Officers scoured the Discovery Communications building overnight after a hostage-taker claiming to have “several bombs” was shot dead, but did not find any “active devices” at the scene, NBC News reported Thursday.

Montgomery County, Md. police told NBC News that they had given the “all-clear,” but were still treating the building — where a man who identified himself as James J. Lee had held three people hostage — as a crime scene.

It remained closed overnight after Wednesday’s standoff; police did not indicate whether or not employees would be permitted to return to work Thursday, NBC News added.

Police shot to death the man Wednesday at the building in suburban Washington, D.C. Authorities said the hostages were safe.

At least one device on the man’s body went off when he was shot inside the building in suburban Washington, D.C., Montgomery County police Chief Thomas Manger said. Police had been trying to determine whether two boxes and two backpacks the gunman had also contained explosives.

Manger said SWAT officers shot the gunman about 4:50 p.m. EDT because officials “believed the hostages were in danger.” The hostages — two Discovery Communications employees and a security guard — were unhurt after the four-hour standoff.

An NBC News producer who called the building to find out what was going on had a brief telephone conversation with the man when he came on the line unexpectedly. He said, “I have a gun and I have a bomb. … I have several bombs strapped to my body ready to go off.”

NBC News informed Montgomery County authorities of the conversation as the producer spoke to the man for about 10 minutes. NBC News did not report the conversation until the hostage situation had been resolved.

Speaking to reporters, Manger would not release the man’s identity, but numerous law enforcement authorities gave NBC News the same name: James J. Lee.

Lee, 43, was a longtime protester at the building who was sentenced to six months of supervised probation for disorderly conduct in March 2008.

Manger said the suspect held the hostages in the lobby area of the first floor. He said police spent several hours negotiating with the armed man after he entered the suburban Washington building about 1 p.m.

The building in the close-in suburb of Washington was safely evacuated, including the Discovery Kids Place day care center, and none of the 1,900 people who work in the building were hurt.

‘The planet does not need humans’
Lee appears to have posted environmental and population-control demands online, saying humans are ruining the planet and that Discovery should develop programs to sound the alarm.

“I want Discovery Communications to broadcast on their channels to the world their new program lineup and I want proof they are doing so. I want the new shows started by asking the public for inventive solution ideas to save the planet and the remaining wildlife on it,” the alleged manifesto reads, adding:

“Nothing is more important than saving … the Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels. The humans? The planet does not need humans.”

Court records show that Lee was arrested Feb. 21, 2008, on the sixth day of a protest at the Discovery building. At the time of his conviction in March 2008, he was identified as being from San Diego.

Police were called to the scene when a crowd that had gathered began growing “unruly” as Lee threw thousands of dollars of cash into the air, some of it still in shrink-wrapped packages, police said at the time. (Lee was found not guilty of littering.)

Lee said at the time that he experienced an “awakening” when he watched former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Nathaniel Harrington, a former Discovery employee, told msnbc TV’s Peter Alexander that he saw Lee outside the building during the 2008 protest.

“He was seen as something of a joke,” Harrington said. “I hate to say it, but at the time we kind of half-joked about it because he could come back shooting. Nobody took it very seriously.”

“As soon as I heard” the news Wednesday, “I knew it’s got to be Lee,” he said.

Lee had been active in other online arenas, too, in pursuing his causes:

While his main domain, savetheplanetprotest.com, is now a single page presenting his complaints, archives show that in the past he has used it to promote a contest to give away money and property in Hawaii “for the best TV show idea to save the planet.”

In early 2008, a message board called Save the Planet Protest was set up by a man calling himself Lee who uses a profile picture very similar to other photos of James Lee.

In a January 2008 post, the man, using the screen name misterfifteen, explains that he specifically targeted Discovery because he believes its identification with environmentalism was a sham:

“Discovery is hugely responsible for what is happening and their ineffective programming must be protested and dealt with. The time for pussy-footing around the subject is done. It’s time to protest them until they start changing their stupid message. They ARE glorifying the damned fishermen who are overfishing the planet and I would think that you would see that for yourself instead of defending them.”

‘Save the Planet’ TV show pitch
The man goes on to say that he approached Discovery with programming ideas at one point “even though I had a feeling that they were working for their own greedy ends.” Discovery officials “didn’t do anything,” he writes.

The nature of that proposed programming can be gleaned from an undated pitch letter Lee sent to Discovery.

Calling himself “Mister Lee” and giving a Silver Spring address, Lee proposes “an idea for a reality-game show called ‘Race to Save the Planet.’”

