U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent is charged with two counts of abusive sexual contact and one count of attempted aggravated sexual abuse.

A former case manager at the U.S. District Court in Galveston accused Kent of twice touching her under her clothing and repeatedly making obscene suggestions during the six years she worked with him.

The indictment, first reported by the Houston Chronicle, alleges the criminal conduct happened on Aug. 29, 2003, and March 23, 2007, Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich said in a statement.

Kent's attorney, Dick DeGuerin, called any sexual contact that may have happened between Kent and his accuser consensual.

"He's angry and ready for a fight. He is innocent. We will try this case. It is nothing but a false accusation," said DeGuerin said.

Kent's accuser issued a statement Thursday saying she felt vindicated by the grand jury's decision.

Wayne County Circuit Judge Robert Ziolkowski (zill-KOW-ski) handled other cases Friday before calling Kilpatrick's lawsuit against the governor.

Kilpatrick says he can't get a fair hearing from Granholm because the fellow Democrat held a private meeting in May to try to settle Kilpatrick's criminal perjury case and get him to resign.

The Detroit City Council is asking Granholm to use her constitutional power to remove Kilpatrick from office for misconduct. That hearing is set for Wednesday.

The mayor is accused of misleading council members into approving an $8.4 million settlement with fired police officers.

No prisoners so far have sought to arrange weddings with same-sex partners since the state Supreme Court granted same-sex couples the right to wed as of mid-June, according to Michele Kane, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Nonetheless, department lawyers are drafting guidelines to bring the state's 33 adult prisons into compliance with the court's ruling that same-sex couples must be treated the same as opposite-sex couples under the California Constitution, Kane said.

What they have determined so far is that would mean allowing gay inmates to marry someone on the outside, but not a fellow prisoner — the same rules that apply to straight inmates, according to Kane.

"They will have the same marriage rights as other inmates — they will be able to marry non-inmates, but barred from marrying other inmates in prison," she said.

Prison officials were concerned that allowing two men or two women in the same prison to get married would pose novel safety and security concerns, according to Kane.

Because the Agriculture Department tests only a small percentage of cows for the deadly disease, Kansas meatpacker Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to test all of its cows. The government says it can't.

Larger meat companies worry that if Creekstone is allowed to perform the test and advertise its meat as safe, they could be forced to do the expensive test, too.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday overturned a lower court ruling that would have cleared the way for the testing. The appeals court said restricting the test is within the scope of the government's authority.

Mexico City is one of the few places in Latin America that allows abortion without limitations in the first trimester, although abortion rights groups complain most doctors still refuse to do the procedure.

Within minutes of the 8-3 vote in favor of the law, abortion rights groups were thinking of ways to expand the decision to other parts of Mexico and even Latin America, where abortion is virtually unheard of.

"It opens the road for all of Latin America to start visualizing legal paths to abortion," said Raffaella Schiavon, who directs the international abortion rights group Ipas and has been advising the city government.

Mexico City officials said they were preparing to help other local governments in the region interested in approving similar laws.

Elsewhere in Mexico, abortion is allowed only in cases of rape, when the mother's life is in danger or if the fetus has severe deformities. That is standard across Latin America, where only Cuba and Guyana allow abortions without restrictions in the first trimester. Nicaragua banned abortion in all cases in 2006.

Anti-abortion groups were mobilizing to fight other local attempts to legalize abortion.

William Moffitt of Alexandria, Va., on Wednesday filed the lawsuit in Wayne County Circuit Court. Moffitt was hired by Kilpatrick in February and replaced before Kilpatrick was charged with perjury in March. Moffitt contends in the lawsuit that Kilpatrick has continually refused to pay the bill.

Mayoral spokesman Marcus Reese told the Detroit Free Press it's unfortunate Moffitt decided to air an administrative issue in public, and his office will respond accordingly.

Kilpatrick faces eight felony counts in the perjury case and two felony counts in a separate assault case.