Maine lawmakers approve same-sex marriage
AUGUSTA, Maine, May 6 (UPI) -- The Maine House of Representatives has voted 98-57 to legalize same-sex unions in The Pine Tree State.
The bill, already approved by the Democrat-controlled state Senate, now goes to Gov. John Baldacci for his signature, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
Before the measure passed both houses, Baldacci would not indicate whether he would sign it.
His spokesman, David Farmer, said the governor wouldn't make a decision until the bill actually reached his desk.
"He is absolutely listening to what people have to say," Farmer said. "But at the end of the day, I think it will come down to what he believes is the right thing to do."
If Baldacci signs the measure, gay rights advocates will have moved closer to their goal of making same-sex marriage legal throughout New England.
Massachusetts was the first to allow same-sex couples to marry followed by Connecticut and Vermont.
Baghdad market blast kills at least 10
BAGHDAD, May 6 (UPI) -- A bomb inside a parked vehicle exploded Wednesday in a crowded Baghdad market, killing at least 10 people, police said.
The bomb detonated in the Alwat al-Rashid wholesale market in the Dora neighborhood in southern Baghdad, The New York Times reported.
Iraqi police said the blast damaged the market and set six vehicles on fire, Kuwaiti news agency KUNA reported.
The market is a wholesale vegetable outlet,
Officials said they didn't know if the blast was set off by a suicide bomber or if the explosive device was hidden in the parked vehicle.
Appeal to be heard; Saberi resumes eating
TEHRAN, May 6 (UPI) -- An Iranian appeals court will review the espionage conviction of imprisoned U.S. free-lance journalist Roxana Saberi next week, a judiciary spokesman said.
The announcement came after Saberi's family agreed not to hire a group of lawyers headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights activist Shrin Ebadi, The Washington Post reported Wednesday
"Judicial authorities have advised us that it is better to use other lawyers," said Reza Saberi, the journalist's father.
Saberi told CNN his daughter has ended a two-week hunger strike at her parents' urging. Roxana Saberi had been drinking water but not eating to protest her detention at Tehran's Evin prison.
Iranian officials Friday took her to a hospital, where she was fed intravenously before being returned her to her cell, her father said.
In an e-mail sent Wednesday to supporters, the elder Saberi wrote, "We were very glad to hear this news. We hope she will gain some strength to enable her to stand the appeal trial."
The 32-year-old journalist was tried and convicted in a one-day, closed-door trial in April. She was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Saberi has been living in Iran since 2003, free-lancing for National Public Radio and other news organizations, and was writing a book about Iranian culture.
When she was arrested in January, Iranian officials said Saberi was being held for buying a bottle of wine. The Foreign Ministry later said she was detained for reporting without proper credentials.
Iranian authorities revoked her press credentials in 2006, but Saberi still filed news items.
In early April, it was learned that Saberi was charged with espionage.
Ginsburg: Supreme Court needs women
WASHINGTON, May 6 (UPI) -- The only woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, says the high court sorely needs more female members.
"It shouldn't be that women are the exception," Ginsburg told USA Today in an interview conducted before Justice David Souter announced his retirement.
Ginsburg's status as the only woman on the court was especially poignant during a recent case involving a 13-year-old Arizona girl who was strip-searched at school, USA Today reported Wednesday.
During oral arguments, some of the justices minimized the girl's lasting humiliation, but Ginsburg, 76, had a different view.
"They have never been a 13-year-old girl," said Ginsburg. "It's a very sensitive age for a girl. I don't think that my colleagues, some of them, quite understood."
Ginsburg has been the lone woman on the high court since Justice Sandra Day O'Connor retired three years ago.
Groups such as the National Women's Law Center are urging President Barack Obama to appoint a woman to replace Souter
Switch costs Specter committee seniority
WASHINGTON, May 6 (UPI) -- Abandoning the Republican Party cost Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., his seniority on five committees.
On a voice vote Tuesday, the Senate stripped the 29-year veteran lawmaker of his committee seniority, a move that made Specter the most junior Democrat on four of the five committees on which he serves, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. Specter will be the second lowest in seniority on the fifth committee.
When announcing his party switch last week, Specter said Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada assured him he would keep his seniority in the Senate and on the committees. Specter's tenure ranked him ahead of all but seven Democrats.
Democrats suggested that they would consider revisiting Specter's seniority at the committee level after the 2010 midterm elections.
"This is all going to be negotiated next Congress," Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid, told the Post.
Specter's office did not comment.
Meanwhile, Specter retreated from statements he made to The New York Times Magazine in an interview to be published Sunday, the Post said. He commented about how Norm Coleman of Minnesota could possibly win his legal contest and reclaim his Senate seat, ensuring that there would still be at least one Jewish Republican in the chamber. Coleman is appealing a recount that gave Democrat Al Franken, the former "Saturday Night Live" writer and performer, a 312-vote lead.
Specter told Congressional Quarterly Tuesday: "In the swirl of moving from one caucus to another, I have to get used to my new teammates. I'm ordinarily pretty correct in what I say. I've made a career of being precise. I conclusively misspoke."
Calif. helicopter crash kills two Marines
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., May 6 (UPI) -- An AH-IW Super Cobra attack helicopter crashed in a rural area east of San Diego, killing two U.S. Marines, firefighters reported.
Cal-Fire Capt. Daryll Pina told XETV-TV in San Diego Wednesday the helicopter went down late Tuesday during a training flight over the Cleveland National Forest, six miles from the town of Pine Valley.
Firefighters who responded to the scene were prevented from getting close to the wreckage by exploding ordnance the two-seat helicopter had been carrying.
XETV said officials at the nearby Camp Pendleton Marine base confirmed the chopper was from Helicopter Squadron 166 but did not release the names of the two aviators.
