Governor signs gay-marriage bill

Governor signs gay-marriage bill

OLYMPIA, Wash.

Gov. Chris Gregoire handed gay-rights advocates a major victory Monday, signing into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage in Washington state, making it the seventh in the nation to allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

Gregoire signed the bill surrounded by gay-rights supporters. “I’m proud our same-sex couples will no longer be treated as separate but equal,” she said.

It’s a historic moment for the state, but same-sex couples can’t walk down the aisle just yet.

The law takes effect June 7, but opponents on multiple fronts already are preparing to fight.

Columbine attack being investigated

DENVER

Authorities were investigating a 14-year-old girl’s actions before they say she attacked two students with a hammer at Columbine High School in the first assault with a weapon since the deadly shootings there in 1999.

Investigators Monday were trying to gather additional details, including where the girl got the hammer, said John McDonald, Jefferson County School District’s executive director of security and emergency management. The Jefferson County sheriff’s office — the same agency that investigated the shootings nearly 13 years ago — also is working to determine whom the girl spoke with before the attack.

It was unclear what sparked the attack Monday morning at the school outside of Littleton, about 13 miles southwest of downtown Denver.

Magnitude-5.6 quake strikes Calif.

HOOPA VALLEY INDIAN RESERVATION, Calif.

A moderate earthquake struck Northern California’s coast Monday afternoon, rattling nerves around the Oregon border but yielding no immediate reports of major injuries or damage, officials said.

The magnitude-5.6 quake struck at 1:07 p.m. about 18 miles inland in an unincorporated part of Humboldt County, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The epicenter was a rural area near the small community of Weitchpec on the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation, about 240 miles north of San Francisco and about 60 miles south of the Oregon border.

The temblor was widely felt within a 100-mile radius, according to the USGS website.

Syrian rebels repel attack on key town

BEIRUT

Syrian rebels repelled a push Monday by government tanks into a central town held by forces fighting President Bashar Assad’s regime in an 11-month conflict that looks increasingly like a civil war.

The military pressed its offensive on Rastan a day after the regime rejected Arab League calls for the U.N. to create a peacekeeping force in Syria and for an end to the violent crackdown on dissent. Damascus called the League initiative “a flagrant interference in [Syria’s] internal affairs and an infringement upon national sovereignty.”

Feds recover $4.1B in health-care fraud

MIAMI

Federal authorities say they recovered $4.1 billion in health-care fraud judgments last year.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are expected to make the announcement today.

But federal officials told The Associated Press that agencies are doing a better job of screening providers before they get in the system and have beefed up enrollment requirements. Higher-risk providers also are subject to fingerprint and criminal background checks.

Associated Press