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Gay workers for state gain antibias clause

By Times Wires
Published September 1, 2007

TOPEKA, KAN.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius signed an executive order Friday prohibiting most state employees from being discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation. The order, effective immediately, requires that agencies under the Democratic governor's direct control make sure they have programs to prevent on-the-job harassment against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and people who have undergone sexual reassignment surgery. It covers about 25,000 of the state's 41,000 employees. "I'm sorry it took us so long," Sebelius said. Antidiscrimination laws offering at least some protections to gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people exist in about 20 states.

SAN FRANCISCO

Court clearsNavy sonar use

The Navy can use high-powered sonar during exercises off the Southern California coast, despite the technology's threat to whales and other marine mammals, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. National security interests outweigh the possible harm to marine life, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined in overturning a judge's order banning the practice.

WILLS POINT, TEXAS

Nature gone wild:Spiders join force

Most spiders are solitary creatures. So the discovery of a vast web crawling with millions of spiders across several acres of a North Texas park caused a flurry of attention among scientists and park visitors from as far away as England and Australia. Park officials say spider lovers may overwhelm the five-year-old Lake Tawakoni State Park this weekend, even though recent heavy rains knocked much of the web to the ground. But park officials said the spiders appeared to be busily working to rebuild it. Sheets of web encased several mature oak trees at the park, about 50 miles east of Dallas. Allen Dean, a spider expert at Texas A&M University, has seen a lot of webs, but even he described this one as "rather spooky, kind of like Halloween." Dean and other scientists said they had never seen a web so big outside of the tropics.

SALT LAKE CITY

Search for miners may be at an end

Federal officials have indefinitely suspended efforts to find six men trapped for nearly four weeks inside a coal mine after a robotic camera failed to provide any useful information, said Colin King, an attorney for the men's families. The camera was successfully dropped down the fourth of seven holes bored into the mountain but quickly became stuck in the mud.

LANSING, MICH.

Parolee suspectedin women's deaths

A paroled sex offender was identified as a suspect in the slayings of five women this summer in Lansing, including an activist whose daughter is on the City Council. A sixth woman survived the attacks. Officials said they were looking into whether Matthew Macon, 27, who was arrested on an unrelated warrant, was responsible for attacks in 2003 and 2004 that coincided with periods when Macon was on parole for a larceny conviction.

[Last modified September 1, 2007, 00:36:55]