Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Friday vetoed a bill to legalize gay marriage three days after the state Senate passed it and the state Assembly affirmed the vote, 41 to 33. While gay marriage has been a top priority among state Democrats this year, they don’t have the votes in the legislature to override a veto. New Jersey's gay-marriage proposal was one of several in the works. In Washington state, a bill legalizing same-sex marriage was signed into law by the governor Monday, and a similar initiative is working its way through Maryland’s statehouse.

A new Labor Department report shows that applications for unemployment benefits have fallen to the lowest point in nearly four years as companies lay off fewer workers and hiring picks up. The economy added 243,000 jobs in January, driving the unemployment rate down to 8.3 percent. The data comes from a four-week measurement that indicated a continued decline in applications for benefits, which have fallen by 13 percent over the last year to 365,250. Other promising news came from the construction and manufacturing industries, with applications for building permits up and a new study showing that mid-Atlantic factories are seeing expanded activity.

An outsider he is not. Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum might have a tough time painting himself as a warrior against the status quo in Washington now that he’s released his tax returns. It turns out Santorum made $3.6 million as a “consultant” and also claimed a German luxury sedan as a business expense. Santorum has tried to paint himself as an average American and has focused on his humble roots as the grandson of a coal miner to connect with voters. He has tried to downplay his wealth on the campaign trail, highlighting instead his social conservatism.

The U.N. General Assembly has approved a resolution to back a plan that calls for the resignation of Syria's president and denounces human rights offenses in the country. 137 member nations voted for the resolution, with 12 against and 17 abstaining. Russia and China, the two countries that voted against a UN action in the Security Council, also voted against the resolution. The vote came just hours after United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon gave a harsh criticism of Syria, accusing its government of atrocities. A day after the Syrian president promised reform, his troops launched an attack on the cities of Daraa and Hama, killing an estimated 18 people. Also on Thursday, Syrian forces reportedly arrested blogger Razan Ghazzawi, who is considered one of the icons of the uprising.

The 25-year-old Nigerian man who strapped a dud explosive into his underpants and tried to set it off as his flight neared Detroit was sentenced to life in prison Thursday. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s ill-fated attempt at martyrdom went awry on the Christmas Day flight three years ago when the bomb failed to detonate. Passengers on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 tackled him after the bomb caused a small fire that injured his groin. Abdulmutallab told the FBI that he wanted to die for his Islamic faith, and that he traveled to Yemen before his attempted attack to try to meet with al-Qaeda leaders. Abdulmutallab, who pled guilty back in October, appeared calm as his sentence was pronounced, sitting back in his chair with his chin in his hand.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is reportedly open to restarting talks about his country’s burgeoning nuclear program, according to a letter sent to the European Union obtained by CNN. The letter comes just one day after Ahmadinejad oversaw the insertion of the country’s first domestically produced fuel rod into a research reactor. If sanctions against Iran go forward, Iran would not be allowed to import yellowcake, a chemically treated form of uranium ore that is used for making enriched uranium—and Iran had announced Wednesday the intention to start producing of yellowcake. Meanwhile, the U.S. has played down Iran's announcement nuclear might, while slapping sanctions on Iran's intelligence ministry for allegedly supporting Syria's crackdown.

The New York Times's Beirut bureau chief, Anthony Shadid, died Thursday, the newspaper announced. He apparently died of an asthma attack in Syria. Tyler Hicks, a photographer with Shadid, carried his body to Turkey. Shadid was one of the journalists reported missing in Libya in March 2011. He was the Baghdad bureau chief of The Washington Post before joining the Times. In his 15-year career, Shadid won the Pulitzer for international reporting twice—covering the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2004 and its withdrawal in 2010.

Someday, these lawbreakers will look back at this day and laugh. On Thursday, NORAD sent two Air Force F-16 fighters to intercept a private plane that entered the same airspace over Southern California as President Obama. That’s not all—police found 40 pounds of marijuana aboard the plane. The Secret Service says Obama was never in danger. The plane, drugs, and pilot were turned over to the Long Beach police.

