Over 250,000 people gathered in Rome Saturday to protest a bill currently before parliament which would give legal status to unmarried heterosexual and same-sex couples. The bill was approved by Italy's cabinet in February, but has been harshly criticized by the Italian justice minister and the top Italian bishop. The proposal would give unmarried couples combined medical insurance, the right to visit their partner in prisons or hospitals, inheritance rights, and decision-making authority should one partner become sick. Couples would have to live together for nine years before they would be entitled to property rights, but if the legislation is passed, couples would be able to take advantage of the other legal protections immediately.

The Vatican has said that giving unmarried couples rights would threaten traditional families. Saturday's Family Day rally, not organized by the Vatican, drew tens of thousands of families. Organizers said over 1.5 million people participated, but an early police estimate was lower at about 250,000. Supporters of the proposed legislation held a counter-demonstration, which was attended by some 10,000 people. A similar rally in support of the bill was held in March.

"We obviously asked leadership not to call the bill," said Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

"The bottom line is we certainly had a lot more votes than what we've had, but it's not a majority and quite a few people we've talked to in the last week or so said personally they'd support it and sooner or later it will pass, but it's too soon."

Lawlor said he was slightly surprised that the so-called gay marriage bill won easy passage in his committee, recalling that in 2003 the civil union legislation that was signed into law in 2005 was defeated in the Judiciary panel.

"At this moment the marriage-equality bill seems to be going in the right direction," Lawlor said. "People are saying 'we're getting there, give us a little more time, we want to discuss it a little more.' "

He said that the effort for the legislation ended Friday in part to clear the table for the Supreme

Court hearing Monday. A possible option for the court, Lawlor said, would be to send the entire issue back to the General Assembly to review the rationale for providing the expanded civil rights for gay couples, while calling it something other than marriage.
"I think we'd have a hard time explaining it a second time around," said Lawlor, who is gay.

Anne Stanback, president of the umbrella gay-rights group called Love Makes a Family, said Friday that she had "mixed emotions" about pulling the bill from floor debate.

"We are disappointed that after coming so far we did not quite have the votes we needed in the House to advance the bill this session," Stanback said in a statement.

"However, we can't help but feel encouraged by the significant progress we have made in the two years since the civil union law passed," she said. "We still must win those remaining votes in the Legislature, as well as convince Gov. Rell that treating all Connecticut families fairly is the right thing to do."

Sen. Andrew J. McDonald, D-Stamford, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, agreed that support is growing for the marriage-equality bill.

"We achieved an incredible benchmark this year by passing the bill out of committee — a step that many believed we would not be able to accomplish," said McDonald, who is gay, recalling the 27-15 vote of April 12.

The lawmakers' decision came the same day that opponents of gay marriage, led by the Family Institute of Connecticut, announced a push to combat "anti-family activists" and an anticipated vote next week in the House.

"They are trying to push this through quickly before people find out and make their voices heard," the Family Institute announced in an e-mail message.

Later Friday, Brian S. Brown, executive director of the Family Institute, called the withdrawal of the legislation "a massive victory for marriage protection."

The group has scheduled a May 23 rally against same-sex marriage outside the Capitol at 10 a.m.

The Laporte teen accused of shooting his ex-girlfriend and himself last month was at the center of an emotionally charged court appearance this morning.

Nineteen year-old Timothy Schaub was crying as he entered the courtroom, wearing a helmet because of recent surgeries.

He was not the only emotional one Schaub's father went after the media for taking pictures and video of his son. The shooting happened April 9th but timothy Schaub's ex-girlfriend, Katherine Perkins, is still in the hospital, her condition is not being released.

Germany's highest court of appeal rejected a legal challenge by a Moroccan friend of the September 11, 2001 hijackers against a 15-year jail sentence for being an accessory to mass murder.

The Federal Court of Justice said on Friday it had thrown out the appeal by Mounir El Motassadeq on the grounds that it was unjustified. Motassadeq's lawyers had complained his sentencing contained legal errors, but the court disagreed.

In January, Germany's Federal Constitutional Court rejected a separate appeal made by Motassadeq about the 15-year sentence handed down by a court in Hamburg earlier that month.

Motassadeq was a member of a group of radical Arab students in Hamburg, led by Mohammed Atta, which helped organize the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The complex and drawn-out case strained Berlin's relations with Washington as German courts tested how far the United States would go in giving sensitive evidence.

Goodling resigned from her position as White House liaison at the DOJ in April and the DOJ has since opened an investigation into whether she considered the political affiliations of candidates for career prosecutor positions in the DOJ, contrary to federal law and longstanding departmental practice.

Also, in a rare move, three executives of Purdue Pharma — President Michael Friedman, top lawyer Howard Udell and former medical director Dr. Paul Goldenheim — pleaded guilty Thursday to misbranding charges, a criminal violation.

They agreed to pay a total of $34.5 million in fines.

The fines will be distributed to state and federal law enforcement agencies, the federal government, federal and state Medicaid programs, a Virginia prescription monitoring program and individuals who had sued the company.

The plea agreement settled a national case and came two days after the company agreed to pay $19.5 million to 26 states and the District of Columbia to settle complaints that it encouraged physicians to overprescribe OxyContin.

"With its OxyContin, Purdue unleashed a highly abusable, addictive, and potentially dangerous drug on an unsuspecting and unknowing public," U.S. Attorney John Brownlee said.

"For these misrepresentations and crimes, Purdue and its executives have been brought to justice."

Purdue spokesman James Heins objected to any suggestion of ties between the plea agreement and the abuse of OxyContin. "We promoted the medicine only to health care professionals, not to consumers," he said in a statement.

Purdue Pharma said it accepted responsibility for its employees' actions and has taken steps to ensure "similar events" do not occur again.

OxyContin is a powerful, long-acting narcotic that provides relief of serious pain for up to 12 hours. Initially, Purdue Pharma contended that OxyContin, because of its time-release formulation, posed a lower threat of abuse and addiction to patients than traditional, shorter acting painkillers like Percocet or Vicodin.

That claim became the lynchpin of the most aggressive marketing campaign ever undertaken by a pharmaceutical company for such a drug. Just a few years after its debut in 1996, annual sales hit $1 billion.

Purdue Pharma heavily promoted OxyContin to doctors who had little training in the treatment of serious pain or in recognizing signs of drug abuse in patients.

But both experienced drug abusers and novices, including teenagers, soon discovered that chewing an OxyContin tablet or crushing one and then snorting the powder or injecting it with a needle produced a high as powerful as heroin.

By 2000, several parts of the U.S. began to see skyrocketing rates of addiction and crime related to the drug's use.

In a proceeding Thursday morning in U.S. District Court, both Purdue Pharma and those executives acknowledged that the company fraudulently marketed OxyContin for six years as a drug that was less prone to abuse as well as one that also had fewer narcotic side effects.

Federal officials said that internal Purdue Pharma documents show that company officials recognized even before the drug was marketed that they would face stiff resistance from doctors concerned about OxyContin's potential to be abused.

As a result, company officials developed a fraudulent marketing campaign to promote OxyContin as a time-released drug less prone to such problems.