National Briefing

NEW YORK

Victim was bound and gagged

A woman found dead in a Manhattan skyscraper where a cleaning woman had vanished days earlier was bound and gagged and had a gold crucifix taped to her mouth, police said.

The body was found Saturday after blood was discovered leaking from a ventilation shaft, police spokesman Paul Browne said. The body hasn't been identified, but police presumed it was that of Eridania Rodriguez, 46, who hasn't been seen since Tuesday.

An autopsy determined the dead woman was asphyxiated by tape applied to her head and face, according to Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office.

The woman's hands were tied behind her back, and her feet and mouth were bound, Browne said. The crucifix was dangling by her mouth, he said, but it was unclear whether a necklace had been caught underneath the tape.

"We haven't determined whether the crucifix ended up there incidentally or intentionally," he said.

FLORIDA

NASA scrubs shuttle launch

Thunderstorms forced NASA to call off the launch of shuttle Endeavour, the fourth delay for the space station construction mission.

The Cape Canaveral launch team came within minutes of sending Endeavour and seven astronauts to the International Space Station. But when storms moving in from the west violated NASA's safety rules, managers halted the countdown. They will try again today, despite a forecast calling for more bad weather.

NASA has until Tuesday, possibly Wednesday, to launch Endeavour with the final piece of Japan's space station lab. Otherwise, it will have to wait until the end of July because of a Russian supply ship that's awaiting liftoff.

PENNSYLVANIA

Swim club tries to ease racial flap

A private suburban Philadelphia swim club accused of racism after it canceled the memberships of dozens of minority children said it would meet with the children's camps to work out an agreement for them to return.

Amy Goldman, a member of the Valley Club in Huntingdon Valley, said those able to attend a hastily called meeting voted unanimously in support of reinstating the memberships of the Creative Steps day camp and two other camps as long as safety issues, times and terms could be agreed upon.