Miami

Mother mistaken for fugitive

Thinking they had caught a French fugitive who had kidnapped her children from their father, authorities held a mother of two in jail for six nights until DNA tests proved them wrong.

Nona Cason, 39, had pleaded her innocence, offering job records, birth certificates and passports to show she was not fugitive Nadine Tretiakoff.

But Tretiakoff’s ex-husband, Pierre Fourcade, stood three feet from her in court and swore she was Tretiakoff. He said outside court that Cason’s children were his.

Federal prosecutors dropped charges against Cason after DNA tests showed that her children, ages 9 and 11, were not related to Fourcade.

Toronto

Parliament committee backs same-sex marriages

A powerful Parliament committee — by a one-vote margin — issued a nonbinding call Thursday for the Canadian government to drop legal challenges of court rulings that allow same-sex marriages.

The 9-8 vote by the House of Commons Justice Committee was the latest to prod Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s government to change the legal definition of marriage or to stop challenges to court rulings that allow other than heterosexual unions.

On Tuesday, an Ontario appeals court declared invalid Canada’s legal definition of marriage as being limited to the union of a man and a woman, changing it in Ontario to a union between two people.

Justice Minister Martin Cauchon said Thursday he needed more time before deciding whether the government would appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Belgium

EU constitutional talks continue as deadline nears

Delegates negotiated Thursday to try to reach a deal on the European Union’s first-ever constitution, which would determine how to run an expanded EU.

Former French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, who is leading the 105-member constitutional convention, urged compromise to reach a resolution by late today.

The convention has been working for 15 months to create a document to manage the EU more efficiently after the bloc grows next year from its current 15 members to 25 members comprising 450 million people.

The result could determine whether the bloc remains a loose alliance of sovereign countries or moves toward a superstate that may someday rival the United States.

Iraq

Latest U.S. military assault targets Saddam loyalists

U.S. fighter jets bombed a suspected terrorist camp and troops stormed door-to-door through Sunni Muslim towns Thursday, seeking Saddam Hussein loyalists in one of the biggest American military assaults since the war.

As Operation Peninsula Strike entered day three, Iraqi fighters shot down a U.S. helicopter gunship — the first American aircraft downed by ground fire since Saddam’s ouster two months ago — and a U.S. F-16 fighter-bomber crashed. The crews of the aircraft were unharmed.