Massachusetts Chief Justice Margaret Marshall said Wednesday that while she understands her tenure on the state's high court will always be linked to the legalization of gay marriage, that case holds no greater importance in her mind than the hundreds of other rulings she authored.

"I'm proud of every decision," said Marshall, who surprised even her closest colleagues with the announcement that she planned to retire from the bench by the end of October to spend more time with her husband, former New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis, who has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

The court's 4-3 ruling in the 2003 case called Goodrich v. Department of Public Health paved the way for Massachusetts to become the first U.S. state to allow same-sex couples to wed, igniting a fierce national debate over gay marriage that continues to this day.

"Whether and whom to marry, how to express sexual intimacy, and whether and how to establish a family — these are among the most basic of every individual's liberty and due process rights," Marshall wrote.

The chief justice recalled how a courtroom packed with hundreds of people quickly cleared out after the court heard arguments in the gay marriage case, leaving only a handful of people who were there for other matters.

FBI agents say Chesser tried to travel to Somalia to join al-Shabab as a fighter. An FBI affidavit says he was stopped from flying once by his mother-in-law and the second time was told he was on the no-fly list.

He is not charged for an online posting saying the creators of the animated series "South Park" risked death by mocking the Prophet Muhammad.

The court-appointed trustee hunting for money to pay investors who lost billions of dollars in Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme has sued more than two dozen entities related to a New York-based hedge fund.

Trustee Irving Picard filed papers in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan late Tuesday to recover $3.6 billion that he said can be traced to the Fairfield Greenwich Group, two dozen affiliates and its founding partners.

The filing added numerous defendants to a lawsuit that earlier named three Fairfield Greenwich funds.

Fairfield Greenwich in a statement said Picard's filing was filled with "false, misleading and rehashed accusations."

The hearing is a procedural appearance in which he will be advised of the charge against him and possible penalties.

Harris-Moore was arrested July 10 in the Bahamas. Authorities say he flew there and crash landed in a plane he stole a week earlier from Indiana.

Police dubbed Harris-Moore the "Barefoot Bandit" because he's accused of committing some crimes without shoes.

After three days of testimony from former staffers, Allegheny County Judge Donna Jo McDaniel heard brief closing arguments and immediately ruled that the sisters were to stand trial on all charges.

Attorneys for both women said they were not surprised at the judge's decision but said they were confident of their chances at trial.

Jane Orie's attorney, William Costopoulous, called the evidence put forth by prosecutors as "trivial." He acknowledged staff members performed campaign work, but said they did so at their own volition or on compensatory time.

Gonzalez is accused of taking a satchel worth about $1,400 from the Polo Ralph Lauren store in The Mall at Short Hills on June 29. Police said he removed the sensor device from the satchel and walked out of the store without paying for it.

According to a police report, the Polo store manager reported that the manager of a restaurant in the mall returned the satchel. The restaurant manager said someone had come into the eatery, left the satchel with the hostess and never returned.

Gonzalez faces criminal mischief and shoplifting charges; the shoplifting charge is punishable by up to five years in jail, according to the Essex County Prosecutor's Office. Gonzalez surrendered to police in Millburn on July 5 and has not had to post bail.

Facebook will try to get a New York man's claim for majority ownership of the website thrown out of court, attorneys for the social networking site said Tuesday.

A complaint by Paul Ceglia of Wellsville claims that a 7-year-old contract he signed with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for software development entitles him to 84 percent of the company.

"No one's ever said it's not his signature or it's a fake contract," Ceglia attorney Terrence Connors said during a federal court hearing in Buffalo.

Connors said the two men met when Zuckerberg, then a Harvard University freshman, responded to an ad Ceglia had posted on Craigslist looking for someone to develop software for a street-mapping database he was creating.

Zuckerberg offered to take on Ceglia's project for $1,000, Connors said, and then told Ceglia about a project of his own, a kind of online yearbook for Harvard students that he wanted to expand.

Ceglia said he gave Zuckerberg another $1,000 to continue work on Zuckerberg's "The Face Book," with the condition that Ceglia would own a 50 percent interest in the software and business if it expanded. The percentage grew to 84 percent based on a clause that added a percentage point for each day the project went past its Jan. 1, 2004, due date.

Zuckerberg's undertaking "at that time was a fledgling project," Connors said. "Who knew it would turn into what it has turned into today."

Facebook recently celebrated its 500 millionth user, Connors said.