American Scene

CALIFORNIA

Scientists to debate Mars landing site

LOS ANGELES — After years of poring through images from space and debating where on Mars the next NASA rover should land, it comes down to four choices.

Scientists in the close-knit Mars research community get one last chance to make their case this week when they gather before the “judges” — the team running the $2.5 billion mission that will soon suggest a landing site to NASA, the ultimate decider.

While the stakes are high, all four candidates are relatively free of dangerous boulders and other hazards that would pose a threat to rover Curiosity upon landing. The size of a small car, Curiosity is scheduled to launch in late November after a two-year delay.

The choices are Gale crater, near the Martian equator; Mawrth Vallis, an ancient flood channel in the Martian northern highlands; the southern hemisphere’s Eberswalde crater, which contains remnant of a river delta; and the nearby Holden crater, the site of water-carved gullies and sediment deposits.

FLORIDA

Giffords arrives to see Monday shuttle launch

CAPE CANAVERAL — Wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, cleared by doctors to travel, has arrived in Florida for the Monday morning launch of the space shuttle Endeavour that will be commanded by her husband, Mark Kelly.

A posting on the congresswoman’s Facebook page says she flew in on a NASA jet Sunday afternoon and got a quick fly-by of Endeavour at the pad.

The Arizona Democrat arrived with the family of Endeavour pilot Gregory Johnson.

The shuttle is scheduled to be fueled late Sunday night, and the weather looks good for Endeavour’s scheduled 8:56 a.m. launch. An April launch was delayed because of electrical problems.

Mrs. Giffords was shot in the head in a mass shooting in Tucson in January, but is making a remarkable recovery.

ILLINOIS

Apartment fire kills 6, including 3 children

AURORA — An apartment fire in this town 40 miles west of Chicago has left six people dead, including three children, and a dozen others sent to hospitals with injuries.

Aurora public information officer Dan Ferrelli said in a news release the fire started about 4 a.m. Sunday in a three-story building where at least 35 people were living.

According to Mr. Ferrelli three people died at hospitals — an adult male, a boy estimated at 5 to 7 years old and an infant — while three others were pronounced dead at the scene — a boy about 10 years old and two women, probably in their 30s.

Fire officials are investigating the cause of the blaze.

NEVADA

Reports of Lake Clemens are greatly exaggerated

RENO — Mark Twain will have to wait to get recognition in the state where he assumed his pen name nearly 150 years ago.

The U.S. Board on Geographic Names has rejected a bid by its Nevada counterpart to name a scenic Lake Tahoe cove for Samuel Clemens, which was Mark Twain’s real name.

The Nevada State Board on Geographic Names voted in September to back the request in part because there is no geographic feature in the state named for Twain, whose book “Roughing It” put Nevada on the map.

But the national board, which denied the bid on a 5-4 vote Thursday, cited opposition by the U.S. Forest Service and doubt about whether Twain actually camped at the inlet on Lake Tahoe’s northeast shore near Incline Village, as the Nevada board maintains he did in 1861.

“Here you have a state saying one thing, and a land agency saying something else,” said Lou Yost, executive secretary of the national board.

While Twain wrote adoringly about Lake Tahoe, including an oft-quoted poetic phrase about the lake, the Forest Service noted that “his legacy also is that he carelessly started a forest fire and then returned to Carson City.”

NORTH CAROLINA

Graham returns home after bout of pneumonia

ASHEVILLE — The Rev. Billy Graham was back at his North Carolina home Sunday after being hospitalized for five days with pneumonia.

Mr. Graham’s doctors at Mission Hospital in Asheville said the 92-year-old evangelist had responded well to treatment and regained strength.

“We expect continuing recuperation at home with very gradual recovery, returning to normal activities over several weeks,” Dr. Lucian Rice, the minister’s primary care physician, said in a news release from the hospital. “I’m delighted that he has come back this fast.”

Mr. Graham — who went to the hospital Wednesday with sweating, coughing and breathing difficulty — was able to continue his routine while in the hospital, having his weekly Bible study and prayer with his pastor

Still, he was glad to be home, his spokesman A. Larry Ross said. “Mr. Graham remained alert and in good spirits upon discharge,” Mr. Ross said.

From wire dispatches and staff reports