OLYMPIA, Wash. – Washington state lawmakers voted to approve gay marriage Wednesday, setting the stage for the state to become the seventh in the nation to allow same-sex couples to wed.
The Washington House passed the bill on a 55-43 vote. The state Senate approved the measure last week, and the bill now goes to Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire, who is expected to sign it into law next week.
Nation
House approves line-item veto
House Republicans put aside their antipathy toward President Obama on Wednesday to give the president, and his successors, the line-item veto, a constitutionally questionable power over the purse that long has been sought by presidents of both parties.
A minority of Democrats joined in casting a 254-173 vote in favor of letting the president pick out specific items in spending bills for elimination. Currently, he must sign or veto spending bills in their entirety.
Study: Stimulating brain aids memory
Stimulating the brain with an electrical current can improve memory, according to a study that suggests a novel approach to treating dementia.
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles reported Wednesday that they studied seven volunteers with epilepsy who already had electrodes implanted in their brains to detect seizures, and found that memory improved when the electrodes were turned on during tasks.
Teenager sentenced to life for killing girl
A central Missouri teenager who confessed to strangling, cutting and stabbing a 9-year-old girl because she wanted to know how it felt to kill someone was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Alyssa Bustamante, 18, pleaded guilty in January to second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the October 2009 slaying of Elizabeth Olten in St. Martins.
Ocean silence calms whales, study shows
An ocean experiment accidentally conducted amid the shipping silence after Sept. 11 has shown the first link between underwater noise and stress in whales, researchers reported Wednesday.
The analysis indicated that a drop in a stress-related hormone found in the right whales was tied to a dip in ocean noise that followed a near-standstill in ship traffic, over security concerns following the attacks.
The work indicates whales and other sea life that use sound to communicate and travel can be harmed by the noise. That could eventually influence future ocean traffic and development, said Rosalind Rolland, the report’s lead author.
