Court to hear appeal over federal gay marriage law

Court to hear appeal over federal gay marriage law
Training for the next Libya, Marine teams wary of budget cuts
University of California settles pepper spray suit for $1 million
Army general removed from Afghanistan faces sex charges
Lawmakers press for broader restraints on China solar imports
Police to search driveway for remains of missing union boss Hoffa: report
Pennsylvanians give governor low marks on Sandusky probe: poll
Florida governor puts execution on hold, orders mental health exam
NFL referees' union and league make progress in talks, source says
Texas-Mexico border bridge reopens after "safety" scare
Arizona man arrested for fake grenade launcher stunt
Second time is the charm for Air Force One landing
Republican study warns against bailout of state pensions
Gay couple sues after photo used in Colorado campaign mailers
U.S. students grill Argentina President Fernandez in Washington
Texas-Mexico border bridge shut over "safety concerns"
Another 400 West Nile cases reported in U.S. in past week: CDC
Ferrari seized in food stamp fraud case
U.S. cites three more countries for child, forced labor problems
Lawmakers seek to delay nuclear relicensing requests
US judge upholds Obama ban on lobbyists serving on boards
Texas soldier dead after attempted "scare" hiccups cure
Young, Hispanics, poor hit most by US voter ID laws: study
Accused Fort Hood shooter released from hospital, back in jail
U.S. carbon tax could halve deficit in 10 years: report
Tutor Perini wins Washington Monument repair contract
Colorado "Frozen Dead Guy" festival to go on with or without corpse
Police to search driveway for remains of missing union boss Hoffa: report
Florida governor puts execution on hold, orders mental health exam
NFL referees' union and league make progress in talks, source says
University of California settles pepper spray suit for $1 million
Gay couple sues after photo used in Colorado campaign mailers
Texas-Mexico border bridge reopens after "safety" scare
Arizona man arrested for fake grenade launcher stunt
Pennsylvanians give governor low marks on Sandusky probe: poll
Army general removed from Afghanistan faces sex charges

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 02:46 PM PDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The next battle over a law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman will be waged in a federal appeals court in New York on Thursday. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments in the case of Edith Windsor, an 83-year-old woman who says the Defense of Marriage Act discriminates against gay couples in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Windsor's lawsuit is one of numerous challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act winding their way through U.S. courts. ...

Training for the next Libya, Marine teams wary of budget cuts

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 03:00 PM PDT

CHESAPEAKE, Virginia (Reuters) - Shells fly and firing range instructors yell at the young Marines who are in their second day of security forces training at the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp that straddles the border between Virginia and North Carolina. "Look what you just did. Hurry up! Let's go. Do it all over," barks one instructor who is helping prepare Marine security forces like those called to protect the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli after an attack on the U.S. Consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. ...

University of California settles pepper spray suit for $1 million

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 04:51 PM PDT

DAVIS, California (Reuters) - University of California officials have agreed to pay $1 million to settle a lawsuit over a pepper-spraying incident last year that came to symbolize law enforcement aggression against anti-Wall Street protesters, attorneys said on Wednesday. Video of the confrontation, which showed seated student protesters being pepper-sprayed by campus police at the University of California campus at Davis, was replayed widely on television and the Internet, sparking outrage among faculty and activists. ...

Army general removed from Afghanistan faces sex charges

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 03:44 PM PDT

WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina (Reuters) - A decorated Army general is facing charges of forcible sodomy and engaging in inappropriate relationships stemming from allegations that got him sent home from Afghanistan this year, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. Brigadier General Jeffrey Sinclair, who is based at North Carolina's Fort Bragg, has also been charged with wrongful sexual conduct, misusing a government travel charge card, possessing alcohol and pornography while deployed and mistreating subordinates, military officials said in a statement. ...

Lawmakers press for broader restraints on China solar imports

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 03:36 PM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Eight lawmakers urged President Barack Obama's administration on Wednesday to broaden the scope of proposed duties on billions of dollars of solar panels from China, as the U.S. government nears its final rulings in the case. The lawmakers, led by Oregon Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, criticized an earlier Commerce Department decision to exclude Chinese solar panels containing cells made in another country from preliminary duties of more than 30 percent. They argued that would allow Chinese solar panel producers to escape U.S. ...

Police to search driveway for remains of missing union boss Hoffa: report

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 06:24 PM PDT

(Reuters) - Police plan to examine a Detroit-area driveway in the latest twist in the search for the remains of former Teamsters union leader Jimmy Hoffa, who disappeared in 1975 in what authorities believe may have been an organized crime hit, the Detroit Free Press said on Wednesday. Police received a tip that "seemed credible" that Hoffa's remains could be buried at a house in Roseville, a suburb northeast of Detroit, Roseville Police Chief James Berlin told the Detroit Free Press. Berlin said the informant thought he saw something suspicious about the time that Hoffa disappeared. ...

Pennsylvanians give governor low marks on Sandusky probe: poll

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 04:08 PM PDT

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Most Pennsylvania voters give Governor Tom Corbett fair or poor marks for his investigation, as state attorney general, into reports that former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was sexually abusing children, a poll showed on Wednesday. Only 17 percent of the state's voters think Corbett, who served as Pennsylvania's top prosecutor for two terms before becoming governor in 2011, did a good or excellent job investigating what became a scandal that shook college football, according to the Franklin & Marshall College Poll. ...

