By Jason McLure LITTLETON, New Hampshire (Reuters) - A New Hampshire state representative apologized on Wednesday for using "vagina" as a synonym for "woman" in a mass email to lawmakers as part of a gun-law debate. Representative Peter Hansen was responding to fellow Republican Representative Steve Vaillancourt, who had urged repeal of the state's Stand Your Ground law. The 2011 law allows use of deadly force even if people could safely retreat from a threatening situation. ...

(Reuters) - Oklahoma City police used a robot to investigate a suspicious van parked outside City Hall on Wednesday, and while no threat was found, officials were on high alert in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings. City Hall and surrounding buildings were evacuated while police inspected a U-Haul van parked outside the government buildings. Police said the van had been stolen and that it was reported as unattended by a nervous citizen. ...

By Sam Youngman WASHINGTON - (Reuters) - Republican Senator Rand Paul, a favorite of the conservative Tea Party movement, fueled speculation on Wednesday that he will follow in his father's footsteps and run for president in 2016. Paul, a freshman senator from Kentucky, told reporters he will visit early voting states this year and indicated he will make a final decision next year. Paul's father, former Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, was a presidential candidate three times, running once as a Libertarian and twice as a Republican. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Wednesday said federal courts do not have jurisdiction to hear lawsuits against foreign corporations accused of aiding in human rights abuses abroad. In one of its biggest human rights cases in years, the justices ruled unanimously that a court in New York could not hear claims made by 12 Nigerians who accused Anglo-Dutch oil company Royal Dutch Shell Plc of complicity in a violent crackdown on protesters from 1992 to 1995. (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Howard Goller and Vicki Allen)

(Reuters) - Boston Marathon bomb scene pictures taken by investigators and released on Tuesday show the remains of an explosive device including twisted pieces of a metal container, wires, a battery and what appears to be a small circuit board. A government official, who declined to be identified, made the pictures available to Reuters. It was not immediately clear what fresh light the photographs shed on the attack. ...

By Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Authorities on Tuesday intercepted a letter sent to Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker that preliminary tests showed contained the deadly poison ricin, and the Capitol police, FBI and other agencies have launched an investigation. The letter has been sent for further analysis to an accredited laboratory, Capitol police said Tuesday night. It was postmarked from Memphis, Tennessee, and had no return address, Terrance Gainer, the Senate sergeant at arms, said earlier in a warning to members of the Senate. ...

By Edith Honan NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democrat Anthony Weiner, who resigned from Congress in disgrace two years ago, is weighing a bid for New York mayor, but a poll released on Tuesday suggests his political comeback would be an uphill battle. Only 40 percent of city voters say they would consider voting for him, while 52 percent said they would not, according to the NBC New York-Marist poll. Among Democrats, his chances were slightly higher, with 46 percent saying they were open to a Weiner candidacy and 50 percent opposed to the idea. ...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Leaders of California's $255 billion public pension fund gave initial approval on Tuesday to accounting changes aimed at bolstering the fund's long-term finances that would further raise contribution rates for cities and counties. The changes proposed by actuarial staff of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, known as Calpers, include reduced periods for so-called smoothing and amortization of assets aimed at getting the pension system fully funded in 30 years. ...

By David Schwartz PHOENIX (Reuters) - Arizona lawmakers, stepping into the contentious national gun control debate, approved a controversial measure on Tuesday mandating that cities and counties resell firearms turned in during gun buyback programs rather than melt them down. The Republican-controlled Arizona state Senate voted 18-12 to no longer allowed firearms to be destroyed by local municipalities, saying it was a waste of taxpayer money. The state House approved the bill in March. The measure must now be signed or vetoed by Republican Governor Jan Brewer, a staunch gun rights advocate. ...

By Lisa Baertlein and Gus Ruelas OXNARD, California (Reuters) - California farm worker Antonia Espinoza would likely be throwing in the towel and heading back to her native Mexico to see her children, if not for the work of eight U.S. senators in Washington. The bipartisan group of senators unveiled on Tuesday their proposal for immigration reform that would remove the threat of deportation for millions of undocumented workers and open a door for them to one day become U.S. citizens. Espinoza, 32, lives with her U.S. ...

