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A federal court in San Francisco on Wednesday overturned the state's voter-approved initiative banning same-sex marriages, in a landmark case that could force the U.S. Supreme Court eventually to decide if gays have a constitutional right to marry. District court Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that 2008's Proposition 8 violated the constitutional guarantees to equal protection and due process because it singles out gays and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. "The evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite sex couples are superior to same-sex couples," wrote Judge Walker in...

William Tecumseh Sherman is either a hated war criminal or a honored war hero in the United States in this article I do not debate this point but only draw upon his wisdom as it applies to war. In what follows I will apply this wisdom to our present long and destined to be longer war against the World Islamic Terrorist Organizations. The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan have been the subject of a great deal of controversy in the last decade. The words “Bush’s war” and the questions of the Iraq war’s legality have been the subject of many a...

WASHINGTON—The Senate approved a wide-ranging overhaul of the nation's financial regulations Thursday, handing President Barack Obama his second major domestic-policy victory of the year. The legislation passed, 60-39, largely along party lines. Republicans Sens. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both of Maine, joined Democrats in supporting the bill. Sen. Russ Feingold (D., Wisc.) was the only Democrat to vote against the measure.

U.S. retail sales tumbled a second straight time in June, falling more than expected in a sign consumer spending is slowing and draining steam from an economy saddled with high joblessness. Separately, U.S. business inventories rose again in May, but under expectations, signaling concern that consumers may spend more conservatively as the pace of recovery slows. Retail sales decreased 0.5%, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast a 0.3% decline. The report was mixed, with some merchants reporting increases and others recording decreases. Excluding auto and gas sales, retail sales rose 0.1%. The bigger-than-expected...

My wife reset her digital camera with her memory card installed. The camera reformatted the memory card in the process. Now I am looking for Free or cheap data recovery software for my Power MAC running OS 10.4.11 with 8 gig of RAM Any help would be much appreciated.

Dusvany Martinez seems to have gotten used to being teased about his first trip to a U.S. supermarket. The native Cuban held up a package of meat and exclaimed, "Who will arrest me if I buy this?" Mr. Martinez laughed as he declared the cases and cases of meat in grocery stores to be the biggest surprise about America to him. In communist Cuba, he said, people could only rarely purchase meat with their government-issued coupon books. If they bought meat on the black market, they had to hide it and hope no one reported them. "If you were to...

<p>Israel killed a group of men in diving suits off the coast of the Gaza Strip early Monday and launched an airstrike against alleged militants preparing to fire rockets into Israel, heightening tensions between the two sides a week after a deadly Israeli raid against a flotilla of aid and activists.</p>

Since moving to this city from her native Guatemala a decade ago, Herlinda, an illegal immigrant, has supported her family with restaurant work, but has had no way of proving that she lives here. Without government-issued photo identification, like a driver’s license or a passport, she said, she could not get treatment at most medical clinics, borrow a book from the library, pick up a package from a mail center or cash a check. But this month she discovered a solution: a community identification card issued by a coalition of civic groups and endorsed by Trenton and Mercer County officials....

Andy Goss knows exactly what he'll do if he wins his long-shot race for Congress. First, he'll cut lawmakers' pay 40% to $104,400. Then the former Army interrogator will use the savings to build a Capitol Hill barracks where all 535 senators and representatives will be required to live. This year is shaping up to be an excellent time to run for Congress by running against Congress. This spasm of anti-incumbent sentiment provides an opening for novice politicians who see a rare chance to storm the halls of power. The 40-year-old Mr. Goss, who left the Army a sergeant, says...

