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Weather helps battle against Southwest wildfires
 PHOENIX (Reuters) - Improving weather helped firefighters in Arizona make progress on Saturday against wildfires that have charred more than 65 square miles (168 square km) of forest, brush and grass in the U.S. Southwest and forced the evacuation of several small towns. More than 2,000 firefighters were battling five blazes in Arizona and Colorado from the ground and air. Meanwhile, a small blaze in New Mexico's Gila Wilderness area ballooned in size as wind whipped the flames. ...
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Possible engine problem delays U.S. rocket launch
 The launch of a privately owned Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station was delayed on Saturday when a computer detected a possible problem with one of the rocket's engines, a Space Exploration Technologies official said. Preparations for the company's trial cargo run to the International Space Station proceeded smoothly until 4:55 a.m. EDT (0855 GMT) when an onboard computer aborted the launch. "Liftoff ... we've had a cutoff. ...
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Anti-NATO activists weighed Obama HQ attack: prosecutors
 CHICAGO (Reuters) - Three protesters arrested on terrorism-related charges ahead of the NATO-summit considered targeting U.S. President Barack Obama's re-election campaign headquarters and the home of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, according to court documents released on Saturday. The Chicago Police Department said the men were arrested on Wednesday and were charged on Friday with conspiracy to commit terrorism, providing material support for terrorism, and possession of an explosive incendiary device. ...
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U.S. marks 150th anniversary of Homestead Act offering free land
OMAHA, Nebraska (Reuters) - The United States on Sunday marks the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln signing the Homestead Act, the law that gave away 270 million acres of land and transformed the vast American interior. Representatives from 30 states will take part in a ceremony at the National Monument of America in the Nebraska town of Beatrice, representing the states where nearly 2 million people each received 160 acres of free land under the program. ...
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New York City's most senior openly gay official weds
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Christine Quinn, New York's highest-ranking openly gay official and the leading candidate to be the city's next mayor, married her longtime girlfriend on Saturday, walking down the aisle to Beyonce's "Ave Maria." The wedding came less than a year after New York Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a law legalizing same-sex marriage in the state, whose first same-sex nuptials were held July 24. ...
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Alabama governor signs bill tweaking immigration law
MOBILE, Alabama (Reuters) - Alabama's governor signed into law revisions to the state's controversial immigration statute on Friday, despite his earlier suggestions he might veto the measure because it did not make enough changes to the toughest state crackdown against illegal immigrants. Republican Governor Robert Bentley had publicly urged lawmakers to modify sections of the law that took effect last year and which sparked lawsuits by the Obama administration and immigrant rights groups that argued it is unconstitutional. ...
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Kennedy clan, celebrities attend Mary Kennedy's funeral
 BEDFORD, New York (Reuters) - Mary Kennedy, the estranged wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who died in an apparent suicide earlier this week, was recalled Saturday as an "angel" who was ultimately overwhelmed by a lengthy fight with depression. Those remembrances came as members of the Kennedy clan, including Robert F. Kennedy's widow Ethel and late President John F. Kennedy's daughter Caroline, gathered for her funeral here at St. Patrick's, a small Catholic church in this wealthy Westchester County hamlet about 50 miles north of New York City. ...
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Season's first Atlantic tropical storm forms off South Carolina
MIAMI (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Alberto formed off the South Carolina coast on Saturday, bringing an early start to the Atlantic hurricane season, forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Alberto was in the Atlantic about 140 miles east-southeast of Charleston. Forecasters initially estimated its top sustained winds at 45 miles per hour but raised that to 60 mph when data from a ship in the area showed the storm was stronger than first thought. ...
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Latest anti-NATO protest in Chicago small, peaceful
 Around 500 demonstrators gathered outside the home of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Saturday to protest the recent closure of mental health clinics as part of a series of rallies and marches timed to coincide with a NATO summit here. But the protest was much smaller than one attended by an estimated 2,500 people at a downtown plaza on Friday. The biggest rally is expected to be on Sunday near the convention center where world leaders will gather. ...
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Georgia woman with flesh-eating disease in "critical" condition
(Reuters) - A Georgia woman fighting a flesh-eating bacterial infection was in critical condition at Augusta Hospital on Saturday, a hospital spokeswoman said. The spokeswoman said she could not comment on whether Aimee Copeland had undergone surgery to remove her hands and right foot, amputations that Copeland's father had said were pending on Friday. Surgeons had amputated the 24-year-old's left leg at the hip. "All I can say is Aimee is still in critical condition," hospital spokeswoman Barclay Bishop said. ...
