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May 09, 2012 | | EVOLUTION The president drops a political bombshell by siding with gays on a culturally divisive issue. The Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz on the risks for Obama—and the challenge facing Romney. NOT EVOLVING With chatter growing louder that President Obama will come out in support of gay marriage on Wednesday, Mitt Romney said at a campaign event in Colorado that he still does not support equal marriage rights—or even civil unions—for same-sex couples. “When these issues were raised in my state of Massachusetts, I indicated my view, which is that I do not favor marriage between people of the same gender, and I do not favor civil unions if they are identical to marriage other than by name,” Romney told a local Fox News-affiliate reporter. DEADLY An explosion on Wednesday rocked a military vehicle escorting a group of United Nations observers in Syria, and at least three Syrian soldiers were wounded. The head of the U.N. team, Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, was in the convoy and was not wounded, and neither were any of the other observers. Mood called the blast “a graphic example of the violence Syria does not need.” The observers are in Syria in part to monitor the violence, but their presence has not stopped it. U.N. Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen told the Security Council that arms are being smuggled in from both directions, and “what we see across the region is a dance of death at the brink of the abyss of war.” DOUBLE AGENT A Saudi bomb maker is believed to be responsible for creating the “underwear bomb” that was a central part of an al Qaeda plot foiled by a CIA double agent, security experts and officials told Reuters. Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, who survived a drone strike last year, has been described as one of the most dangerous militants in al Qaeda. He reportedly had created a new, sophisticated, nonmetallic underwear bomb, but U.S. officials said Tuesday that the would-be bomber of a foiled attack planned for the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s killing was a CIA double agent. Asiri is suspected of being the culprit behind three other plots against the U.S., including the 2009 Christmas Day attempt to take over a Detroit airliner. SCARY Russia’s newest commercial airliner disappeared Wednesday during a commercial exercise near Jakarta, with 44 passengers on board, Russian state media reported. The plane reportedly went missing around 2 p.m., after the pilot asked permission to descend from 10,000 feet to 6,000 feet. The plane then began making its descent but vanished near a mountainous area. By the time it was due to return, it would have burned up all its fuel. | | 
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