Gary Carter, a Hall of Fame catcher, died Thursday at the age of 57. Nicknamed “Kid,” Carter won many accolades throughout his two-decade career, picking up 11 All Star nods and three Gold Gloves. He is perhaps best known for the single he hit at the bottom of the 10th inning during the sixth game of the 1986 World Series. That at-bat helped the Mets mount an improbable comeback against the Boston Red Sox and eventually take the title. Carter, who was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor last May, also played for Montreal, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

When you buy a T-shirt, you know it’s for real. Former GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin is all in for Knicks phenom Jeremy Lin. Palin was photographed on the streets of New York, holding a “Linsanity” shirt. She reportedly said that Lin is what America stands for—uplifting, positive, a true American story! But between Lin and Tim Tebow, she’s still undecided.

Chris Brown may be rumored to be back together with Rihanna, who he was charged with brutally beating in 2009, but that’s not stopping him from trying out some stomach-turning lines on the ladies of LA. A young woman says Brown approached her in a Grammys gift loung and asked, "Can I get your number? I promise I won't beat you!" "He and his friends laughed, then one yelled, 'That's his new line!' Ugh! I wanted to throw up!" the woman said. Brown’s rep denied the incident. “I’d be surprised if Chris said something like that.”

Ticketholders for Wednesday night’s Colbert Report got a surprise: an email informing them that the show had been canceled for “unforeseen reasons.” Colbert’s website has slated reruns for the rest of the week, but offered no explanation. Last-minute cancellations are extremely rare for Comedy Central’s fake news shows; The Daily Show has been canceled only twice, usually for staffers’ personal reasons. The Colbert Report has never missed a scheduled episode.

Get ready for some lining up at your local Apple store this summer. Apple on Thursday unveiled their new operation system, Mountain Lion, and said it would be available to the public by this summer. The Mountain Lion will bring a lot of the features of Apple’s mobile technology to the desktop, such as the “Messages” app, which will replace iChat. Integrated into the new OS is iCloud, the software that allows any document saved to the cloud to be available on an iPhone or iPad and changes will sync with all the devices. The new OS also can sync your computer with your television, which means users can make their television an extension of the computer screen.

Whitney Houston's funeral might only be intended for friends and family, but anyone with an Internet connection will be able to watch. Houston's publicist Kristen Foster says the ceremony will be broadcast live on livestream.com/aplive on Saturday. It will also be aired on some satellite services. Bobby Brown, Houston's ex-husband, has reportedly been asked to stay away from the funeral. Other reports, however, say he will not be turned away from the Saturday service at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, calling Houston “a daughter of New Jersey,” defended his decision to lower the state's flags to half-mast.

Who knew? Researchers from Queen Mary University of London have found that goats’ “accents” change as they grow older and move into different groups. The findings contradict claims that most mammals’ voices are entirely genetic. Previously only humans, elephants, dolphins, and a few other mammals were thought to be able to pick up accents. The scientists found that the calls of young goats raised in the same social groups were similar to each other, and became more similar as they grew older.

Following the arrests of three Iranians in Tuesday’s bombings in downtown Bangkok, Thailand’s police chief has said the suspects were planning to attack Israeli diplomats, bolstering Israel’s claims that the group was part of an Iranian-backed terror network. He also confirmed that the explosive found at the blast site on Tuesday—a homemade “sticky” bomb—matched the devices planted on Israeli embassy staff in India and Georgia the day before. While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the violence, Iran responded by saying the allegations were baseless and blamed Israel for spreading conspiracy theories in an attempt to sour Iran’s relationship with Thailand.

With the Middle East in a state of massive transition, William S. Cohen, a former U.S. secretary of defense and the head of a strategic-advisory firm, makes three predictions: populist policies will continue to sway the work of new governments, Islamic parties will grow in stature and importance within newly democratic states, and the U.S. will struggle to play its traditional leadership role. “The US will continue to play a critical role in the Middle East as a guarantor of stability and security, and as an economic and military power,” Cohen writes. “However, in order to influence events and promote democratic values within the new Middle East, the US must quickly develop meaningful relationships with new actors across a variety of governmental and societal circles. Military alliances are important, but the US must move rapidly to broaden its relationships in the commercial, economic, cultural, social and technological spheres in order to help Middle Eastern governments bring tangible benefits to their people and provide opportunities for their citizens.”