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California police arrest two in killing of Chinese students
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles police said Friday they have arrested two suspects in the killings of two Chinese graduate students slain near the University of Southern California last month. Ming Qu and Ying Wu, both 23, were fatally shot early on April 11 as they were sitting in a parked car outside Wu's rented home, a few blocks from the USC campus. Bryan Barnes, 20, and Javier Bolden, 19, were arrested on Friday without incident in swoops on two homes, the Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement. Both men were charged with murder and are being held without bail. ...
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Atlantic storm could bring early start to hurricane season
MIAMI (Reuters) - A swirling mass of thunderstorms off the South Carolina coast has a 50-percent chance of developing into a tropical depression or a tropical storm and could bring an early start to the Atlantic hurricane season, forecasters said on Saturday. The weather disturbance was in the Atlantic Ocean about 120 miles southeast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said. "Showers and thunderstorms have increased near the circulation center. ...
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Gorilla patriarch of Columbus Zoo surrogacy program dies
CLEVELAND (Reuters) - A gorilla known for being the patriarch of a renowned gorilla surrogacy program at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Ohio died on Friday at an estimated age of 47, the zoo said. The popular gorilla, Mumbah, was eating breakfast with his family when he collapsed, the zoo said in a statement. The animal care team was unable to resuscitate him. Mumbah was born in equatorial Africa around 1965 and brought to the Columbus zoo from England in 1984. He was well past a male gorilla's average life expectancy of 31 years. ...
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Retail rent on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue soars
 NEW YORK (Reuters) - The price for staking ground on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue jumped 22 percent in the past year, spurred by a record number of tourists spending their dollars at top U.S. and international retailers on America's most coveted shopping ground. The asking rent for street-level stores on Fifth Avenue between 50th and 59th streets rose to $2,750 per square foot this spring, the Real Estate Board of New York said in a report released Friday. ...
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Jury deliberations in Edwards trial to resume next week
 GREENSBORO, North Carolina (Reuters) - Jurors weighing whether former U.S. Senator John Edwards illegally used campaign funds to conceal an extramarital affair when he ran for president headed home on Friday and will resume deliberations next week. A judge let the jury go for the weekend after 5-1/2 hours of discussions. Earlier Friday, jurors asked to review more than a dozen prosecution exhibits. Among the evidence they requested were notes from Rachel "Bunny" Mellon, a wealthy donor to Edwards' campaign, and testimony from her lawyer, Alex Forger. ...
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Police nab airline pilot with loaded gun in luggage
BUFFALO, New York (Reuters) - An airline pilot was arrested Friday morning at Buffalo Niagara International Airport after security screeners discovered a loaded revolver in his baggage. Brett Dieter, 52, of Barbersville, Virginia, arrived at the upstate New York airport Friday to pilot a flight to New York City's LaGuardia International Airport for Piedmont Airlines, a passenger airline that subcontracts under U.S. Airways. While at a security checkpoint, a scan of Dieter's bag revealed a .357 magnum revolver loaded with five rounds. ...
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California judge allows cremation of remains in paupers' cemetery
FAIRFAX, California (Reuters) - Relatives of a pioneer buried in a paupers' cemetery unearthed by construction crews beneath the parking lot of a California hospital implored a judge on Friday to spare Anna Cardenas from cremation and allow them to give her a Catholic burial. Following a hearing in San Jose on the fate of a long-forgotten cemetery for indigent patients like Cardenas, who died in 1915, Judge Thomas Cain granted Santa Clara County permission to exhume 100 pine coffins buried at the site. ...
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Soldier to stand trial for 2009 Iraq shooting
SEATTLE (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier accused of killing five fellow servicemen at a military combat stress center in Baghdad in 2009 has been ordered to stand trial in a U.S. military court, officials said on Friday. Sergeant John Russell, who could face the death penalty if convicted, is accused of going on a shooting spree at Camp Liberty, near the Baghdad airport, in an assault the military said at the time could have been triggered by combat stress. ...
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Texas town settles council election with coin flip
(Reuters) - In the small Texas town of Wolfforth, it's "Heads I win." A city council election there came down to a coin toss on Friday. After church administrator Bruce MacNair and banker Bryan Studer wrapped up last Saturday's election with 118 votes each, the men agreed to settle the town's first electoral tie with the flip of a coin. A special election to decide a winner would have cost "north of $10,000," said Darrell Newsom, city manager of Wolfforth, population 3,600, which is southwest of Lubbock in the Texas Panhandle. "That's a lot of money for a small town like this," Newsom said. ...
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Oregon bans American Indian team names, mascots for schools
PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) - The Oregon state board of education has banned public schools from using American Indian names and mascots for their athletic teams, out of a concern they disparage native American people. The move is believed to be one of the nation's most sweeping prohibitions of its kind in favor of native Americans who say their culture is stereotyped by a number of sports teams. It follows years of controversy surrounding a range of teams, from the Cleveland Indians in Major League Baseball to the Washington Redskins of the National Football League. ...
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