LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Mass murderer Charles Manson, one of America’s most notorious convicts, was denied parole on Wednesday in his 12th and possibly final bid for release from a California prison, state corrections officials said.

Manson, 77, who has declined to attend his parole hearings in recent years, was not present for Wednesday’s review of his case by the state Board of Parole Hearings at Corcoran State Prison, where he is serving a life term.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Aging mass murderer Charles Manson, one of America’s most notorious convicts, was scheduled for his latest parole review on Wednesday in California, where he has been serving a life prison term since the 1970s.

Manson, 77, has been denied release on parole 11 times before, most recently in 2007, when the state Board of Parole Hearings ruled that he “continues to pose an unreasonable danger to others and may still bring harm to anyone he would come in contact with.”

By Steve Gorman

(Reuters) – Eight same-sex couples have filed suit in U.S. federal court challenging Nevada’s gay marriage ban as unconstitutional and saying the state’s domestic-partnership statute relegates them to second-class status.

The lawsuit came two months after a U.S. appeals court struck down a similar voter-passed ban on same-sex matrimony next door in California, marking one of several victories by gay-marriage advocates on various legal and legislative fronts this year.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Poet and essayist Adrienne Rich, a feminist literary figure celebrated as much for deeply personal reflections on her own life as for sometimes-biting social commentary, has died at age 82, family members said on Wednesday.

Rich, who received a galaxy of honors, including the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize and National Book Award, for a body of work that spanned seven decades and ranks among the most anthologized of the 20th century, died on Tuesday at her home in Santa Cruz, California, daughter-in-law Diana Horowitz said.

March 26 (Reuters) – Returning from humankind’s first solo
dive to the deepest spot in the ocean, filmmaker James Cameron
said he saw no obvious signs of life that might inspire
creatures in his next “Avatar” movie but was awestruck by the
“complete isolation.”

The Oscar-winning director and undersea explorer said his
record-setting expedition to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, 7
miles (11 km) beneath the surface of the western Pacific, not
only capped seven years of painstaking preparation but was the
“culmination of a lifelong dream.”

By Steve Gorman

(Reuters) – “Titanic” film director James Cameron has completed the world’s first solo dive to the deepest-known point on Earth, reaching the bottom of the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench southwest of Guam in a specially designed submarine.

The filmmaker arrived at the site known as “Challenger Deep” shortly before 8 a.m. local time on Monday, reaching a depth of 35,756 feet, or roughly 7 miles beneath the ocean’s surface, said the National Geographic Society, which is overseeing the expedition.

By Steve Gorman and Laura Zuckerman

(Reuters) – Dozens of conservation groups and nearly 100 scientists voiced opposition on Thursday to an Obama administration proposal they say would make it much harder for imperiled creatures to qualify for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The proposed policy change, formally unveiled in December, stems from an ongoing dispute over the cactus ferruginous pygmy owl, a small, rare bird whose range includes the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, and a previous fight over the flat-tailed horned lizard in the California desert.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – California Congressman David Dreier, chairman of the powerful House Rules Committee, said on Wednesday he would retire from Capitol Hill at the end of the year rather than seek reelection after three decades in office.

Dreier is the sixth member of California’s congressional team heading for the door after an overhaul of state political boundaries left many incumbents in both parties facing difficult or uncertain races in reconstituted districts.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Davy Jones, a onetime teen heartthrob as a member of the 1960s made-for-television pop band The Monkees, died on Wednesday after suffering a heart attack near his home in Florida, according to his longtime publicist. He was 66.

Jones was stricken while attending to horses he kept in Indiantown, Florida, about halfway between the Atlantic coast and Lake Okeechobee, spokeswoman Helen Kensick said, but she had no further details. Jones had lived with his third wife, Jessica Pacheco-Jones, in Hollywood, Florida, in recent years, she said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Making a comeback as Oscar host after an eight-year absence, comedian Billy Crystal poked fun on Sunday night at his own reluctance to return and paid light-hearted tribute to leading nominees for the 84th annual Academy Awards.

In his ninth appearance as master of ceremonies, Crystal, 63, did his best to keep the live broadcast moving with a mix of one-liners, song and the kind of comic set pieces that have enshrined him as one of the most beloved of Oscar emcees.