Former President Bush Released from Hospital
After seven weeks of intense treatment for bronchitis, along with various other conditions, former United States President, George H.W. Bush was released from the hospital on Jan. 14. Bush’s admittance on Nov. 23 for bronchitis was quickly followed by a malicious fever and miscellaneous complications that led him to the intensive care unit.
“Mr. Bush has improved to the point that he will not need any special medication when he goes home,” said Dr. Amy Mynderse, Bush’s head doctor at the Houston hospital in a statement issued by Bush’s spokesman, “but he will continue physical therapy.”
Bush also stated how appreciative he was to the doctors and nurses who took care of him. “Let me add just how touched we were by the many get-well messages we received from our friends and fellow Americans. Your prayers and good wishes helped more than you know, and as I head home my only concern is that I will not be able to thank each of you for your kind words,” Bush said.
Bush, who served one term as the 41st United States president, is currently 88 years old. In his previous years, he also served as a congressman, an ambassador to the United Nations, envoy to China, CIA director, and vice president under Ronald Reagan for two terms.
An Incident in New Delhi Causes Uproar
In New Delhi, India, a woman was gang-raped by seven men when she boarded an evening bus. When the 29-year-old woman’s bus stop arrived, she was the only passenger, and the driver sped right past it. She was taken to an undisclosed location where the rest of the attackers joined the driver and raped the woman through the night. She was dropped off in the morning at her village where she proceeded to inform her family and the police as to what had happened.
When the woman spoke to CNN-IBN, she said, “They threatened me with a sharp edged weapon and did wrong things with me. They kept me confined all through the night and forced me to do what they want.” All seven suspects have been arrested. One of the men was the driver of the bus. The Friday attack occurred in the Gurdaspur district of Punjab state.
This incident followed a similar incident that occurred last month in New Delhi. However, not only was this woman assaulted, but she and her male companion were beaten and robbed. Following this attack, the 23-year-old woman was sent to Singapore for treatment, but died in the hospital two weeks later. The five men responsible for this crime were charged with rape, murder, and kidnapping and, if convicted, they will face the death penalty.
This particular incident caused uproar over the treatment of women, as well as law propositions from India’s government for stricter laws against sexual assault. Sexual harassment is not uncommon for females using public transportation and with the number of victims increasing by over 20,000 in the past 40 years, something needs to change. Sushma Swaraj, senior leader of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party advocated the death penalty for the rapists. In Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, Swaraj said, “What is the government doing to curb rape cases in the capital? The rapists should be hanged. We need tougher laws to stop rapes.”
Many other members of parliament called for similar punishments asking how the culprits would learn that it was dangerous and wrong to commit such acts. Home Minister Sushit Kumar Shinde plans to make a new committee dedicated to examining the current laws and making the appropriate changes. In the meantime, public transportation frequented by women at night will be patrolled by police officers.
NASA Buys Expensive Inflatable Space Room
On Jan. 11, NASA made a deal to fasten an inflatable private module to the International Space Station. The deal states that NASA will pay $17.8 million to Bigelow Aerospace; a private spaceflight firm based in Nevada, for BEAM, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module. BEAM is the inflatable space room that will soon be attached to the space station.
“This partnership agreement for the use of expandable habitats represents a step forward in cutting-edge technology,” commented Lori Garver, NASA deputy chief, in a statement to Fox News. “It can allow important progress in the United States commercial space innovation.”
BEAM will most likely be similar to its predecessor models; Bigelow’s Genesis 1 launched in 2006 and Genesis 2 launched in 2007. Both of the Genesis models were 14.4 feet by 8.3 feet, containing 406 cubic feet of pressurized volume. Ideally, BEAM would be in space in no more than two years. One of NASA’s commercial cargo suppliers, either SpaceX in California or Orbital Sciences Corporation in Virginia, will most likely launch the module.
In the future, Bigelow hopes to link together several expandable modules in order to create private space stations for a multitude of customers. Those lucky few who manage to get a private module could get there via SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft or by Boeing’s CST-100 capsule. Bigelow is also considering creating a station on the moon by using propulsion tanks and power units to combine multiple BA-330 modules and sending them to the moon’s surface. Lunar dirt would be used to cover the modules and protect them from the moon’s elements, such as radiation, thermal extremes, and micrometeorite strikes.
NASA also has contracts with SpaceX and Orbital Sciences to get unmanned cargo to the space stations. SpaceX is contracted for 12 flights and launched their first Dragon spacecraft last October, while Orbital Sciences is contracted for eight flights and is expected to launch their robotic Cygnus cargo ship and Antares rocket in 2013. In addition to these contracts, NASA also gave $50 million to five firms in the hopes of developing ways to transport astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit.
Young Californian Boy Found Guilty of Murder
Joseph Hall was only 10-years-old when he shot and killed his sleeping father in 2011. Now 12, the courts have charged the young boy with second-degree murder. Two years ago, Joseph Hall’s case was considered dependent on whether he knew if his actions were wrong or not. Jean P. Leonard, the judge at Riverside County Superior Court, said that following the shooting, Joseph Hall placed the gun under his bed, cried no tears when the police came, and possibly informed his younger sister of his plans, days before the shooting occurred.
Leonard summarized these sentiments Monday, saying that the “actions show the court that [Hall] knew his actions were wrong and did not want to get caught.” Even when the verdict was read, Joseph Hall registered no visible reaction.
The trial started in October, but was delayed for a few months before coming to court this past week. Joseph Hall’s father, Jeffrey Hall, had been a neo-Nazi, and held multiple meetings at his home.
Testimonies portrayed Joseph Hall as a violent child, describing such actions as hitting his sisters and stepmother, using pencils to stab classmates, and attempting to strangle a teacher with a telephone cord. He was kicked out of six schools before his father and stepmother, Krista McCary, decided to home-school him. McCary also described Joseph Hall as violent, but Leonard informed the court that Jeffrey Hall had beaten his son regularly for years before the murder occurred.
Matthew J. Hardy, the public defender who represented Joseph Hall, argued that the young boy was raised in a household of violence and was not able to determine right from wrong at his young age. Chief Deputy district attorney, Michael Soccio, said that he hoped Joseph would be given help.
“Joseph is a little boy and his life has been very, very sad,” continued Soccio after the court’s ruling, “[However] I also would have been concerned had Joseph been released. I think he’s a very dangerous boy.”
Joseph Hall is scheduled to be in court again next month to find out where he will be sent.