National News

OLYMPIA, Wash (Reuters) - A Democratic-backed bill to legalize gay marriage in Washington state won final legislative approval on Wednesday in a largely party-line vote that moved the state one step closer to becoming the seventh to recognize same-sex nuptials.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A Romanian man accused of hacking into NASA computers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles under the online moniker "Iceman" has been indicted on a federal charge, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

STARKVILLE, Miss (Reuters) - A Mississippi man convicted of murdering two people during convenience store robberies was executed on Wednesday by lethal injection, becoming the first person to be put to death in the state this year, a corrections official said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City has agreed to pay a total of $15 million in compensation to some 22,000 people who were illegally arrested or issued citations over three decades under loitering laws long ago ruled unconstitutional, according to a class-action settlement.

(Reuters) - Las Vegas tycoon Steve Wynn and his biggest investor and former best friend Kazuo Okada go head to head in court on Thursday in a case that has implications for the control of the $15 billion Wynn Resorts Ltd gaming empire.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A lawyer suing on behalf of three students who say they were sexually abused at a Los Angeles area school where two teachers have been arrested said on Wednesday he expected "many more" victims to come forward.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A 15-year-old Chicago boy's winning design to appear on the city's next vehicle sticker was scrapped on Wednesday after crime experts declared it may contain gang signs and symbols.

(Reuters) - A bridge company that owns the busiest crossing between the United States and Canada will comply with a judge's order to finish a road project in part to keep its billionaire owner from being jailed for contempt, officials said on Wednesday.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia (Reuters) - Prosecutors in the trial of a former University of Virginia lacrosse player accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend said on Wednesday her death was the drunken culmination of a deteriorating relationship.

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - At the Escuela Vieau School in downtown Milwaukee, seventh-grader Camila Garcia was building a model wind turbine in a class intended to spark interest in engineering.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hotels in New York City agreed to give housekeepers personal panic buttons in the wake of a hotel maid's charge she was sexually assaulted by former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to lift a stay of execution for Ohio convicted killer Charles Lorraine because the state failed to follow agreed-upon reforms for procedures on how it carries out the death penalty.

SEATTLE (Reuters) - The Washington state House of Representatives was expected to endorse gay marriage on Wednesday in a vote that would move the state another step closer to becoming the seventh to recognize same-sex nuptials.

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Gay marriage proponents in the Pacific Northwest cheered a U.S. court ruling on Tuesday that overturned a California ban on same-sex nuptials, in what they saw as boost to their cause a day before a key vote to legalize such unions in Washington state.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - An appeals court on Tuesday found California's gay marriage ban unconstitutional in a case that may lead to a showdown in the Supreme Court.

HARRISBURG, Pa (Reuters) - Pennsylvania prosecutors who have charged Jerry Sandusky with sexually abusing boys filed a fierce response on Tuesday to the former Penn State assistant football coach's request to be allowed to see his grandchildren in his home.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The hacker group Anonymous has released personal information of Oakland officials in a leak it said was in retaliation for the city's treatment of Occupy protesters, and officials on Tuesday decried the move as despicable.

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Washington state health officials said on Tuesday they were investigating a possible intestinal illness outbreak that hit hundreds of people at a weekend high school cheerleading competition.

(Reuters) - Arizona's Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that a city council candidate with limited English skills could be kept off the ballot in a predominately Spanish-speaking town on the Mexico border, and her lawyers said they lacked resources to appeal.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York District Attorney's Office will not bring sexual assault charges against Greg Kelly, ending a two-week probe of the local television host who is also the son of New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, the prosecutor's office said Tuesday.