PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge has struck down Oregon's same-sex marriage ban, saying it is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Michael McShane threw out the voter-approved ban Monday.

State officials have said they'd be prepared to carry out same-sex marriages almost immediately, and couples lined up outside the county clerk's office in Portland in anticipation of the decision.

Four gay and lesbian couples brought suit arguing Oregon's marriage laws unconstitutionally discriminate against same-sex couples and exclude them from a fundamental right.

State officials refused to defend the ban, and McShane earlier denied a request by the National Organization for Marriage to intervene on behalf of its Oregon members.

An appeals court Monday morning refused the group's request for an emergency stay of McShane's decision.

View gallery

Maureen Brodoff, right, and Ellen Wade, center, kiss while after a marriage ceremony at City Hall in …

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

A federal judge was expected to make Oregon the latest state to allow gay marriage Monday after state officials refused to defend its constitutional ban in court.

Gay couples were poised to tie the knot immediately after a federal appeals court denied a last-minute request to block the judge's impending ruling that could strike down the state's same-sex marriage ban.

Officials in Oregon's largest county, Multnomah, said they'll begin issuing marriage licenses immediately if U.S. District Judge Michael McShane's decision allows it. McShane hasn't signaled how he'll rule, but both sides in the case have asked that the voter-approved ban be found unconstitutional.

The judge last week denied a request by the National Organization for Marriage to defend the law on behalf of its Oregon members. On Monday morning, the group appealed that denial to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, seeking an emergency stay of the decision.

But the appellate court quickly denied the group's request, clearing the way for same-sex marriages to begin immediately if a McShane's ruling allows it.

In Portland, couples lined up outside the county clerk's office in anticipation of a favorable decision.

Laurie Brown and Julie Engbloom arrived early Monday at the Multnomah County Building to form the line for marriage licenses. The two have been a couple for 10 years. Engbloom proposed in April, when they celebrated their anniversary by climbing Smith Rock in Central Oregon.

"We always knew we wanted to spend our whole life together," Brown said. "This opportunity has come, it feels right, everything has fallen into place."

Seventeen states and the District of Columbia allow gay marriage. Federal or state judges in Idaho, Oklahoma, Virginia, Michigan, Texas, Utah and Arkansas recently have found state same-sex marriage bans to be unconstitutional. Judges also have ordered Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.

But opposition remains stiff in many places. Critics point out that most states still do not allow gay marriage and that in most that do, it was the work of courts or legislatures, not the people.

Four gay and lesbian couples brought the Oregon cases, arguing the state's marriage laws unconstitutionally discriminate against them and exclude them from a fundamental right to marriage.

In refusing to defend the ban, Democratic Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said there were no legal arguments that could support it in light of decisions last year by the U.S. Supreme Court. She sided with the couples, asking the judge to overturn the ban.

A federal judge orders the state not to enforce the voter-approved law, calling it unconstitutional. Couples lined up to wed

The 9/11 Memorial Museum, set to open to the public this Friday, is at the center of an intense debate.

The New York City-based museum costs $24 to enter, and the gift shop offers pricey coffee mugs, T-shirts, key chains and stuffed animals. A separate part of the museum also houses some 8,000 unidentified human remains from the terrorist attacks.

Those juxtapositions – tribute and commercialism, trinkets amid tragedy – have victims’ families fuming.

Jim Riches doesn’t plan on visiting. His son Jimmy, a firefighter, was 29 when he died in the attacks. It took more than six months to find some of Jimmy’s remains. The rest, Riches believes, are unidentified and in the repository.

“My son’s friends are going to have to pay $24 to go down and pay their respects,” Riches said. “I think that’s a disgrace. It’s the only cemetery in the world where you have to pay a fee to get in.”

Diane and Kurt Horning tells ABC News they’re appalled by what they’re calling “greed and commercialism.” They lost their son Matt Horning in the twin towers.

“I wouldn’t expect such an intrusion at Arlington Cemetery or at the Pentagon Memorial or at any cemetery,” they said.

In a statement, museum representatives tell ABC News that the museum receives no government funding and “relies on private fundraising, gracious donations and revenue from ticketing and carefully selected keepsake items for retail.”

Attorney Norman Siegel, who represents several of the victims' relatives, thinks there’s an easy solution to the controversy.

“Take the remains out of the museum and then I think there will be less opposition to the selling of the trinkets and the hats and shirts,” Siegel said.

Why 9/11 victims' kin are upset at museum

Family members of people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks are fuming at the museum's steep entry fee and gift shop.
'A disgrace'

BEIJING (AP) — China on Tuesday warned the United States was jeopardizing military ties by charging five Chinese officers with cyberspying and tried to turn the tables on Washington by calling it "the biggest attacker of China's cyberspace."

China announced it was suspending cooperation with the United States in a joint cybersecurity task force over Monday's charges that officers stole trade secrets from major American companies. The Foreign Ministry demanded Washington withdraw the indictment.

