SEFFNER, Fla.

Demolition begins on home perched over huge sinkhole

Crews on Sunday razed more than half of the Tampa-area home perched over a huge sinkhole that swallowed a man three days ago, managing to salvage some keepsakes for family members who lived there.

Jeremy Bush, 35, tried to save his brother, Jeff, when the earth opened up and swallowed him Thursday night. On Sunday morning, Bush and relatives prayed with a pastor as the home — where he lived with his girlfriend, Rachel Wicker; their daughter, Hannah, 2; and others — was demolished and waited for firefighters to salvage anything possible from inside.

Early Sunday, just before the demolition began, Bush and an unidentified woman knelt and prayed at the mailbox in front of the home, owned by Leland Wicker, Rachel’s grandfather, since the 1970s.

After praying, Bush and the woman walked across the street to a neighbor’s lawn to watch the demolition.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

Dragon makes late delivery to orbiting space station

A private Earth-to-orbit delivery service made good on its latest shipment to the International Space Station on Sunday, overcoming mechanical difficulty and delivering a ton of supplies with high-flying finesse.

To NASA’s relief, the SpaceX company’s Dragon capsule pulled up to the orbiting lab with all of its systems in perfect order. Station astronauts used a hefty robot arm to snare the unmanned Dragon, and three hours later, it was bolted into place.

Coming a full day late, the 250-mile-high linkup above Ukraine culminated a two-day chase that got off to a shaky, almost dead-ending start. Moments after the Dragon reached orbit Friday, a clogged pressure line or stuck valve prevented the timely release of the solar panels and the crucial firing of small maneuvering rockets. SpaceX flight controllers struggled for several hours before gaining control of the capsule and salvaging the mission.

“As they say, it’s not where you start, but where you finish that counts,” space station commander Kevin Ford said, “and you guys really finished this one on the mark.”

Among the items on board: 640 seeds of a flowering weed used for research, mouse stem cells, food and clothes for the six men on the space station, trash bags, computer equipment, air purifiers, spacewalking tools and batteries.