One contestant barked another was too "ugly and overweight" to be a contestant. The dispute continued in a parking lot, where contestant number two allegedly stabbed contestant number one. When contestant number one's sister and friend joined the battle on her behalf, they got stabbed, too. Catfight at a beauty contest? Not quite - it was a wet T-shirt contest at Gloria's Corral Club April 13. Bertha Murray faces three battery counts after the brawl for stabbing Angela Wood, Jamie Wood, and Amy Myers, who were treated and released from a local hospital. Wood had hurled the insult at Murray, the two argued, and continued the argument in the parking lot when the club closed, until Murray either grabbed Wood by her hair or punched her, according to conflicting reports. What isn't disputed, though, is that Murray drew a pocket knife and stabbed Wood in the arm; then stabbed Wood's sister, Jamie; and Myers, to back them off from the fight. Murray's in jail on $15,000 bond.
MONTPELIER, Vt. - The lower House here approved a bill to make it a crime to possess child porn in Vermont. It's already against federal law, but Vermont and Rhode Island are now the only states without their own such bans. The state Senate Judiciary Committee had pulled the child porn ban from another version of a bill it passed in February over free-speech concerns, but the House put it into their version. It makes exceptions, though, for law enforcement, social workers and physicians to possess images of children for professional reasons, and also excludes libraries, schools or museums which may have such images in resources about child abuse - and for those who download such images from the Internet accidentally, as long as they tried "reasonably" to delete them. However, one lawmaker fears the bill would end up criminalizing innocent images like a parent photographing a child taking a bath - a situation that almost sent an Ohio woman behind bars recently. ''I'm very concerned when we get into an area of the law where we've never tread before, regulating what images Vermonters can possess,'' Rep. Pat Corren told lawmakers. ''I think we have to be concerned if the net we've drawn here is too broad.'' Others, like the American Civil Liberties Union, fear the bill might impinge on constitutional free speech.
DENVER - Colorado Gov. Bill Owens has a bill banning same-sex marriage on his desk and he's expected to sign it. His predecessor, Roy Romer, vetoed such a ban twice. Such marriages cannot be performed in Colorado now under law, but the bill's sponsors argued they were concerned over other states or countries legalizing same-sex marriages, and that Colorado gays would travel out of state to marry and return demanding recognition as married couples. Opponents call it a slap in the face of the gay and lesbian community. This bill was blocked in 1999 when lower House Speaker Russ George sent it to a committee known to be hostile to the measure. This year, though, it took a procedural move to get it through committee - sponsor Mark Paschall added it to a covenant marriage bill, and removed the covenant marriage language from it.
--- Compiled by Humphrey Pennyworth
