Nation Digest
Massachusetts eases gay marriage requirements

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Gay and lesbian couples who apply for marriage licenses starting May 17 will not be forced to provide "documentary evidence" that they live in Massachusetts, the governor's press secretary, Shawn Feddeman, said yesterday.

Instead, clerks who issue the licenses will be allowed to accept a sworn affidavit — "under pain and penalty of perjury" — affirming that a couple live in the state or intend to do so.

"The point is, the clerk has the discretion," Feddeman said.

The clarification followed a weekend training session for clerks, who must carry out a pair of rulings from the state's highest court that as of May 17 will make Massachusetts the first state to legalize same-sex marriage.

Chicago council delays vote on introduction of Wal-Marts

CHICAGO — The City Council put off a vote yesterday on zoning changes that would allow Wal-Mart to build its first Chicago stores, citing concerns that the discount chain would pay low wages and hurt other businesses.

Four of the council's 50 aldermen moved to postpone action until May 26 on two proposed 150,000-square-foot stores — one in a poor neighborhood on the West Side, the other in a largely middle-class section of the South Side.

Wal-Mart's "big-box" stores have encountered similar resistance in other communities.

Southern Cal offers swap: electric for gas mowers

LOS ANGELES — People with smoke-spewing, gas-powered lawn mowers are being encouraged to trade them for deeply discounted electric models as part of the latest effort to trim pollution from Southern California skies.
 
The regional agency charged with fighting the nation's worst smog has 4,000 new electric mowers it hopes to sell this spring for one-quarter of the normal price. People must give up their old mowers to obtain new ones for $100.

Eliminating the old gas mowers will cut nearly 20 tons a year of smog-forming emissions in the Los Angeles region, South Coast Air Quality Management District spokesman said.

Retardation claim denied; Texas killer facing death

HOUSTON — A Texas state appeals court yesterday voted 7-2 to reject a death-row inmate's claim of mental retardation and refused to spare his life, despite an IQ of less than 70 and a jailhouse nickname of "Half-Deck" because of his slow thinking.

No execution date has been set for Michael Wayne Hall, 25.

Hall was convicted and sentenced to die for the 1998 slaying of a 19-year-old woman who was abducted as she rode her bicycle to her job as a supermarket checkout employee.

Tanzanian accused of faking terror threat goes to court

GREAT FALLS, Mont. — A Tanzanian man accused of making a phony terror threat against a Los Angeles shopping mall appeared in federal court yesterday and was remanded to U.S. marshals.

Zameer Mohamed, 23, was arrested last week on immigration charges and confessed to making the threat, according to the affidavit. He told FBI agents that four people he claimed planned the attack — including a former girlfriend — had taken money from him, the affidavit said.