"I've never stumped before, but I want to be a part of this," Bumgarner said. The retired insurance executive and devout Mormon said his late mother would "turn over in her grave" if she knew that gays and lesbians could marry.

With less than 11 weeks until Election Day, supporters of Proposition 8 are ramping up their field organization and refining their message as they seek to persuade California voters to shut the door on same-sex marriage. It's the first time voters will be asked to weigh in on the issue in either California or Massachusetts — the states where gays have won the right to wed.

An estimated 15,000 backers of the measure, most of them members of Mormon, Catholic and evangelical Christian churches, knocked on doors and distributed campaign literature to registered voters throughout the state this weekend and last, according to Jennifer Kerns, spokeswoman for the Yes on 8 campaign.

The initiative is a constitutional amendment, similar to ones already enacted in 26 other states, that would overturn the California Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage. It needs a simple majority of votes to pass.

Kilpatrick was scheduled to be arraigned Friday on charges of assaulting two Wayne County investigators. It's one of two criminal cases against the mayor, who denies shoving the pair while they tried to deliver a subpoena to a friend.

Kilpatrick is barred from traveling outside the metro Detroit area. Those bond restrictions likely will be discussed at the arraignment. The mayor also is required to wear an electronic tether to monitor his whereabouts.

In Kilpatrick's other criminal case, involving allegations of perjury and obstruction of justice, a judge has said he can go to Denver for the convention.

A grand jury on Thursday indicted Mayra Lizbeth Rosales, 27, on one count of first-degree murder and on one count of injury to a child in the death of Eliseo Gonzalez Jr. She previously had been charged with capital murder.

Rosales weighs nearly 1,000 pounds and cannot fit through a door to leave her home, leaving prosecutors wondering how to bring her to court. As of Thursday evening, she was not in custody.

Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Trevino said holding her at the county jail for her trial would be impossible because she needs extensive medical care.

"She would die," said Trevino in Thursday's online edition of The Monitor in McAllen.

The grand jury indicted Rosales after an autopsy confirmed investigators' suspicions that the child died March 18 because he had been struck. Investigators believe the toddler was struck at least twice, crushing his head.

Authorities recommended Rosales' bond be set at $150,000.

The boy's mother Jaime Rosales, was charged earlier with injury to a child because she allegedly left her son alone with his aunt. Her bond has been set at $100.000.

Doug Baker of the Michigan attorney general's office made the disclosure during a routine arraignment for Kilpatrick on the charges in one of two criminal cases against him.

Kilpatrick attorney Juan Mateo told Circuit Court Judge David Groner he had just learned of the deal offer and wasn't prepared to respond. Another defense attorney, James Thomas, said after the hearing: "We're preparing for trial."

A not guilty plea on the assault charges was entered on the mayor's behalf. Kilpatrick didn't speak in court.

The mayor is accused of shoving a sheriff's detective into another investigator while they tried to serve a subpoena on one of his friends July 24.

Kilpatrick is a superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention next week in Denver. Thomas said last week the mayor is interested in attending but conditions of his bond in the assault case prevent him from traveling outside the metro Detroit area.

A hearing was scheduled for Monday on Kilpatrick's bond conditions.

Separately, Kilpatrick and his former top aide, Christine Beatty, were charged in March with conspiracy, perjury, obstruction of justice and misconduct in office, mostly tied to their testimony in a civil trial. Sexually explicit text messages between the pair, published by the Detroit Free Press in January, contradict their sworn denials of an affair, a key point in the trial last year involving a former deputy police chief.

Meanwhile, Gov. Jennifer Granholm is scheduled on Sept. 3 to consider a request from the Detroit City Council to have Kilpatrick removed from office. Under Michigan law, a governor can remove an elected official for misconduct. That hearing could last several days.

Granholm declined Friday to discuss anything involving Kilpatrick.

Khodorkovsky — the former head of Yukos oil company, and once Russia's richest man — was sentenced to prison for eight years in 2005 on charges of tax evasion and fraud in what Kremlin critics slammed as a flawed trial.

"Prisoner Khodorkovsky does not deserve conditional early release," Judge Igor Faliliyev said at the Ingodinsky regional court in the Siberian city of Chita, citing as reasons his refusal to take part in professional training in sewing while in prison, and an alleged misdemeanor dating back to October.

Khodorkovsky showed little surprise at the decision, appearing calm as the judge finished speaking. As he was hustled out of the courtroom by guards, he said Russia's "legal system will not be reformed anytime soon."

Detained since 2003, Khodorkovsky has served more than half of his sentence and has been eligible for parole for the past 10 months.

Most of that sentence has been served in the remote Chita region, nearly 4,000 miles east of Moscow. In December 2006, he was moved from a prison camp to a pretrial detention center in the city after new charges were brought against him and his business associate Platon Lebedev.

Similar to a retail shop that increases its product lines to meet customer demand, the law firm of Jonathan D'Agostino & Associates, has ventured into additional areas of jurisprudence.

The expansion wasn't part of the original game plan for the 18-year-old firm, which began specializing in personal injury.

"I never wanted to be that law firm that claims they do everything, because I do not believe you can do everything well," said founder Jonathan D'Agostino.

But when his clients indicated a need for other legal services, D'Agostino didn't want to let them down. He brought legal experts, in a variety of specialties, on board.

"We would settle large cases, and clients would ask us to help with estate planning," D'Agostino said.

At other times, he said, personal-injury cases would involve clients who were so injured they didn't have the mental capacity to make decisions or handle their settlements, so the firm would be prompted to draft special-needs trusts.

Today, in addition to personal injury, the Eltingville-based firm offers a range of legal services, including medical malpractice, estate planning, elder law, criminal defense and Social Security disability.

"Rather than refer those types of matters to other firms, we brought in trained and seasoned attorneys to handle things. This also assured our clients the same exceptional service they were used to," D'Agostino said.

The firm's Social Security department grew out of the need to service clients who, due to their injuries, could not return to work.

Attorney Edward Pavia helps clients like these with Social Security paperwork, hearings and appeals.