loner and very strange but not dangerous.

He pointed to a wooden fence separating their land and said he put it up because Dear liked to skinny dip.

Hood said that Dear rarely talked to them, and when he did, he tended to offer unsolicited advice such as recommending that Hood put a metal roof on his house so the U.S. government couldn’t spy on him.

“He was really strange and out there, but I never thought he would do any harm,” he said.

Dear also lived part of the time in a cabin with no electricity or running water in Black Mountain, North Carolina. He kept mostly to himself, his neighbors said. When he did talk, it was a rambling combination of a number of topics that didn’t make sense.

He tended to avoid eye contact, said James Russell, who lived a few hundred feet down the mountain from Dear’s cabin.

“If you talked to him, nothing with him was very cognitive,” Russell said.

Other neighbors knew Dear, too, but they didn’t want to give their names because they said they were scared of him.

Russell and others said the only companion they saw with him was a mangy dog that looked to be in such bad shape they called animal control because they worried he was beating it.

In the small town of Hartsel, Colorado, about 60 miles west of Colorado Springs, about a dozen police vehicles and fire trucks were parked outside a small white trailer belonging to Dear located on a sprawling swath of land.

Property records indicate Dear purchased the land about a year ago.

Another law enforcement official said authorities searched the trailer Saturday but found no explosives. The official, who has direct knowledge of the case, said authorities also talked with a woman living in the trailer. The official, who lacked authorization to speak publicly about the investigation, spoke on condition of anonymity.

Zigmond Post, who lives near the RV where Dear lived, said he didn’t have many interactions with Dear, but he said the suspect once gave him a pamphlet opposing President Barack Obama.

“He didn’t talk about them or anything. He just said ‘Look them over when you get a chance,’ ” Post said.

Jamie Heffelman, owner of the Highline Cafe in Hartsel, said residents would occasionally see Dear at the post office to get his mail, but he never said much. “Nobody really knows him. He stays to himself,” she said.

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Tech

NASA Rolls Out Massive SLS Rocket Stage for Artemis III Mission to Kennedy Space Center

Published

6 days ago

April 13, 2026

Willie David

Pictured above is the top four-fifths of the SLS (Space Launch System) core stage – the section containing the liquid hydrogen tank, liquid oxygen tank, intertank, and forward skirt. NASA will roll the largest section of the agency’s SLS rocket that will launch the second crewed Artemis mission under the Artemis III mission out of NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility on Monday, April 20. Credit: NASA

NEW ORLEANS (FNN) — NASA will roll out the largest section of its Space Launch System rocket on Monday, April 20, marking a major milestone for the Artemis III mission.

The section, representing the top four-fifths of the SLS core stage, is being moved from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. It includes the liquid hydrogen tank, liquid oxygen tank, intertank and forward skirt. The structure will be loaded onto NASA’s Pegasus barge for transport to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

CORE STAGE DELIVERY AND INTEGRATION

Once the core stage arrives at Kennedy Space Center, teams will complete final outfitting and vertical integration. The hardware will then be transferred to NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program for stacking and launch preparation.

The Artemis III engine section and boat-tail, which protects the engines during launch, were previously moved to the Vehicle Assembly Building in July 2025. The four RS-25 engines are scheduled to arrive from Stennis Space Center in Mississippi no later than July 2026 for integration.

POWERING THE ARTEMIS III MISSION

Equipped with four RS-25 engines, the SLS core stage will generate more than 2 million pounds of thrust, enabling the launch of astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft.

Artemis III is currently targeted for launch in 2027, following the successful Artemis II mission, which completed a crewed flight around the Moon on April 10.

NASA’S MOON-TO-MARS STRATEGY

The Artemis III mission is part of NASA’s broader Artemis program, aimed at returning astronauts to the Moon and establishing a sustained human presence.

The mission will test critical capabilities, including rendezvous and docking between the Orion spacecraft and commercial systems needed for future lunar landings, currently planned for 2028.

NASA is working in partnership with Boeing, the SLS core stage lead contractor, and L3Harris Technologies, the lead contractor for the RS-25 engines. The core stage remains the backbone of the SLS rocket and is manufactured at the Michoud Assembly Facilit

Tech

NASA’s Artemis II Astronauts Begin Historic Journey Around the Moon After Key Orion Engine Burn

Published

2 weeks ago

April 3, 2026

Willie David

Earth's crescent is seen from a solar array camera on the Orion spacecraft on the first flight day of the Artemis II mission. Credit: NASA

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (FNN) — For the first time in more than 50 years, astronauts on a NASA mission are headed around the Moon after successfully completing a critical burn of the Orion spacecraft’s main engine.