Four months after the Olympus accounting scandal broke, it's taken a criminal turn. Police arrested seven men, including the former president and vice president of Olympus Corp. and  several former bankers. The men are suspected of helping hide huge investment losses in an attempt to postpone the fallout from risky investments made during the 1980s bubble economy. In October, then-CEO Michael Woodford exposed the rampant fraud by asking about the suspicious mergers and acquisitions deals used to hide the losses. The questions prompted him to get fired. Olympus is suing 19 executives over the fraud and cover-up.

The story of the Honduran prison fire keeps getting worse. Not only did the fire kill 358 inmates locked in an overcrowded prison, but odds are most of them had never been charged with crimes. More than half the 856 inmates of the Comayagua prison—which was built to hold 500 prisoners—were either awaiting trial or being held as suspected gang members, according to a report by the Honduran government. Under Honduras’ strict anti-gang laws, a person need only have a tattoo to be imprisoned. The U.N. condemns the practice as a violation of international law. On Tuesday night, a fire started by an inmate tore through the prison, burning and suffocating inmates in their cells.

A five-month battle over President Obama's jobs plan could be at an end. Congressional negotiators reached a deal on a $150 billion plan that will extend a payroll tax holiday for 10 months and unemployment benefits through the end of the year. The conference began signing the bill just after midnight, following the agreement that lawmakers would require new federal workers to contribute more to their pension plans. Republicans demanded several billion dollars in cuts to the health-care reform law in exchange for approving the bill. Democrats downplayed the significance of the cuts and touted the extension as a victory. A vote could come as early as Friday.

Demographic changes have sent rates of interracial marriage in the U.S. soaring four decades after it was de-criminalized. According to a new Pew study, 15 percent of new marriage in 2010 traversed racial or ethnic lines, more than twice the rate of three decades ago. Most Americans surveyed said they have no problem with the idea of intermarriage in their own family. “In the past half century, intermarriage has evolved from being illegal, to being taboo, to being merely unusual,” said Pew director Paul Taylor. The study found varying patterns among ethnic groups, such as the fact that black men are three times more likely to marry outside their race as black women, and Asian women are twice as likely to do so.

Fox & Friends host Eric Bolling had Rep. Maxine Waters on Thursday morning’s show to account for calling John Boehner and Eric Cantor “demons,” but he made her attack look like a compliment with a tirade in which he told the congresswoman to “step away from the crack pipe” and compared her to Whitney Houston. "Congresswoman, you saw what happened to Whitney Houston," Bolling said. "Step away from the crack pipe, step away from the Xanax, step away from the lorazepam because it’s going to get you in trouble.” Even Bolling’s co-hosts were shocked by the comment, and he explained later in the show that he was “kidding.”

Linsanity continues, with the Knicks beating the Sacramento Kings 100-85. Jeremy Lin added only 10 points, but he had a career-record 13 assists. "As a point guard, my field goal attempts have been really high and I don't think that's necessarily good," Lin said. "I think it's more of my job to distribute and get people in rhythm." Unfortunately, no one in New York's Chinatown could watch the game, because of an ongoing dispute between Time Warner Cable and MSG Network, which televises Knicks games. Lin scored 136 points in his first five starts, the most by any NBA player since the NBA merged with the ABA in 1976.

He’s no Mitt Romney when it comes to income, but presidential candidate Rick Santorum has been doing OK lately. The former senator from Pennsylvania released four years—more than any other candidate—of tax returns, covering 2007 to 2010. The Santorums filed jointly, bringing in an adjusted gross income of about $659,000 in 2007, $952,000 in 2008, $1.1 million in 2009, and about $923,000 in 2010. They also paid their share of taxes, forking over between $167,000 and $310,000 per year. ABC News’ Michael Falcone did a “back of the envelope” calculation: in 2010 Santorum paid a 28.4 percent rate, compared with 13.9 percent for Romney.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai says his government is in direct talks with the Taliban, along with the United States. "There have been contacts between the U.S. government and the Taliban, there have been contacts between the Afghan government and the Taliban, and there have been some contacts that we have made, all of us together, including the Taliban," he told The Wall Street Journal in an interview. It's somewhat surprising that the Taliban would talk directly with the Afghan government: since they were ousted in 2001, the Taliban has insisted they are the real Afghan government and have refused to talk with the “puppet government,” though they've been open to talks with the U.S. Karzai also said that the majority of Taliban fighters are "definitively willing to seek peace.”