Florida governor puts execution on hold, orders mental health exam

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 05:34 PM PDT

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - Florida's governor on Wednesday asked a panel of psychiatrists to determine whether a convicted murderer scheduled to be executed next month understands why he has been sentenced to death. Governor Rick Scott ordered the October 16 execution of John Errol Ferguson be put on hold and agreed to let a three-doctor panel decide if the death row inmate is sane and aware he is about to be executed by lethal injection. ...

NFL referees' union and league make progress in talks, source says

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 04:51 PM PDT

(Reuters) - The NFL and locked-out referees have made progress in contract negotiations, a source close to the referees' union said on Wednesday, as hopes rise the two sides can strike a deal in time for officials to be back on the field for this weekend's games. An agreement would come amid mounting criticism of the National Football League after a widely panned touchdown call by replacement referees gave the Seattle Seahawks a victory over the Green Bay Packers on Monday. ...

Texas-Mexico border bridge reopens after "safety" scare

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 04:23 PM PDT

(Reuters) - Authorities in Eagle Pass, Texas, have reopened one of the city's two border crossings to Mexico which had been closed for several hours due to safety concerns, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency said. The agency said local authorities reopened Bridge II, which handles commercial traffic to and from the city of Piedras Negras, Mexico, at 4:20 p.m. local time. The commercial crossing was shut down nearly six hours earlier over safety concerns which local news media said were prompted by the discovery of a "suspicious device. ...

Arizona man arrested for fake grenade launcher stunt

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 04:37 PM PDT

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Police have arrested an Arizona man who filmed his 16-year-old nephew walking city streets dressed in a sheet and carrying a fake grenade launcher in an apparent bid to test police responses after the Denver theater shooting, authorities said on Wednesday. Michael David Turley, 39, was arrested on Monday over the making of the video, in which an unidentified narrator says he aims to "find out how safe I really am" in Phoenix following the July Denver shooting that killed 12 people and wounded 58. ...

Second time is the charm for Air Force One landing

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 01:44 PM PDT

KENT, Ohio (Reuters) - The presidential jet Air Force One was forced Wednesday to abort an initial landing in Toledo, Ohio, due to fog and rain, and passengers including the president had a bumpy ride. The plane ferrying President Barack Obama to election campaign events in Ohio took two attempts to land while those aboard were shaken by turbulence. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, after consulting with the plane's crew, told journalists traveling with the president that weather was the cause. The plane landed safely on the second attempt and there were no injuries. ...

Republican study warns against bailout of state pensions

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 03:33 PM PDT

(Reuters) - State and local governments facing pension liabilities that already total in the trillions of dollar will be forced to seek bailouts from the government, Republican Party Congressional staffers said in a study released on Wednesday, as they warned that such bailouts could have dire consequences. Republican staff of the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee said with state debt topping $4 trillion, including $2. ...

Gay couple sues after photo used in Colorado campaign mailers

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 04:01 PM PDT

DENVER (Reuters) - A New Jersey gay couple sued a conservative group for copyright violation on Wednesday claiming the organization used their images in negative political campaign advertisements without their permission. Brian Edwards and Thomas Privitere, represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center, filed suit against the Virginia-based Public Advocate of the United States, which paid for fliers used to target two Republican candidates in Colorado this year. ...

U.S. students grill Argentina President Fernandez in Washington

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 01:56 PM PDT

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Georgetown University students in Washington D.C. got to do something on Wednesday that Argentine journalists rarely get to do: grill visiting President Cristina Fernandez on issues like her country's discredited inflation statistics. Fernandez is a gifted public speaker but she seldom holds news conferences or gives interviews at home. Her drive to crack down on media monopolies has aggravated a long-running feud with top Argentine conglomerate Grupo Clarin. ...

Texas-Mexico border bridge shut over "safety concerns"

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 02:52 PM PDT

(Reuters) - Authorities in Eagle Pass, Texas, have closed one of the city's two border crossings to Mexico due to "safety concerns," the Customs and Border Protection agency said on Wednesday. The agency said local authorities closed Bridge II linking the city to Piedras Negras, Mexico, to traffic in the morning citing safety concerns, which local news media said were prompted by the discovery of a "suspicious device." Eagle Pass is not one of the principal hubs for trade or visitors over the 2,000-mile (3,200-km) U.S. Mexico border. ...

Another 400 West Nile cases reported in U.S. in past week: CDC

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 01:36 PM PDT

(Reuters) - More than 400 new U.S. cases of West Nile virus emerged in the last week, in an outbreak that remains the second worst on record but has begun to show signs of slowing. So far this year, 3,545 cases have been reported to federal health officials as of September 25, up from 3,142 reported the week before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in its weekly update of outbreak data. That marked a rise of nearly 13 percent, down considerably from a 30 percent weekly jump witnessed earlier this month. About 38 percent of all cases have been reported in Texas. ...

