Domestic-partnership bill goes to Nevada governor

Domestic-partnership bill goes to Nevada governor

CARSON CITY, Nev. — A Nevada bill giving domestic partners many of the rights and benefits the state offers to married couples is headed to the governor’s desk.

After Tuesday’s voice vote in the Senate, the measure heads to Gov. Jim Gibbons. The Republican governor has threatened to veto it.

The bill provides that domestic partners have the same rights as married couples in matters such as community property and responsibility for debts. It applies to both gay and straight couples.

Critics say domestic partners could sign private contracts to accomplish many of the measure’s goals. They say it conflicts with the intent of Nevadans who voted in 2002 for a constitutional amendment supporting marriage between a man and a woman.

EPA: Sulfur is in drywall

NEW ORLEANS — The Environmental Protection Agency has found sulfur and other materials in a small sampling of Chinese-made drywall, which some officials and residents blame for sickening fumes and corroding metal in homes in several states.

Several federal and state agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are investigating complaints that the drywall is causing health problems, and two U.S. senators who released the report Tuesday said it sheds light on what was in the material.

The EPA tested Chinese-made wallboard in two Florida homes and besides sulfur, also discovered two organic compounds associated with acrylic paint.

Those chemicals were not found in four samples of American-made drywall. Also, the agency said it found strontium at higher levels in the Chinese product than in U.S. wallboard. Strontium compounds are used in making ceramics, pyrotechnics, paint pigments, fluorescent lights and medicine.

Scores dead in plane crash

JAKARTA, Indonesia — At least 68 people are dead after the crash of a military plane on the Indonesian island of Java.

Air force official Suyono says he expects the death toll to rise after this morning’s crash. Suyono goes by only one name.

Air force spokesman Bambang Sulistyo said the C-130 Hercules was carrying at least 112 passengers and crew. It was on a routine training mission when it crashed near the base in East Java province, smashing into houses and then skidding into a rice field and bursting into flames.

Panel would regulate financial products

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is actively considering creation of a regulatory commission to protect consumers of financial products in an effort to crack down on some of the abuses that helped trigger the current financial crisis, according to administration and industry officials.

These officials said that the administration has been exploring such an approach in meetings over the past few days with executives of the financial services industry.

There was also a discussion of the proposal at a dinner Tuesday night at the Treasury Department attended by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, director of the president’s National Economic Council.

Canadian reactor closed

OTTAWA — Canadian officials have again shut down a nuclear reactor that produces much of the world’s radioactive isotopes used to diagnose cancer patients through medical imaging.

Patients in line for medical tests to diagnose cancer and heart ailments may have a longer wait as hospitals try to conserve a scarce supply of isotopes, doctors say.

The latest shutdown of an Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. nuclear reactor at Chalk River, Ontario — which provides about half the global supply of isotopes used in medical imaging — is expected to last about a month as technicians repair a leak of heavy water.

Government-owned AECL said Tuesday it has enough medical isotopes for the coming week, but will be unable to meet demand by Saturday.

Small plane stuck in tree

MILFORD, Pa. — A fire chief in northeastern Pennsylvania says a small plane is stuck in a tree about 20 feet above the ground but nobody knows who was flying it.

Dingman Township Volunteer Fire Department Chief William Mikulak says a woman in a kayak saw the single-engine Piper on Tuesday morning. The woman hadn’t seen it the day before, so she alerted authorities.

Records show the plane is owned by Robert Stephanoff, of Piscataway (pis-KAT’-uh-way), N.J. But it’s unclear if he was flying it Tuesday.

Associated Press