Nerves were frayed Thursday morning at the construction site of one of the new World Trade Center towers after a 35-foot steel column fell off a crane and crashed onto a vehicle. The construction site partially shut down after the accident, which involved only one minor injury after a worker slipped and fell while running near the massive beam. The incident occurred at Tower 4 around 10 a.m. and caused the 9/11 memorial and museum to be shut down while police investigated.

Oklahoma legislators moved a step closer in their attempt to outlaw abortion on Wednesday as the state Senate passed the Personhood Act, 34-8. The bill now moves to the House where pro-life Republicans outnumber Democrats two-to-one. The bill gives individual rights from the moment of conception, though proponents say contraception methods would not be outlawed. Its author, Sen. Brian Crain, R-Tulsa, said the bill is simply a statement that Oklahoma is “pro-life.” Opponents say the bill—modeled after a Missouri law–could lead to “dire consequences,” seeing as the bill does not single out cases of rape or incest. Virginia’s House passed a similar bill Monday and its GOP-controlled Senate will vote on it next week.

Rick Santorum aimed to portray himself as the ultimate anti-Romney candidate while speaking at the Detroit Economic Club on Thursday. Santorum, who is leading the polls in Romney's home state, pledged to restore U.S. manufacturing, cut spending, and be concerned about "the very poor." That last part was an obvious poke at one of Romney's now-infamous gaffes. A vocal opponent of the auto bailout, Santorum said he'd bring manufacturing back through domestic oil drilling. He also told the crowd of businesspeople that he's committed to helping small businesses with lower taxes. "There is income inequality in America, there always has been, and hopefully, there always will be."

Just five months ago, Amanda Knox was sitting in an Italian jail, convicted of murder. Now she’s free, back in Seattle—and picking up a $4 million paycheck for her memoir, according to The New York Times. Publishing house HarperCollins won a fierce bidding war for her story, which is reported to start only with her arrest and imprisonment for Meredith Kercher’s murder. (She’s not expected to write about the night Kercher was killed.) Though Knox is a polarizing figure, her book is sure to gain attention, especially since new legal troubles have sprung up: Italian prosecutors recently appealed to have her conviction reinstated by the nation’s highest court.

Joseph P. Kennedy III, a grandson of former attorney general Robert Kennedy, formally kicked off his candidacy for Congress on Thursday, stopping at the Newton Center subway stop. Kennedy, an assistant district attorney, formally announced his campaign in a video message released Thursday morning, and then he took to an MBTA stop at a Boston suburb in his district. Saying he is “very, very proud of my family’s public record,” Kennedy insisted this campaign is not about his family name but about the issues facing Massachusetts. A recent poll showed Kennedy had a wide lead over his possible opponent, Republican Sean Bielat. Kennedy will hold a fundraiser Wednesday on what would have been his great-uncle Edward Kennedy’s 80^th birthday.

The Obama administration’s new consumer protection bureau has outlined its first targets for tougher oversight: large debt collectors and credit reporting companies, both of which have largely escaped federal scrutiny. The agency proposed a draft rule to begin oversight, which it hopes to finalize by July. Director Richard Cordray said the rule would treat debt collectors and credit reporting agencies the same way as banks.

Family sources said Thursday that Bobby Brown will attend Whitney Houston’s funeral this weekend, despite earlier reports that Brown had been banned due to his tumultuous marriage with Brown. “He is not being banned,” said a close family friend. “That is simply untrue.” Kevin Costner, Houston’s co-star in the 1992 hit film The Bodyguard will speak at the private funeral, which will take place at Newark’s New Hope Baptist Church. Also slated to speak is her record producer Clive Davis, and Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder will reportedly sing. Newark police said they plan to lock down the streets on Saturday, and they urged thousands of fans to stay home. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Coroner’s Office said Thursday that they are seeking Houston’s recent medical records to help find clues into her mysterious death.

Foster Friess, Rick Santorum's super-PAC financier, doesn't understand all the fuss over contraception, when there are much more pressing issues like unemployment and terrorism at hand. "This contraception thing, my gosh, it's [so] inexpensive," he told Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC Thursday. "You know, back in my days, they'd use Bayer aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn't that costly." Taken aback, Mitchell quickly changed the subject.