SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Uruguay’s Senate approved a bill on Wednesday that allows women to have abortions during the first trimester of pregnancy for any reason, opening the way for one of the most sweeping abortion rights laws in Latin America.

The bill, approved by Uruguay’s 31-member Senate by a 17-to-14 vote, had been narrowly approved in September by the country’s lower house. While some prominent political leaders in Uruguay have opposed the measure, President José …

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A Los Angeles city panel on Tuesday took another step toward a city services card, a photo identification card to be issued by the library department that could also serve as debit card.

“The federal government has failed on immigration and we have hundreds of thousands of people living in the shadows,” said Councilman Richard Alarcon, who authored the proposal with support form Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

The Arts, Parks, Health and Aging Committee asked that the Library …

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SAN FRANCISCO — Next month, California voters will be asked to consider 11 ballot propositions whose passage would carry the full force of law, an exercise in direct democracy that traces back to the Progressive Era of the early 20th century.

This time around, though, four of them are initiatives of single rich individuals, while others are being challenged by equally wealthy critics pouring in millions of dollars to defeat them — a sign, in …

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A mass hunger strike is underway among solitary confinement inmates at one California prison, while a second protest at another facility has stopped.

Corrections officials said they do not know why about 500 inmates started refusing food Wednesday, the same day a prison “end to hostilities” was called by inmate activists who had orchestrated last year’s mass hunger strikes.

The fasting began at opposite ends of the state. Several hundred inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison near …

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With the support of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a proposal to create a “City Service Card” that could be used as a limited form of identification by undocumented immigrants gets its first review Tuesday.

The card was proposed by City Councilman Richard Alarcón to allow the undocumented, and other city residents, access to a debit card and banking services, and a city library account.

Read the full story here. …

At least five arrested as thousands rally in Kuwait

(Reuters) – At least five protesters were arrested and several injured in Kuwait as police tried to break up an opposition protest late on Monday, witnesses said.

Authorities had asked opposition lawmakers to call off the demonstration over political reforms, but at least 5,000 people gathered in a square near parliament that has been the site of several anti-government protests since last year.

Although major oil producer Kuwait has …

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Some of the skateboarders who had lined up to see skate film Bake And Destroy ended up throwing rocks and bottles at police tonight in what will probably become known as the Hollywood Skater Riot of 2012.

Click here to read the full story. …

In a rare example of political unity, both the Romney and Obama campaigns have expressed concern to the Commission on Presidential Debates about how the moderator of the Tuesday town hall has publicly described her role, TIME has learned.

While an early October memorandum of understanding between the Obama and Romney campaigns suggests CNN’s Candy Crowley would play a limited role in the Tuesday-night session, Crowley, who is not a party to that agreement, has done …

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The environmental impact report on hydraulic fracturing at the Inglewood Oil Field was supposed to address key concerns raised by residents of the Baldwin Hills area.

Instead, the report has deepened tensions between the oil field’s owner, Plains Exploration & Production Co., and the community after the findings were released last week.

The yearlong study — conducted by an environmental consulting firm and paid for by the owner and operator of the oil field —concluded that the …

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Norway received a combination of disbelief and applause from the international community today for the Nobel’s committee’s announcement that the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize will go to the European Union for its transformation “from a continent of war to a continent of peace” and its focus on “peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights,” according to the BBC.

However, Europe isn’t perfect, and human rights abuses still plague the continent. Human Rights Watch has called …

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