According to the letter, which msnbc.com retrieved from archives of unlinked material on his website, Lee says contestants “would come from all over to compete with each other and come up with ideas to save the planet. The idea here is to use human inventiveness to save the planet from the environmental destruction it’s facing. People competing can either have completely new ideas on how to save the planet, or they can build on another person’s idea and make that original idea better.”

He concludes: “‘Race to Save the Planet.’ This show could very well save the planet.”

Also pulled down sometime in the past two years was a page set up to protest Discovery. On it, he writes:

“If their ‘environmental’ shows are actually working, then why is the news about the environment getting worse? It should be getting better if they were doing their job and we should be seeing that reflected on the nightly news. But NO! The Discovery Channel is actually not about saving the planet, they are just another ‘green’ corporation whose real interests lies in MONEY! Products! Junk! Trash!”

‘Chaotic’ scene described
Wednesday’s drama likewise played itself out online as scores of Discovery employees sought and gave information on Twitter and other social media services.

At the scene itself, helicopters and dozens of police cars patrolled the area, and most of the streets were blocked off.

“Someone over the P.A. said there’s a situation in the lobby, go back to your desks,” Melissa Shepard, a Discovery employee, told msnbc TV. “So we all went to offices and crammed into offices and shut the lights off and listened to the news. Then someone knocked on the door and said we need to evacuate.”

Shepard described initial confusion over the evacuation plan.

“The scariest was when they were telling us to go upstairs, then downstairs, then upstairs. I don’t know if it was safe,” she said.

“The thing is we were hearing there were two people, then explosives, then hostages, then that people were shot. We kept hearing different stories. It was one thing after another.”

“It’s pretty chaotic,” Tariq Warner, a photographer for NBC station WRC-TV, said on msnbc. He said a woman ran past him screaming.

Discovery Communications reaches about 1.5 billion subscribers in more than 180 countries with the Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Science Channel and Planet Green networks.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (pictures): WXYZ, CBSNEWS

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The shuttle Discovery and its astronauts returned safely to Earth on Tuesday after making a rare flyover of America’s heartland to wrap up their 15-day, 6 million-mile journey to the International Space Station.

The touchdown was delayed by rain and fog that dissipated as the sun rose, allowing Mission Control to take advantage of the morning’s second landing opportunity.

Discovery swooped through a hazy sky before landing on the Kennedy Space Center runway. NASA briefly considered bringing the shuttle in to the opposite end of the strip because of puffy clouds, but the glare from the sun was too great and flight controllers stuck to the original plan.

In the end, commander Alan Poindexter made what appeared to be a smooth touchdown, a day late because of rain.

“Welcome home,” Mission Control’s Rick Sturckow said, radioing congratulations on the entire flight.

“It was a great mission. We enjoyed it,” Poindexter said. “And we’re glad that the International Space Station is stocked up again.”

NASA had promised a spectacular show, weather permitting, for early risers in Helena, Mont., and all the way along Discovery’s flight path through the Midwest and Southeast. With the space shuttle program winding down, there weren’t expected to be any more continental flyovers.

This was, in fact, Discovery’s next-to-last flight. Only one more mission remains for NASA’s oldest surviving shuttle. As soon as it’s removed from the runway, it will be prepped for the final shuttle flight, scheduled for September.

Discovery zoomed over the North Pacific on its way home before crossing into North America over Vancouver, British Columbia. Then it headed toward the southeast, flying over northeastern Washington, Helena, Mont.; Wyoming; southwestern Nebraska; northeastern Colorado; southwestern Kansas; Oklahoma; Arkansas; Mississippi; Alabama; Georgia and finally Florida east of Gainesville.

NASA had anticipated the sonic booms might be heard as far north as Kansas. There were no immediate reports.

Before the shuttle began its descent, Mission Control described to the astronauts the route they would be taking to Cape Canaveral. “Sounds like a great ground track,” Poindexter observed.

It was the first time since 2007 that a space shuttle descended over so much of the United States. NASA typically prefers bringing a shuttle home from the southwest, up over the South Pacific, Central America and the Gulf of Mexico. That way, there’s minimal flying over heavily populated areas. In 2003, space shuttle Columbia shattered over Texas during re-entry, but no one on the ground was injured by the falling wreckage.

NASA wanted to maximize the crew’s work time in orbit, while minimizing fatigue. That resulted in this North American crossing.

Before leaving the space station Saturday, Poindexter and his crew dropped off tons of supplies and equipment. The main delivery was a tank full of ammonia coolant, which took three spacewalks to hook up.

A nitrogen pressure valve refused to open after the tank was installed, and for a day, NASA considered sending the shuttle astronauts out on a fourth spacewalk to fix the problem. But engineers concluded it was not an emergency and that the space station crew or future shuttle fliers could deal with it.

