Pentagon: Satellite Debris Not a Danger

WASHINGTON (AP) — The military’s analysis of the missile strike on a dead U.S. spy satellite has revealed no sign of danger from debris, including no hazard from the satellite’s fuel tank, a Pentagon spokesman said Friday.

“As we continue to do the post-strike analysis, (it) continues to give us confidence that the hydrazine tank was ruptured. However, the analysis is still ongoing,” spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

U.S. officials have said the main reason they shot down the satellite was because of the potential health hazard to humans in the event the satellite’s fuel tank, carrying 1,000 pounds of toxic hydrazine, landed in a populated area. The satellite lost power shortly after reaching its initial orbit in December 2006, and it was projected to re-enter the atmosphere in the first days of March.

Report calls for holiday shopping

Wide-open shopping in Toronto on statutory holidays? Not so fast, the city’s economic development committee has cautioned.

Councillor Kyle Rae – who chairs the committee – says the issue will get another hearing when council meets next month, but open holiday shopping is likely to win.

Stolen laptops targeted for hardware, not files: school board

ST. JOHN’S — School board officials say thieves who stole four laptop computers from their offices over the weekend likely wanted the hardware, not the information stored on them.

Darrin Pike, CEO of the Eastern School District, says there’s no evidence to show that the thieves who broke into the district’s Atlantic Place offices in downtown St. John’s over the weekend wanted anything more than the computers they took.

“Without trying to downplay it, from what the RNC told us they think that the laptops were targeted for the laptops,” he says. “(Information) obviously wasn’t the target, they were looking for laptops because they by-passed all kinds of things and didn’t bother with any of that.”