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President Obama, with his speech on Thursday, seems to have heard and acted on some of the criticism of his controversial February budget proposal for NASA. He had proposed then to shift the nation’s astronaut access to orbit to commercial rockets and spacecraft, and cancelled NASA’s Constellation program to return astronauts to the moon and deep space. On Thursday, he attempted to refute claims that these shifts marked a strategic retreat from U.S. leadership in space. He stated his clear support for human space voyages to nearby asteroids, to the moons of Mars, and eventually to the surface of Mars...

NEW YORK — After 15 years without a new album in the U.S., Tom Jones will release a disc of almost entirely original material this fall. The 68-year-old singer will release "24 Hours" on Nov. 25 on S-Curve Records. It's a retro-tinged album much in the style of Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" that finds the Welshman's voice as strong as ever. "The fire is still in me," Jones told The Associated Press in a recent interview, speaking by phone from his home in Los Angeles. "Not to be an oldie, but a goodie. I want to be a contender."...

Long before our solar system formed and even before the Milky Way assumed its final spiral shape, a star slightly smaller than the Sun blazed into life in our galaxy, formed from the newly scattered remains of the first stars in the universe. Employing techniques similar to those used to date archeological remains here on Earth, scientists have learned that a metal-poor star in our Milky Way called HE 1523 is 13.2 billion years old-just slightly younger than 13.7 billion year age of the universe. Our solar system is estimated to be only about 4.6 billion years old. The findings...

I have a request for people here more skilled than I. I read Lanny's piece in the WSJ concerning the remarks made against Joe Lieberman in Daily Kos. This particular statement "as everybody knows, jews ONLY care about the welfare of other jews" made by a Kos poster named TomJones, I have been unable to find in Daily Kos. Did they remove it or is this a fabrication of Davis? Please do not treat me as a troll. I want to use this in arguments and discussions, but if it never happened, I do not want to look foolish. I...

Welsh singer Tom Jones is getting used to meeting Queen Elizabeth II — but Wednesday was something special as she dubbed him, "Sir Tom." The 65-year-old singer, a coal miner's son from the Welsh town of Pontypridd, received the honor from the queen at Buckingham Palace. Jones said he had met the British monarch "six or seven times, maybe more," starting with a royal charity performance in 1966. "I love seeing the queen and I have always been a royalist," Jones said after the investiture. "She is lovely and she still is lovely." The big-voiced belter, who was accompanied by...

A NORTH Wales man's hobby of shooting his air pistol at trees and signs in a wood has landed him in hot water. Police saw him walking along a road near Holywell and he was carrying a pistol which was loaded. At Flintshire Magistrates' Court yesterday, Paul Trevor Donnelly, 25, of Moor Lane, Holway, Holywell, admitted unlawfully possessing the pistol in Greenfield Road in Holy-well, on August 8. Magistrates gave him a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered him to pay £55 costs. Justin Espey, prosecuting, said he told police he had simply been shooting the gun at signs and trees...

LITTLE ROCK — Tom Jones, a hands-on manager whose eye for detail and way with people kept work at the Clinton Presidential Library on time and on budget, has died. He was 63. Jones, who died Sunday, had spent three years in Little Rock as construction manager of the $160 million project on the banks of the Arkansas River. The library is 70 percent complete and is to open as planned on Nov. 18, said Skip Rutherford, head of the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation. "November 18 is going to be a special day and I sure wanted (Jones)...