By Susan Kelly (Reuters) - An Illinois jury on Tuesday found in favor of Johnson & Johnson's DePuy orthopedics unit in a second product liability trial of nearly 11,000 lawsuits over the company's recalled ASR metal hip implant. The outcome contrasts with an earlier separate trial in which a Los Angeles jury ordered the J&J unit to pay more than $8 million in damages to plaintiff Loren Kransky after finding the company's ASR hip was defectively designed. DePuy is appealing that verdict. ...

By Don Bolding and Jim Forsyth FORT HOOD, Texas (Reuters) - A military judge ruled on Tuesday that a terrorism expert may testify in the trial of the accused Fort Hood gunman, Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan, but he will not be allowed to weigh in on whether Hasan is a terrorist. The testimony of Evan Kohlmann, who has taken the stand at the trials of a number of al Qaeda-linked suspects, could be key in determining whether Hasan will face the death penalty if he is convicted of killing 13 people in a shooting rampage at the military post in November 2009. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate's chief security office said on Tuesday that the Senate's mail facility had received mail that tested positive for ricin and said it was closing the facility for the next two to three days for investigations. An envelope that had tested positive for ricin had been sent to Republican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, senators told reporters earlier on Tuesday. ...

(Reuters) - American Airlines said its computer systems were restored and flights had resumed after intermittent outages on Tuesday forced it to ground hundreds of U.S. flights, but warned travelers to expect some cancellations to continue for a second day. American, which operates more than 3,500 daily flights worldwide, said it saw no evidence that its technical problems were related to recent events in Boston, where bombings at the finish line of the city's marathon on Monday killed three and injured many others . ...

By Chris Francescani NEW YORK (Reuters) - Federal authorities have charged a prominent New York art dealer and one of Russia's top reputed mobsters with operating high-stakes gambling rings in New York and Los Angeles that catered to billionaires, bank executives, movie stars and professional athletes. Among 34 people indicted on Tuesday are suspected Russian organized crime figure Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, who was charged in 2002 with plotting to rig sports events at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. Tokhtakhounov remains outside of the United States, and that case has not gone to trial. ...

By Rory Carroll and Peter Henderson SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A Silicon Valley power substation was damaged after rifle shots were fired at it early on Tuesday morning, leading the California grid operator to call for electricity conservation. Electricity in the tech capital has not been interrupted so far, as residents and businesses have responded well to the call to save power, said Steven Greenlee, a spokesman for the state grid manager. Gunfire was heard about 1:46 a.m. ...

By Corrie MacLaggan AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - A Texas man convicted of shooting a 17-year-old outside a nightclub in 2001 was executed on Tuesday, the third person put to death by lethal injection in the state this year. Ronnie Threadgill ran up and shot Dexter McDonald as he sat in the back seat of a car after leaving a club on April 14, 2001, in Navarro County, south of Dallas, authorities say. Threadgill then climbed into the car and drove off, according to the state attorney general's account. ...

By Tim Gaynor NACO, Arizona (Reuters) - A Senate immigration plan seeking billions of dollars to secure the porous Mexico border sparked some skepticism in southern Arizona, where wary residents of the border area said previous efforts to ramp up enforcement had failed to stop illegal crossings. "They ain't going to stop it unless they build that wall 50 feet high and ... 50 feet deep," said Jesus Morales, the fire district chief in Naco, a tiny community southeast of Tucson, which is separated from its namesake town in Mexico by a 10- to 13-foot-high (3- to 4-metre-high) steel fence. ...

By Stephanie Simon and Tim McLaughlin BOSTON (Reuters) - Neighbors gathered around a chalk rainbow on a sidewalk outside 8-year-old Martin Richard's home while friends of Krystle Campbell, 29, posted notes on Facebook, all grieving on Tuesday for two of the people killed in Monday's bombing at the Boston Marathon. The third fatality was a Chinese citizen whose identity was not being made public at the request of the victim's family, the Chinese Consulate in New York said in a statement late on Tuesday. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The third fatal victim of Monday's Boston Marathon bombings was a Chinese citizen whose identity was not being made public at the request of the victim's family, the Chinese Consulate in New York said in a statement on Tuesday. Another Chinese citizen was injured and in stable condition after surgery, the statement said. Officials previously identified an 8-year-old boy and a 29-year-old woman in the attacks that killed three and wounded 176. (Reporting by Daniel Trotta)