Police in Mexico raided a basement finding 31 diamond-studded guns, presumably belonging to a drug cartel boss. Officers in western Jalisco found 31 gold- and silver-plated handguns of varying caliber studded with diamonds and engraved with the name 'Lobo Valencia'

U.S. Senate Republicans stood together Monday to successfully block lawmakers from moving ahead with sweeping legislation to overhaul U.S. financial markets, a temporary stumble for the Obama administration's top domestic policy priority. The Senate voted 57-41 on a procedural measure allowing lawmakers to move toward debate on financial regulatory overhaul legislation, falling short of the 60 votes needed. All GOP senators present voted against invoking cloture, joined by at least one Democrat, Sen. Ben Nelson (D., Neb.). The partisan vote underscores the high political stakes surrounding the legislation, which would subject the nation's financial institutions to new consumer and capital...

THE aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact. Hawking’s logic on aliens is, for him, unusually simple. The universe, he points out, has 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars. In such a big place, Earth is unlikely to be the only planet where life has evolved. He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources...

<p>China continued selling U.S. Treasurys in January, although it remained the largest foreign holder following revisions that showed it never actually lost the top spot to Japan, the Treasury Department said.</p> <p>Overall, foreigners were modest net buyers of long-term U.S. financial assets in January, according to the monthly Treasury International Capital report, known as TIC.</p>

Chinese state-owned oil company Cnooc Ltd. said it will pay $3.1 billion for a 50% stake in a unit of Argentina's Bridas Energy Holdings Ltd. in a move to boost its production and reserves. The deal highlights China's growing thirst for energy resources globally. The Chinese government is encouraging state-owned energy companies to buy assets abroad to power the country's booming economy. The deal is structured as an oil and gas production joint venture. The Beijing-based oil company's unit, Cnooc International Ltd., and Bridas Energy Holdings will each hold a 50% stake in Bridas Corp., which has exploration and production...

Is it too late to save your retirement? For many, the answer is surely yes. News out this week shows that 29% of those who have already retired have saved nothing at all to support themselves, while only a third have saved at least $50,000. To put this in context: A retirement account of $50,000 will provide a 65-year-old man with an annuity of just $4,000 a year. Yet according to the latest annual retirement survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, two-thirds of those in retirement don't even have that much set aside....

Dale Klein, Commissioner and former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) challenged the premise on which President Obama based his move to withdraw the application to permit the geologic repository at Yucca Mountain. At a conference in Bethesda, Maryland yesterday Commissioner Klein emphasized that it was politics, not science, which led to this decision. Klein said, Those who would distort the science of Yucca Mountain for political purposes should be reminded that it was a year ago today that the president issued his memorandum on scientific integrity, in which he stated that ‘The public must be able to trust...

'I absolutely know that in anybody's eyes I was a traitor," says Mosab Hassan Yousef. "To my family, to my nation, to my God. I crossed all the red lines in my society. I didn't leave one that I didn't cross." Now 32, Mosab is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founder and leader of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. As the son of a Muslim cleric, he says he had reached the conclusion that terrorism can't be defeated without a new understanding of Islam. Here he echoes other defectors from Islam such as the former Dutch parliamentarian and...

Immediately following the news of his death, election analysts rated the race as competitive for the GOP. While Murtha has held the seat since 1974 with few re-election scares, the Johnstown-area district outside of Pittsburgh has right-leaning roots, and a special election contest will be targeted by House Republicans. With Murtha’s death, Democrats now control the House by a 256-178 margin. In the 2008 presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) won the district by a narrow 1,000 vote margin against President Barack Obama. It was the only district in the nation, however, that voted Democratic in the 2004 presidential...

"This debate is not over," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.). "The American people are still going to have another month to weigh in." Republicans are forcing the Senate to vote Wednesday on whether the Democrat-backed bill is unconstitutional. Sen. John Ensign (R., Nev.) raised a point of order Tuesday against the bill, arguing that the Constitution doesn't give Congress latitude to force Americans to buy health coverage, as both the House and Senate bills do. "What's next?" Mr. Ensign said. "Will we consider legislation in the future requiring every American to buy a car? Will we consider...

Senate leaders set final health-care vote for 8 a.m. ET on Dec. 24