DENVER (AP) – The governor has signed a bill that will make it easier for same-sex and unmarried straight couples to leave property to their partners.

Gov. Bill Ritter signed House Bill 1260 Thursday. It allows any two, unmarried adults to become one another’s designated beneficiary, granting them a number of rights.

They include being able to make funeral arrangements for each other, receive death benefits and inherit property without a will.

The bill was backed by gay and lesbian groups. Supporters say it will also help seniors who don’t marry for financial reasons and people who can’t afford a lawyer to draft a will.

Opponents argued that voters rejected a proposal to create domestic partnerships, which included some of the same rights.

The law will take effect July 1.

HONOLULU (AP) – Senate President Colleen Hanabusa says it’s unlikely that same-sex civil unions will move forward this year.

Deadlines for amending bills have passed, leaving another attempt to recall the measure to the Senate floor as the only viable option.

Senators are unlikely to try to recall the measure again after a similar effort last month failed 18-6.

A recall vote probably wouldn’t succeed without the support of Hanabusa and Sen. Brian Taniguchi, whose Senate Judiciary Committee didn’t advance the bill following a 3-3 vote.

Gay-rights advocates are still hopeful that senators could waive internal deadlines, change the structure of committees or bring the bill before the full Senate as a committee of the whole.

NEW YORK (AP) – A judge in New York City has granted the adoption petition of a woman whose egg was implanted in her domestic partner and resulted in the birth of a son.

Surrogate Court Judge Kristin Booth Glen says she is convinced that the woman, identified only as Mona A., is already the legal parent of the 15-month-old boy.

But in her ruling last Friday the judge said the adoption will give Mona A. her “full and unassailable” parental rights.

The women, Mona A. and Ingrid A., got married in the Netherlands in 2004 after being together 11 years. The judge says that while the Netherlands marriage is recognized by New York state, the legal adoption will ensure Mona’s rights throughout the United States.

NEW YORK (AP) – Two women who work for New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection claim they were given the worst jobs, routinely called derogatory names and denied showers after working in sewage.

Lillian Padilla and Magda Rodriguez have filed a federal complaint alleging they were discriminated against because they are lesbian women in a labor force dominated by men.

DEP spokesperson Anne Canty says five of the agency’s 426 laborers on staff are women. She says the women’s complaints will be “thoroughly investigated.”

Padilla and Rodriguez say they knew of 10 to 15 women at the department when they first started working as laborers. But they say those female colleagues quit after being harassed.

Their claim was filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

NEW YORK (AP) – A “glitch” on Amazon.com has caused the sales rank to be removed from gay- and/or lesbian-themed books by James Baldwin, Gore Vidal and others.

“There was a glitch in our systems and it’s being fixed,” Amazon’s director of corporate communications, Patty Smith, said in an e-mail Sunday.

As of Sunday night, books without rankings included Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, Vidal’s The City and the Pillar and Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. The removals prompted furious remarks on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere online.

Craig Seymour, author of the gay memoir All I Could Bare, wrote on his blog Sunday that his sales rank was dropped in February, then restored nearly four weeks later, after he was told by Amazon that his book had been “classified as an Adult product.”

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri is denouncing same-sex marriage as state legislators prepare to consider the issue.

Carcieri called himself a “traditionalist” April 8 as he joined the state chapter of the National Organization for Marriage, which announced a new advertising campaign in support of marriage between a man and a woman.

Carcieri and his wife, Sue, said they were speaking out because they believed the best upbringing for a child is in a home with a mother and a father.

Carcieri also said he is not anti-gay and that the issue should be decided by voters, and not by courts or legislators.

A bill under consideration by the General Assembly would let a same-sex couple married in another state get divorced in Rhode Island.

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) –Eight students have signed up for Texas Christian University’s designated on-campus housing for gay students and their supporters, in what may be the only such college housing in North Texas.

The DiversCity Q community will open in the fall in a section of the Tom Brown-Pete Wright apartments. GLBT students and allies – heterosexual classmates who support them – will have the chance to live together, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported in a story posted April 7 on its Web site.

“It’s a chance for students to be part of a unique experience,” said David Cooper, TCU associate director for residential life.

TCU sophomore Shelly Newkirk, who is gay, applied to create the program. She said eight students have committed to live in the apartments.

“Well I’ve been trying to create a safe space on campus for the queer community,” Newkirk said Tuesday in an interview with Dallas-Fort Worth television station KDFW. “We’re not creating just like a bubble for ourselves, but creating a space where we can have open dialogue and students can be comfortable.”

TCU will also open two Christian-based living groups, another for fine arts and three other themed housing arrangements. It’s all part of the university’s living-learning communities, designed for students who want to live with others who are like-minded.

Living-learning communities are common at universities in Denton and Tarrant counties, but none has an on-campus living program for gay students. A fraternity for gay and straight students opened in 1998 at the University of North Texas but had closed by 2001, University of North Texas spokesperson Sarah Bahari said.

Neither Cooper nor Newkirk had received any criticism, they said.

“Surprisingly, I found nothing but support,” said Newkirk. She said she was prepared for criticism.

“Sometimes those things can bring a community together,” she said. “It doesn’t have to tear us apart.”

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) – Now that Vermont has become the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage, the three couples that pioneered Vermont’s civil unions law plan to marry.

Stan Baker says he and his partner Peter Harrigan plan to marry in September when the bill becomes law, according to the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus.

They were one of three couples who sued the state in 1997 for the right to get married, which led to the creation of Vermont’s first-in-the-nation civil unions law.

Lois Farnham and Holly Puterbaugh also plan to wed.

Puternaugh says they were happy with civil unions, but it wasn’t enough.

The third couple to sue the state 12 years ago, Nina Beck and Stacy Jolles, also plan to wed soon after the bill becomes law.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – The Wisconsin Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether the state’s ban on same-sex marriage was properly put to voters.

Political science instructor William McConkey claims the referendum illegally put two issues to voters at the same time. A Dane County judge dismissed the case last year, and McConkey appealed to the District 4 Court of Appeals.