The nation in brief

QUOTE OF THE DAY “There will be lawsuit. I promise you.” Democratic Texas state Sen. Rodney West,

who argued against an abortion-restriction bill that he said mirrored laws in other states that have been suspended as possibly unconstitutional Article, this pageRemains exhumed to identify Strangler

PEABODY, Mass. - The remains of the man who confessed to being the Boston Strangler but later recanted were exhumed Friday in a bid to use forensic evidence to connect him to the death of the woman believed to be the serial killer’s last victim.

Boston police confirmed Friday that they dug up the grave of Albert DeSalvo, the suspect in the death of Mary Sullivan. Tissue or bone samples will be taken at the state medical examiner’s office, a spokesman for the Suffolk district attorney’s office said.

Authorities said Thursday that for the first time they have DNA evidence tying DeSalvo to Sullivan’s death. De-Salvo was the man who confessed to being the Strangler, who was believed to have killed 11 women altogether over two years in the 1960s in a homicidal rampage that terrorized the Boston area. DeSalvo later took back his confession; he was stabbed to death in prison as he served a life sentence for other crimes.

Proposition 8 backers say ban still valid

SAN FRANCISCO - Backers of California’s Proposition 8 asked the state’s high court to order county clerks to enforce the gay-marriage ban, saying a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month didn’t say the measure was unconstitutional.

A petition filed Friday in San Francisco on behalf of the measure’s supporters against California Gov. Jerry Brown and county clerks around the state alleges that local officials are violating their “ministerial duties” by issuing marriage licenses to gay couples because Proposition 8 is still valid.

A federal judge’s 2010 decision striking down the measure only applies to the gay couples who sued to overturn the law and doesn’t require the 56 county clerks that weren’t defendants in that case to stop enforcing Proposition 8, the backers’ attorneys said in the filing.

“This latest filing is utterly baseless,” Theodore Olson, the attorney representing gay couples who argued the case before the U.S. Supreme Court, said by email. “Proponents’ latest effort to stop loving couples from marrying in California is a desperate and frivolous act.”

Gay marriage resumed in California after the U.S. Supreme Court court on June 26 ruled that the sponsors of Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot initiative that defined marriage as being between one man and one woman, lacked the legal right to appeal a federal trial judge’s ruling that the measure was unconstitutional. State officials had refused to defend the measure, so groups that introduced the proposition stepped in.

Most hunger-strikers had meal recently

MIAMI - Most prisoners on the hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay have resumed eating, the U.S. military said Friday, suggesting a possible end, or at least a pause, to a protest that brought renewed attention to their indefinite detention at the base in Cuba.

The military tally of prisoners on the hunger strike was still at 102, but 99 of them had eaten a meal within the past 24 hours, according to Army Lt. Col. Sam House, a detention center spokesman.

They were still considered hunger-strikers because the military requires several days of sustained eating and a minimal caloric intake before a prisoner is removed from the list.

The military said 45 of the prisoners were still on the “enteral feed list,” meaning they can be strapped down and fed a liquid nutrient mix through a nasogastric tube.

A U.S. federal judge on Monday called it a “painful, humiliating and degrading process,” in a ruling in which she said she had no authority to order it stopped.

Third girl on Asiana flight dies

SAN FRANCISCO - A girl on the Asiana Airlines flight has died from her injuries, becoming the third casualty of last week’s crash, hospital officials said Friday.

Dr. Margaret Knudson, San Francisco General Hospital’s chief of surgery, said the child, whose name and age were withheld at her parents’ request, died Friday of her injuries.

Authorities on Friday also confirmed one of the two Chinese teenagers killed in the disaster, Ye Meng Yuan, 16, was hit by a firetruck racing to extinguish the blazing Boeing 777. Investigators did not yet know whether the two teens lived through the initial impact.

Meng Yuan’s friend Wang Linjia, also 16, did not get immediate medical help because rescuers did not spot her until 14 minutes after the crash, authorities said.

San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault said the results of his initial inquiry into the deaths would likely be released sometime next week.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 07/13/2013

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