Hawaii moves on gay marriage

Hawaii moves on gay marriage

HONOLULU

Gov. Neil Abercrombie on Monday called for a special legislative session to move forward on a bill that would legalize gay marriage.

If lawmakers pass a bill, Hawaii would join 13 U.S. states and the District of Columbia in allowing gay marriage. The special session is scheduled to begin Oct. 28.

Abercrombie acknowledged that some people will be against the bill because they disagree with the concept of gay marriage, but he said it includes provisions — including a religious exemption — to protect First Amendment rights.

Study: ICU treatment often futile, costly

Nearly 1 in 5 patients in a hospital’s intensive-care unit gets care and treatment judged by physicians in charge to be ineffective, needlessly aggressive or pointless given the patient’s dire state, a new study says. And the financial costs of that care are steep as well, adding up to $2.6 million over three months at a single academic medical center.

The study, conducted at an unidentified academic medical system in Los Angeles, found that of 1,125 patients who spent time in the ICU during a three-month period, 98 received treatment that their physicians perceived as “possibly futile,” and 123 received treatment that their physicians considered futile.

Long-lost painting by Van Gogh ID’d

AMSTERDAM

A painting that sat for six decades in a Norwegian industrialist’s attic after he was told it was a fake Van Gogh was pronounced the real thing Monday, making it the first full-size canvas by the tortured Dutch artist to be discovered since 1928.

Experts at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam authenticated the 1888 landscape “Sunset at Montmajour” with the help of Vincent Van Gogh’s letters, chemical analysis of the pigments and X-rays of the canvas.

Egyptian troops push through Sinai

EL-ARISH, Egypt

Egyptian troops and tanks backed by helicopter gunships swept through villages in the northern Sinai Peninsula near the border with the Palestinian Gaza Strip on Monday, the third day of a major offensive against Islamic extremists, a military official said. So far, some 20 suspected militants have been killed and 20 captured in the operation, he added.

Explosions rocked el-Mahdiya and Naga Shabana, two of several villages south of the town of Rafah, the official said, where the military hit targets and shelters used by militants wanted for the killing and abduction of Egyptian soldiers over the past year.

Miss Iowa advocates for the disabled

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J.

Born without her left forearm, Nicole Kelly has been overcoming disability her entire life, be it playing baseball, dancing or diving.

Now representing Iowa in the Miss America pageant, Kelly hopes to win the crown and inspire others to overcome their own difficulties. She chooses to focus on what she has rather than what she lacks.

“The reason I’m here is not because I’m a public-interest story,” she told The Associated Press in an interview Monday. “I’m here not because I look different but because I have the intelligence, I have the ability and all the things that Miss America needs to have.

The 2014 Miss America will be crowned Sunday night in Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall, as the pageant returns home after a six-year stint in Las Vegas.

Combined dispatches