Nation/world digest 06/08/04

Court rules on looted art and Mexican trucks

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that Americans can sue foreign governments over looted art, stolen property and war crimes dating to the 1930s, a victory for an elderly California woman trying to get back $150 million worth of paintings stolen by the Nazis more than 65 years ago. The court ruled unanimously that the Bush administration can skip a lengthy environmental study and open U.S. roadways to Mexican trucks as soon as it wishes. It was a loss for labor and environmental organizations that have long fought expansion of Mexican trucking within U.S. borders under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

General: All Iraq troops have protective vests

COLONIAL HEIGHTS, Va. -- The Army's top supply commander said Monday that all American troops in Iraq are now equipped with bullet-resistant vests, after a shortage that led many soldiers to pay for costly body armor themselves. Gen. Paul Kern, commander of the Army Material Command, said the shortage eased after manufacturers stepped up production of the lifesaving vests. Last October, it was reported that nearly one-quarter of American troops serving in Iraq did not have ceramic-plated body armor, which uses four-pound armor plates to stop bullets and shrapnel.

Planes pound insurgents in Afghan cave complex KABUL, Afghanistan -- U.S. warplanes pounded dozens of insurgents hiding in caves in southern Afghanistan, the military said Monday, after a gunbattle between the militants and U.S. troops. An American soldier was killed when a bomb hit his patrol in a separate incident. The planes struck early Sunday near Tirin Kot, a town 250 miles southwest of Kabul where U.S. Marines recently set up a base, military spokesman Lt. Col. Tucker Mansager said. He said no U.S. soldiers were hurt and had no information on any casualties among the militants, who he said numbered "probably in the tens and twenties."

Two top Mexican drug suspects captured

MEXICO CITY -- Authorities have captured two top members of a major Mexican drug cartel who ranked among the most-wanted suspects on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, Mexico's attorney general said Monday. The U.S. Department of Justice had offered rewards of $2 million each for the capture of Jorge Aureliano Felix and Efrain Perez, who were arrested last week in the La Mesa area of Tijuana, across the border from San Diego. Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha said the men were the top operatives of the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix cartel, which the Justice Department has called "one of the most notorious multinational drug trafficking organizations ever." He said Perez may have been acting as leader of the group.

Court asked to end gay marriage in Mass.

BOSTON -- A coalition of conservative groups and lawmakers asked a federal appeals court Monday to stop gay marriage in Massachusetts, arguing that the state's highest court usurped the legislature's authority when it let same-sex couples wed. Gay marriage began in Massachusetts on May 17, after the Supreme Judicial Court ruled it was unconstitutional to deny licenses to same-sex couples. The groups urged the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to put an immediate stop to the weddings, arguing that only lawmakers -- not judges -- have a right to define marriage. The court did not say when it would rule.

'Yes' in wrong language nixes Romanian marriage

CLUJ, Romania -- The groom said "yes," but a city hall official said "no," refusing to marry a couple because the groom didn't voice his consent first in Romanian, authorities said Monday. Vasile Gherman, a civil servant who performs civil marriages, refused to marry Andrei Dombi, 44, an ethnic Hungarian with dual Romanian and French citizenship to Anca Diana Toma, 33, after Dombi said "yes" in Hungarian, Romanian and French -- "igen, da, oui." Gherman may now face disciplinary action, said Mircea Jorj, a legal adviser with Cluj City Hall.

-- From wire reports