The approximately six-minute firing of Orion’s service module engine Thursday — known as the translunar injection burn — accelerated the spacecraft and its crew beyond Earth’s orbit, placing them on a trajectory toward the Moon.

Aboard the spacecraft are NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

“Today, for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972, humans have departed Earth orbit,” said Dr. Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. “Reid, Victor, Christina and Jeremy now are on a precise trajectory toward the Moon. Orion is operating with crew for the first time in space, and we are gathering critical data and learning from each step.”

NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft lifted off from Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center at 6:35 p.m. EDT on April 1, beginning a planned 10-day test mission around the Moon and back.

Successful Launch and Spacecraft Activation

Shortly after reaching space, Orion deployed its four solar array wings, allowing the spacecraft to generate power from the Sun. The crew and mission controllers then began transitioning the spacecraft from launch to normal flight operations while checking critical onboard systems.

About 49 minutes into the flight, the rocket’s upper stage fired to place Orion into an elliptical orbit around Earth. A second burn propelled the spacecraft — named “Integrity” by the crew — into a high Earth orbit extending roughly 46,000 miles above the planet for nearly 24 hours of system testing.

Following the maneuver, Orion separated from the upper stage and began flying independently.

System Tests and Crew Operations in Space

During the early phase of the mission, the astronauts conducted a manual piloting demonstration to evaluate Orion’s handling capabilities using the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage as a docking target.

After the test, Orion executed an automated departure burn to safely move away from the stage. The propulsion stage later performed a disposal burn before re-entering Earth’s atmosphere over a remote area of the Pacific Ocean.

Before its re-entry, four small CubeSats were deployed from the rocket’s Orion stage adapter to conduct separate scientific missions.

Mission teams also transitioned communications to NASA’s Deep Space Network while the crew adjusted to the space environment. Astronauts completed their first rest periods, performed onboard exercise routines, restored the spacecraft’s toilet to normal operations and prepared the spacecraft for the translunar injection burn.

Lunar Flyby and Artemis Program Goals

The crew is scheduled to conduct a lunar flyby Monday, April 6, when astronauts will capture high-resolution images and make observations of the Moon’s surface — including portions of the lunar far side rarely seen directly by humans.

Although the far side will only be partially illuminated during the flyby, the lighting conditions are expected to cast long shadows across the terrain, highlighting ridges, slopes and crater rims that are difficult to observe under full sunlight.

After completing the flyby, the astronauts will return to Earth and splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego.

The mission marks a major milestone for NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to send astronauts on increasingly ambitious missions to explore the Moon, advance scientific discovery, stimulate economic growth and prepare for the first crewed missions to Mars.

Politics

Donald Trump Marks Policy Shift on Gender Identity, Education, and Federal Programs

Published

3 weeks ago

March 31, 2026

Willie David

WASHINGTON (FNN) — The administration of Donald Trump announced a series of policy changes affecting federal positions on gender identity, education standards, health care funding, and military service. Officials say the actions are intended to redefine federal policy around biological sex and limit government involvement in gender-related medical and educational programs.

The policy changes follow criticism from Republicans of earlier initiatives introduced during the administration of Joe Biden that expanded federal recognition of transgender individuals in several areas of public policy.

Federal Policy Defines Sex as Male or Female

The Trump administration declared that the official policy of the federal government recognizes only two sexes — male and female — based on biological characteristics.

Administration officials say the policy affects federal documents, agency rules and programs across multiple departments. The move also ended the practice of gender self-identification on certain federal records, including passports, according to officials.

Supporters say the change restores clarity to federal policy, while critics argue it removes recognition for transgender Americans in official government documentation.

Funding and Health Care Policies Adjusted

Federal agencies were directed to halt funding, sponsorship or promotion of certain medical procedures related to gender transition for minors. Administration officials say the directive is intended to prevent what they describe as irreversible medical interventions involving children.

Following the policy shift, several major health systems announced reviews, suspensions or changes to pediatric gender-related medical programs. The administration also directed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to review existing medical evidence surrounding gender-related care for minors.

Changes in Education, Sports, and Military Policies

The administration also ended federal support for gender identity and equity curricula in public education programs receiving federal funds, stating the move reinforces parental rights and state oversight of school content.

Additional directives address athletic competition and military service. The administration announced policies intended to ensure that women’s sports competitions are limited to biological female athletes and reinstated standards for military service based on biological sex through the United States Department of Defense.

Officials say the changes are intended to focus federal programs on what they describe as fairness, safety and readiness across government institutions.