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Nation in brief

Court: Lesbian can pursue custody

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said Monday it would not block a lesbian from seeking parental rights to a child she helped raise with her longtime partner.

The justices have never before dealt with the rights of gays in child custody disputes, although state courts are handling a growing number of legal fights.

The court had been asked to review a ruling of Washington state's highest court that said Sue Ellen "Mian" Carvin could pursue ties to the girl as a "de facto parent." Justices declined to take up the case.

Carvin's former partner, Page Britain, said that as the biological mother she has a constitutional right to make decisions affecting the girl, now 11.

Carvin and Britain lived together for five years before Britain was artificially inseminated and gave birth in 1995 to the daughter, known as L.B. in court papers. The girl called Carvin "Mama" and Britain "Mommy." Britain broke up with Carvin in 2001 and the following year, when the girl was 7, barred her former partner from seeing the girl. After Carvin went to court, Britain married the sperm donor.

The justices also:

* Sided with eBay in a patent fight over a selling feature, in a 9-0 ruling that will make it easier for high-tech companies to avoid court injunctions in such disputes.

* Said they would consider a landmark air pollution case that tests a Clinton administration strategy of using courts to pursue coal-burning power companies.

* Ruled 9-0 that states have broad power to regulate the quality of their rivers, in a case involving a hydropower dam in Maine.

* Said they would decide whether old cases are affected by a 2-year-old ruling reiterating that the Constitution guarantees a criminal defendant the right to confront his accusers.

* Refused to consider whether the state of New York owed an Indian tribe about $250-million in a dispute over the seizure of tribal land.

New England swamped by rain

HAVERHILL, Mass. - Emergency crews used boats to rescue people trapped in their homes and sewage systems overflowed Monday as rain pounded New England for the fourth day in what could prove to be the worst flooding since the 1930s.

The National Weather Service predicted that rain totals could hit 15 inches in some places.

In the Merrimack Valley, north of Boston on the New Hampshire line, the Merrimack and Spicket rivers overflowed, forcing the evacuations of hundreds of people.

Tens of millions of gallons of sewage spilled into the Merrimack River after pipes burst in Haverhill on Sunday, and effluent poured from a treatment plant in Lawrence on Monday.

"It's going to get worse before it gets better," Gov. Mitt Romney said.

Emergency crews took to flooded streets in boats and used bullhorns to urge people to leave their homes in Lowell. Forecasters said the river could rise past 60 feet by Monday night, putting it at more than 8 feet over flood stage.

In New Hampshire, more than 600 roads were damaged, destroyed or underwater.

Gov. John Lynch said his front yard in Hopkinton had become a pond.

In Concord, flooding closed St. Paul's School and the prep school was working to get its students back home on short notice.

In southern Maine, fast-rising floodwaters forced scores of families to flee homes near the Mousam River. Kayakers paddled down a main street in York Beach, where firefighters in a boat checked buildings to make sure propane tanks were shut off.

BellSouth: No records released

ATLANTA - BellSouth Corp. said Monday its "thorough review" found no indication it gave telephone records to the National Security Agency as part of a federal antiterrorism surveillance program.

A report last week by USA Today identified BellSouth, along with AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc., as companies that had complied with an NSA request to turn over millions of customer phone records after the 2001 terror attacks.

BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher said last week that the company had "not provided any information we would need a subpoena for."

On Monday night, Battcher said "we cannot find anyone within BellSouth who has ever been approached by the NSA."

Poet Stanley Kunitz dies at 100

NEW YORK - Stanley Kunitz, a former U.S. poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner whose expressive verse, social commitment and generosity to young writers spanned three-quarters of a century, died Sunday in Manhattan.

He was 100.

He had just turned 95 when appointed poet laureate in 2000, capping a career that began 70 years earlier and later included a Pulitzer, a National Medal of the Arts and - at age 90 - a National Book Award.

[Last modified May 16, 2006, 07:11:57]