Ferrari seized in food stamp fraud case

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 12:35 PM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal investigators uncovered two grocery store owners who trafficked in more than $1 million in food stamps apiece and seized four luxury cars, including a Ferrari, from one of them, the Agriculture Department's watchdog agency said on Wednesday. In Lake Charles, Louisiana, the owner of two grocery stores was ordered to pay more than $1.7 million in restitution and was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison after trading food stamps for cash and other goods, the department's inspector general said in a report. ...

U.S. cites three more countries for child, forced labor problems

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 12:41 PM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Wednesday added South Sudan, Suriname and Vietnam to its list of 74 countries where adults and children as young as 5 are subjected to serious labor and human trafficking abuses in prostitution, mining and other dangerous work. The U.S. Labor Department's annual assessment of global human trafficking also raised concerns that the international economic crisis is slowing efforts to eradicate such child abuses by 2016. "Just a few years from the deadline much remains to be done," the department said in a video accompanying its findings. ...

Lawmakers seek to delay nuclear relicensing requests

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 01:09 PM PDT

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Applications to relicense aging nuclear reactors would be delayed until the power plants are closer to retirement age and safety conditions are better known, under legislation introduced on Wednesday by two U.S. congressmen. U.S. Representatives John Tierney and Edward Markey, both Massachusetts Democrats, said their proposal - the Nuclear Reactor Safety First Act - would provide "greater certainty" over the safety of older nuclear plants, according to a release. The proposal would prevent the U.S. ...

US judge upholds Obama ban on lobbyists serving on boards

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 08:55 AM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday upheld an attempt by President Barack Obama to cut down the influence of lobbyists, ruling that Obama was within his authority when he barred them from serving on government boards. The ruling dismisses a lawsuit brought by six lobbyists who argued the ban unfairly penalizes them for exercising their right to petition the government. The lobbyists failed to show that they lost something by not serving on government boards, such as a committee that advises on trade issues, wrote U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson. ...

Texas soldier dead after attempted "scare" hiccups cure

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 10:16 AM PDT

KILLEEN, Texas (Reuters) - A Fort Hood soldier who shot dead a fellow soldier in an ill-fated attempt to cure him of the hiccups has been charged with manslaughter, authorities said on Wednesday. The incident occurred when Private First Class Isaac Lawrence Young, 22, came down with a case of the hiccups while the soldiers were watching a football game on television Sunday night in Killeen, Texas, home to the military post. ...

Young, Hispanics, poor hit most by US voter ID laws: study

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 10:13 AM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Younger Americans, people without college educations, the poor and Hispanics are among groups most likely to be unable to vote under new state laws requiring photo identification, an analysis of Reuters/Ipsos poll data showed on Wednesday. More than 20,000 voter interviews over the last two months showed that an overwhelming majority of Americans have ID that would allow them to cast ballots, a central issue in an angry national debate over Republican-led efforts for tighter control of U.S. voter rolls before the November general election. ...

Accused Fort Hood shooter released from hospital, back in jail

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 10:02 AM PDT

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan, who is awaiting trial accused of a 2009 shooting rampage that left 13 people dead at Fort Hood in Texas, has been released from a military hospital and returned to the Bell County jail, military officials said on Wednesday. Hasan, 41, is paralyzed from the chest down from four gunshot wounds he suffered during the November 2009 rampage that also left 32 people wounded. He is being held in a specially built hospital cell at the jail. A post spokesman declined to comment on why Hasan had been taken to the hospital on Saturday. ...

U.S. carbon tax could halve deficit in 10 years: report

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 01:24 AM PDT

WAHSINGTON, Sept 26 (Reuters Point Carbon) - Imposing a $20 per metric ton carbon tax in the U.S. could reduce the country's budget deficit by 50 percent over the next 10 years, a report by the Congressional Research Service said on Tuesday. Such a tax would generate approximately $88 billion in 2012, rising to $144 billion by 2020, the report said, slashing U.S. debt by between 12 and 50 percent within a decade, depending on how high the deficit climbs The U.S. budget deficit has exceeded $1 trillion annually in each fiscal year since 2009, and could rise to between $2. ...

Tutor Perini wins Washington Monument repair contract

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 10:18 AM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Builder Tutor Perini Corp has won a $9.6 million contract to repair earthquake damage to the Washington Monument, the National Park Service said on Wednesday. The award of the contract to Perini Management Services Inc, a Tutor Perini unit, allows repair work on the Washington landmark to begin, the agency said in a statement. Repairs are expected to take 12 to 18 months to complete. Scaffolding will sheathe the 555-foot-high (169.2-meter-high) structure during the work. The marble and granite monument to George Washington, the first U.S. ...

Colorado "Frozen Dead Guy" festival to go on with or without corpse

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 06:35 PM PDT

DENVER (Reuters) - The frozen corpse that has inspired a Colorado town's whimsical "Frozen Dead Guy Days" celebration may soon be put on ice somewhere else, but festival organizers said the body's removal will not have a chilling effect on the annual event. "We will continue on whether or not Bredo Morstoel is here," festival owner Amanda MacDonald said Wednesday of the man whose body has been packed in dry ice outside Nederland, Colorado, since 1993. ...