History, meanwhile, was made with the presence of four women in space: three on the shuttle and one at the station.

Discovery returned with a couple tons of trash and discarded space station equipment. Most of that was jammed into a cargo carrier that rocketed away aboard the shuttle back on April 5. The carrier will be re-outfitted and fly back up on Discovery in September, and be installed permanently at the orbiting outpost.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (pictures): THEEPOCHTIMES

On January 27, 1888, the National Geographic Society is founded in Washington, D.C., for “the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge.”

The 33 men who originally met and formed the National Geographic Society were a diverse group of geographers, explorers, teachers, lawyers, cartographers, military officers and financiers. All shared an interest in scientific and geographical knowledge, as well as an opinion that in a time of discovery, invention, change and mass communication, Americans were becoming more curious about the world around them. With this in mind, the men drafted a constitution and elected as the Society’s president a lawyer and philanthropist named Gardiner Greene Hubbard. Neither a scientist nor a geographer, Hubbard represented the Society’s desire to reach out to the layman.

Nine months after its inception, the Society published its first issue of National Geographic magazine. Readership did not grow, however, until Gilbert H. Grosvenor took over as editor in 1899. In only a few years, Grosvenor boosted circulation from 1,000 to 2 million by discarding the magazine’s format of short, overly technical articles for articles of general interest accompanied by photographs. National Geographic quickly became known for its stunning and pioneering photography, being the first to print natural-color photos of sky, sea and the North and South Poles.

The Society used its revenues from the magazine to sponsor expeditions and research projects that furthered humanity’s understanding of natural phenomena. In this role, the National Geographic Society has been instrumental in making possible some of the great achievements in exploration and science. To date, it has given out more than 1,400 grants, funding that helped Robert Peary journey to the North Pole, Richard Byrd fly over the South Pole, Jacques Cousteau delve into the sea and Jane Goodall observe wild chimpanzees, among many other projects.

Today, the National Geographic Society is one of the world’s largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions. National Geographic continues to sell as a glossy monthly, with a circulation of around 9 million. The Society also sees itself as a guardian of the planet’s natural resources, and in this capacity, focuses on ways to broaden its reach and educate its readers about the unique relationship that humans have with the earth.

HISTORY.COM
Date: 2009-01-27

Nearly four decades after he became the first American to orbit the Earth, Senator John Hershel Glenn, Jr., is launched into space again as a payload specialist aboard the space shuttle Discovery. At 77 years of age, Glenn was the oldest human ever to travel in space. During the nine-day mission, he served as part of a NASA study on health problems associated with aging.

Glenn, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, was among the seven men chosen by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1959 to become America’s first astronauts. A decorated pilot, he had flown nearly 150 combat missions during World War II and the Korean War. In 1957, he made the first nonstop supersonic flight across the United States, flying from Los Angeles to New York in three hours and 23 minutes.

In April 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space, and his spacecraft, Vostok 1, made a full orbit before returning to Earth. Less than one month later, American Alan B. Shepard, Jr., became the first American in space when his Freedom 7 spacecraft was launched on a suborbital flight. American “Gus” Grissom made another suborbital flight in July, and in August Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov spent more than 25 hours in space aboard Vostok 2, making 17 orbits. As a technological power, the United States was looking very much second-rate compared with its Cold War adversary. If the Americans wanted to dispel this notion, they needed a multi-orbital flight before another Soviet space advance arrived.

On February 20, 1962, NASA and Colonel John Glenn accomplished this feat with the flight of Friendship 7, a spacecraft that made three orbits of the Earth in five hours. Glenn was hailed as a national hero, and on February 23 President John F. Kennedy visited him at Cape Canaveral. Glenn later addressed Congress and was given a ticker-tape parade in New York City.

Out of a reluctance to risk the life of an astronaut as popular as Glenn, NASA essentially grounded the “Clean Marine” in the years after his historic flight. Frustrated with this uncharacteristic lack of activity, Glenn turned to politics and in 1964 announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate from his home state of Ohio and formally left NASA. Later that year, however, he withdrew his Senate bid after seriously injuring his inner ear in a fall from a horse. In 1970, following a stint as a Royal Crown Cola executive, he ran for the Senate again but lost the Democratic nomination to Howard Metzenbaum. Four years later, he defeated Metzenbaum, won the general election, and went on to win reelection three times. In 1984, he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for president.

In 1998, Glenn attracted considerable media attention when he returned to space aboard the space shuttle Discovery. In 1999, he retired from his U.S. Senate seat after four consecutive terms in office, a record for the state of Ohio.

HISTORY.COM
Date: 2008-10-29