The testy exchange marked an escalation in tensions over U.S. complaints that China's military uses its cyber warfare skills to steal foreign trade secrets to help the country's vast state-owned industrial sector. A U.S. security firm, Mandiant, said last year it traced attacks on American and other companies to a military unit in Shanghai.

The charges are the biggest challenge to relations since a meeting last summer between President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in Sunnylands, California.

Ties already were under strain due to conflicts over what Washington says are provocative Chinese moves to assert claims over disputed areas of the East and South China Seas. Beijing complains the Obama administration's effort to shift foreign policy emphasis toward Asia and expand its military presence in the region is emboldening Japan and other neighbors and fueling tension.

Beijing has denied conducting commercial spying and said it is a victim of computer hacking, but has given little indication it investigates foreign complaints.

View gallery

This May 31, 2013 file photo shows the building housing “Unit 61398” of the People&rsquo …

"The Chinese government and Chinese military as well as relevant personnel have never engaged and never participated in so-called cyber theft of trade secrets," said a foreign ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, at a news briefing. "What the United States should do now is withdraw its indictment."

The Ministry of Defense warned that the U.S. accusations would chill gradually warming relations between the two militaries.

"The United States, by this action, betrays its commitment to building healthy, stable, reliable military-to-military relations and causes serious damage to mutual trust," it said.

Despite the pointed language, damage to U.S.-Chinese relations is likely to be limited, with little change in trade or military links, because Beijing realizes the indictment of the five officers is symbolic, said Shen Dingli, a director of the Center for American Studies at Shanghai's Fudan University. He has close ties to China's foreign policy establishment.

Beijing is unlikely to engage in tit-for-tat retaliation such as issuing its own indictments of American soldiers and probably will go ahead with plans to take part in U.S.-hosted naval exercises next month, Shen said. He said cybersecurity cooperation is likely to be suspended indefinitely, but that should have little impact because the joint group achieved little in its three meetings.

View gallery

Press materials are displayed on a table of the Justice Department in Washington, Monday, May 19, 20 …

"Political, security and commercial espionage will always happen," Shen said. "The U.S. will keep spying on Chinese companies and leaders, so why can't China do the same?"

The Cabinet's Internet information agency said Chinese networks and websites have been the target of thousands of hacking attacks from computers in the United States.

"The U.S. is the biggest attacker of China's cyber space," Xinhua said, citing a statement by the agency. "The U.S. attacks, infiltrates and taps Chinese networks belonging to governments, institutions, enterprises, universities and major communication backbone networks."

Monday's indictment said the People's Liberation Army officers targeted U.S. makers of nuclear and solar technology, stealing confidential business information, sensitive trade secrets and internal communications. The targets were Alcoa World Alumina, Westinghouse Electric Co., Allegheny Technologies, U.S. Steel Corp., the United Steelworkers Union and SolarWorld.

The Justice Department said the charges should be a national "wake-up call" about cyber intrusions. American authorities have previously announced details of cyberattacks from China but Monday's indictment was the first accusation to name individuals. The Justice Department issued wanted posters with the officer's photos on them.

The new indictment attempts to distinguish spying for national security purposes — which the U.S. admits doing — from economic espionage intended to gain commercial advantage for private companies or industries.

The United States denies spying for commercial advantage, though documents released by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden said the NSA broke into the computers of Brazil's main state-owned oil company, Petrobras. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said if that was true, then the motive would be to gather economic information.

"China has already expounded its stance and is strongly opposed to stealing commercial secrets," said Xiong Zhiyong, a foreign relations specialist at Tsinghua University. "I think there is no difference between China and the United States in allowing cyberspying for national security, though there is no open announcement by the Chinese government."

The defendants are believed to be in China and it was unclear whether any might ever be turned over to the U.S. for prosecution.

___

Associated Press writer Christopher Bodeen and researcher Yu Bing contributed to this report.

China warns U.S. over cyber charges

Beijing says the U.S. is jeopardizing military ties by charging five Chinese officers with cyberspying.
'Serious damage to mutual trust'

By Sharon Bernstein

SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) - California's drought will cause thousands of workers to lose their jobs and cost farmers in the state's Central Valley breadbasket $1.7 billion, researchers said in the first economic study of what may be the state's driest year on record.

The most populous U.S. state is in its third year of what officials are calling a catastrophic drought, leaving some small communities at risk of running out of drinking water and leading farmers to leave fallow nearly a half-million acres of land.

"We wanted to provide a foundation for state agricultural and water policymakers to understand the impacts of the drought on farmers and farm communities," said Richard Howitt, professor emeritus of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California, Davis and the report's lead author.

As many as 14,500 full time and seasonal jobs could be lost as a result of the drought, as farmers fallow land and there are fewer crops to plant and pick, according to the preliminary study.

Altogether, 410,000 acres may be left unplanted in the San Joaquin Valley alone, the analysis showed, as farmers enter the growing season with about two-thirds of the water that they need.

View gallery

This Thursday, March 13, 2014 file photo shows cracks in the dry bed of the Stevens Creek Reservoir …

By comparison, a drought in 2009 led to the fallowing of 270,000 acres of cropland and the loss of 7,500 jobs, the study showed.

