World/nation briefs

CALIFORNIA

A federal appeals court in San Francisco declined to decide the constitutionality of the military's now-repealed "don't ask, don't tell" policy banning openly gay troops, saying that the issue has been resolved since Americans can enlist and serve in the armed forces without regard to sexual orientation. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a lawsuit that had challenged the military policy as a violation of gay service members' civil rights.

PENNSYLVANIA

Federal agents raided a Boeing plant that makes military helicopters in suburban Philadelphia and charged more than three dozen people with distributing or trying to get prescription drugs. The arrests were made by the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration at the 5,400-employee plant in Ridley Park, where workers build the H-47 Chinook helicopter and the V-22 Osprey.

OKLAHOMA

Three soldiers from an Army post admitted under police questioning that they carried out a home invasion in Lawton in which four people were shot and wounded, a detective said. The three Fort Sill soldiers told investigators that they were at the home of a friend and that they told her they were going to burglarize her next-door neighbor's house, Lawton police detective Brenna Alvarez said in an affidavit.

CHINA

Twelve government employees were fired and stripped of their Communist Party memberships after an investigation into allegations that family-planning officials kidnapped children in an impoverished rural area in the southern Chinese province of Hunan, People's Daily, the party's newspaper, reported. While investigators concluded that the government workers did not engage in "baby trading," they did find "severe violations" of regulations. As a result, eight babies or toddlers were illegally adopted from the city of Shaoyang between 2002 and 2005, the article said.

SAUDI ARABIA

Saudi men voted in local elections for just the second time in the history of the kingdom, but the polls remained closed to a majority of the Saudi population, including women, who were promised the right to vote in municipal elections scheduled for 2015 in a royal decree issued last week. The elections were for local advisory councils with no lawmaking authority or ability to alter the status quo in one of the world's few remaining absolute monarchies. Also barred from voting were men employed by the police and security forces as well as all men younger than 21. Official figures estimated the number of eligible voters to be 1.2 million out of more than 18 million Saudi citizens.

PAKISTAN

Adm. Mike Mullen's accusation that Pakistan is supporting an Afghan insurgent group that's blamed for attacks on U.S. troops has done what no one else has been able to do: unify Pakistan's divergent politicians and its military. At an all-day session of politicians and the military to discuss allegations by the chairman of U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said that Pakistan "cannot be constantly bullied by the United States," while the head of Pakistan's spy agency denied Mullen's claim that it supports the Haqqani network, an Afghan militant group, and that the group is based in Pakistan. The U.S. verbal assault on Pakistan also has riled public opinion, making it more unlikely that its government will bow to U.S. demands to take action against the Haqqani.

NEWS SERVICES