Balanced News Blog

South Africa‘s highest court ruled on Thursday that gays and lesbians have a right to marry, and it gave the national parliament one year to change the words “husband” and “wife” to “spouse” in its marital laws.

A sailor assigned to a Navy air station in Texas shot and wounded another enlisted man and an officer Thursday in the control operations center.

The boyfriend of the alleged “cell phone bandit” pleaded guilty Thursday to federal charges in connection with four bank robberies in northern Virginia.

The US economy weathered the impact of hurricanes better than experts had expected, growing at a 4.3 percent annual pace in the third quarter, the government said in an upward revision to its prior estimate. The Commerce Department figure for gross domestic product (GDP) was stronger than last month’s estimate of 3.8 percent growth and ahead of the the 4.0 percent expected by Wall Street economists. The agency will make its final estimate next month.

Egyptian opposition activists and police have clashed during the final round of parliamentary elections.

The family of an Australian man facing the death penalty in Singapore has visited him for probably the last time.

Washington and Jerusalem are disturbed by the abrupt firing of Alexander Rumyantsev as head of the Russian Agency for Atomic Energy, Rosatom, a job he held four years. Russian president Vladimir Putin offered no explanation for his replacement by a former Russian prime minister, Sergei Kiriyenko, who has no experience in the nuclear energy field.

The maker of the popular BlackBerry e-mail device is facing a critical decision: Pony up a lot of money to settle a long-term patent dispute or inform most of its 3.65 million U.S. subscribers that it may have to shut off service.

The United Arab Emirates announced Thursday it will hold a limited form of voting to pick members of a consultative council, a small step toward widening political participation in a country that has never held elections.

Michael Jackson is in more hotwater with the police after being cleared of child sex abuse in June. The oddball singer is now being investigated for “trafficking drugs to feed a 40 pills-a-day habit,” says the Sun.