"Everyone is trying to get a handle on how bad it's going to be," said Dave Kranz, a spokesman for the California Farm Bureau Federation.

Most farmers in California rely on irrigation rather than rain, many purchasing supplies from federal and state projects that pump from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta. But less water than normal is available from those sources this year.

Many are turning to other suppliers or to groundwater wells on their property, Kranz said, but the study showed that pumping from wells will cost farmers an additional $448 million.

California Governor Jerry Brown, who blames the drought in part on climate change, said Monday the state would do everything possible to help farmers weather the drought.

"We're going to be steadfast in the state of California in doing everything we need to do to make agriculture work, to use our water as carefully as possible," Brown told attendees at the university's conference on climate change and agriculture in Sacramento on Monday.

To make more water available to farmers, his administration has eased some environmental protections for endangered fish, and allowed flexibility in some water rights regulations.

Study: California drought will hit farm jobs hard

What might be the state's driest year on record will cost farmers $1.7 billion, new research shows.
The problem with well water

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — Traditional hunters armed with homemade guns, poisoned spears and amulets have gathered in their hundreds, eager to use their skills and what they believe to be supernatural powers to help find nearly 300 schoolgirls abducted by Islamic extremists.

Some 500 hunters, some as young as 18 and some in their 80s, say they have been specially selected by their peers for their spiritual hunting skills and have been waiting for two weeks in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital and the birthplace of Boko Haram, to get backing from the military and get moving.

With Nigeria's military accused by many citizens of not doing enough to rescue the girls, the hunters demonstrated their skills to an Associated Press reporter on Sunday. Cow horn trumpets echoed eerie war cries from the screaming and chanting men as they twirled knives and swords with dexterity, occasionally stabbing and cutting themselves with no apparent harm. The hunters claimed their magic charms prevented any blood being drawn. They also trust amulets of herbs and other substances wrapped in leather pouches as well as cowrie shells, animal teeth and leather bracelets to protect them from bullets.

The appearance of the hunters from three northeastern states underscores how deeply the April 15 mass kidnapping — and the government's apparent lack of action — has affected Nigerian society. It has spawned demonstrations and a tidal wave of commentary in media including social sites like Twitter and Facebook.

A spokesman for the hunters stopped short of actually criticizing the military.

"We're not saying we are better than the soldiers, but we know the bush better than the soldiers," said Sarkin Baka. The hunters said they gathered here at the suggestion of a state legislator.

Nigeria's Plan of Action: 'War on Boko Har …Play Video

A military spokesman did not immediately respond to an emailed question from AP on whether it would take advantage of the hunters' local knowledge.

In contrast to the age-old stalking and tracking skills offered by the hunters, U.S. aircraft and camera-carrying drones are searching for the girls. Military teams from America, Britain, France, Spain and Israel with expertise in surveillance, intelligence gathering, counterterrorism and hostage negotiation are also present.

Police say more than 300 girls and young women were kidnapped from a boarding school in the remote northeastern town of Chibok, in Borno state and about 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of Maiduguri, on April 15. A total of 53 escaped and an estimated 276 remain in captivity, according to the police.

They were driven into the nearby Sambisa Forest, according to witnesses. Unverified reports from two federal senators from the region and Chibok residents quoting villagers in the forest and elsewhere indicated some of the girls may have been forced to marry their abductors and some may have been taken across the border into Cameroon.

Nigeria's military insists that it is diligently searching for the girls and says near-daily aerial bombardments of the forest that began in mid-January were stopped to avoid accidentally hitting the girls.

View gallery

In this photo taken on, Sunday, May 18, 2014, armed hunters gather before looking for around 300 abd …

"Our troops are out there combing the forests and all other possible locations searching for our fellow citizens. International support is also there assisting the process," Mike Omeri, a government spokesman, said Friday.

Some parents of the abducted girls say villagers in the Sambisa Forest tell them they haven't seen a uniformed soldier in the forest.

Pogu Bitrus, a Chibok community leader, said the savannah type openness of most of Sambisa, a national game reserve, should make it easy to survey from the air, though the extremists are believed to have camps in densely forested parts. The insurgents recently bombed the only bridge linking Borno state to Cameroon and Chad, where they have hideouts in mountain caves and another forested game reserve.

Leaders from Nigeria's neighboring countries including Benin met at a French-organized summit this weekend in Paris to coordinate curtailing the insurgency that threatens the region. British, U.S. and European officials also attended.

Meanwhile, the hunters say they are reaching the end of their patience.

"We are seasoned hunters, the bush is our culture and we have the powers that defy guns and knives; we are real men of courage, we trust in Allah for protection, but we are not afraid of Boko Haram," said one elderly hunter, Baban Kano. "If government is ready to support us, then we can bring back the girls. But if they are not, they should tell us so that we can disband and return to our homes and family."

---

Faul reported from Lagos, Nigeria. Associated Press writer Andrew Njuguna contributed to this report from Abuja, Nigeria.

Up to 500 Nigerians from 18 to 80 say they're eager to find the 300 missing girls.
Supernatural powers?