CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Flashing a big smile, teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan climbed aboard the space shuttle Endeavour today for liftoff on a mission she hopes will realize the unfulfilled dreams of her predecessor, Christa McAuliffe.

Endeavour launched in good weather this afternoon.

Morgan beamed and waved at the cameras and crowd as she boarded the van that transported the shuttle crew to the launch pad. She stood at the base of the pad, looking up at the towering Endeavour, before riding the elevator up with her six colleagues.

Before crawling into the shuttle, Morgan sipped water from a bottle and tapped the shoulder of a crewmate who was waiting to board. She took the center seat in the cabin's lower compartment, the same seat occupied by McAuliffe in 1986.

"Welcome aboard, Barbara," a launch controller said.

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RESCUERS ABOUT 1,000 FEET FROM TRAPPED MINERS

HUNTINGTON, Utah — Crews hoping to get food and air to six coal miners drilled to within about 1,000 feet of the trapped men today, and hoped to reach them in two days, one of the mine's owners said.

It still wasn't known whether the miners were alive more than two days after the initial cave-in, said Bob Murray, chairman of Murray Energy Corp., co-owner of the Crandall Canyon mine.

But the progress was substantially better than the night before, when crews had to halt drilling because of unstable ground.

Teams also were drilling a second larger hole that could be used to get food to the miners, 1,500 feet below the surface. And efforts to clear tunnels leading to the chamber where the men were believed trapped were to resume in the afternoon, Murray said.

He said it would take a week to get to the miners by clearing the tunnels.

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COMPANY CHARGED WITH MANSLAUGHTER IN TUNNEL COLLAPSE

BOSTON — The company that provided the epoxy blamed in the fatal Big Dig tunnel collapse was indicted today in the death of a motorist crushed by ceiling panels.

Powers Fasteners Inc. was charged with one count of involuntary manslaughter, Attorney General Martha Coakley said. The Brewster, N.Y.-based firm is the only company involved in the construction and design of the tunnel to be indicted by a Suffolk County grand jury, Coakley said, noting that the investigation remains open.

A report from the National Transportation Safety Board released last month found the July 10, 2006, collapse could have been avoided if designers and construction crews had considered that the epoxy holding support anchors for the panels could slowly pull away over time.

Milena Del Valle, 39, was killed when 26 tons of concrete panels and hardware crashed from a tunnel ceiling onto her car as she and her husband drove through the westbound Interstate 90 tunnel. Her husband crawled out of the rubble with minor injuries.

Prosecutors said Powers Fasteners knew the type of epoxy it marketed and sold for the nearly $15 billion project was unsuitable for the weight it would have to hold, but never told project managers.

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RAINSTORM CRIPPLES N.Y. TRANSIT SYSTEM

NEW YORK — Torrential rain blamed for at least one death flooded subways and rail lines and delayed flights early today at New York's three major airports and thousands of commuters were stranded for two hours or more.

Wind and heavy rain toppled trees onto cars and streets, caused scattered power outages and left some shops shuttered and businesses struggling with shortages of workers.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said officers had to use crowd-control tactics to keep the peace. Groups of officers directed commuters from subway stations where trains weren't running and at bus stops jammed with people jostling to get on board.

A woman who got stuck in an underpass was killed when her car was struck by another vehicle, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. The mayor said buildings were damaged in parts of Brooklyn, including a roof ripped off a church.

"I don't know that God had rush hour in mind when the storms hit," Bloomberg said at news conference in a Brooklyn neighborhood where the National Weather Service was trying to determine whether a tornado had struck.

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DIVERS CONTINUE SEARCH FOR VICTIMS OF BRIDGE COLLAPSE

MINNEAPOLIS — Flags flew at half-staff at the Minnesota Capitol today a week after a bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River, killing at least five people and injuring about 100.

Divers from the Navy and the FBI had joined local law enforcement divers in the effort to recover eight people who remain missing and are presumed dead among the debris.

The Navy divers returned to the river at 7 a.m. after working until 10 p.m. yesterday and were doing "a very meticulous, hand-over-hand search of the scene," said their spokesman, Senior Chief Dave Nagle.

The FBI team had to abandon the use of the larger of two unmanned submarines, Special Agent Paul McCabe said. The remote-controlled vehicle — equipped with a camera, sonar, lights and a grabbing arm — was too big to maneuver amid the unstable, twisted bridge wreckage and vehicles in the murky water, he said.

Instead, FBI divers will use their smaller sub, a shoe box-sized vehicle equipped only with lights and a camera.

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PAKISTAN CONSIDERS STATE OF EMERGENCY

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The government of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf is not ruling out imposing a state of emergency because of "external and internal threats" to Pakistan and deteriorating law and order in the volatile northwest near the Afghan border, a spokesman said Thursday.

Tariq Azim, minister of state for information, said Pakistani media reports that Musharraf would soon declare an emergency were unconfirmed, but he added that the possibility had been discussed and that "no firm decision has yet been taken."

"These are only unconfirmed reports although the possibility of imposition of emergency cannot be ruled out and has recently been talked about and discussed keeping in mind some external and internal threats and the law and order situation," he told The Associated Press.

Azim referred to recent military action against militants in northwestern border areas that he said had resulted in the deaths of many soldiers.

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U.S. FORCES KILL 32 SHIITE MILITANTS IN IRAQ

BAGHDAD — U.S. aircraft and soldiers attacked Shiite militia bomb makers accused of links to Iran in raids today that coincided with a visit to Tehran by Iraq's prime minister. The U.S. military said 32 suspected militants were killed and 12 were captured.

The strike in Sadr City — a major Shiite enclave in Baghdad — sought to target a ring believed to be smuggling armor-piercing roadside bombs from Iran. The precision-crafted explosives have become a growing threat to American troops, and the Pentagon has struggled to find ways to protect vehicles against their deadly power.

The sweep into Sadr City also sent a strong message that U.S. forces plan no letup on suspected Shiite militia cells despite risks of upsetting the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and its efforts at closer cooperation with Shiite heavyweight Iran.

Tehran has denied support for the violence in Iraq. Al-Maliki, on a state visit seeking both security cooperation and more electricity from his neighbor, had no immediate comment on the raids.

The U.S. military said 32 suspected militiamen were killed and 12 captured. But Iraqi police and witnesses said the raids killed nine civilians, including two women, and wounded six others, and made no mention of militants. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisals.

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J. LO WINS LAWSUIT AGAINST FIRST HUSBAND

LOS ANGELES — Jennifer Lopez has been awarded nearly $545,000 in a lawsuit against her first husband, Ojani Noa, over his plans to publish a tell-all book claiming she had several affairs.

A court-ordered arbitrator made the decision in April in Lopez's breach-of-contract lawsuit against Noa, court papers filed Monday indicated. The figure includes only $200,000 in damages, with the rest going for arbitration costs and attorneys' fees.

Lopez's lawsuit claimed that Noa had violated a previous lawsuit settlement preventing him from revealing private information about their relationship.

The arbitrator also decided that a permanent injunction should be awarded against Noa that would bar him from "criticizing, denigrating, casting in a negative light or otherwise disparaging or causing disparagement" to the singer-actress.