In brief: Keystone foes say feds broke law

Omaha, Neb. – U.S. officials illegally allowed a Canadian company to begin preparing the route for its proposed 1,700-mile-long oil pipeline from western Canada to Texas, three conservationist groups contend in a lawsuit filed Wednesday.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should not have allowed TransCanada Corp. to begin clearing a 100-mile corridor through northern Nebraska grasslands because the State Department hasn’t signed off on the Keystone XL pipeline project, the groups argue in their lawsuit filed in federal court.

The plaintiffs, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Western Nebraska Resources Council and Friends of the Earth, are seeking to stop the preparations for the proposed pipeline.

Parole denied for husband slayer

Chowchilla, Calif. – A California woman who killed her newlywed husband and chopped and cooked his body parts over Thanksgiving weekend in 1991 was denied her second bid for parole Wednesday.

Parole commissioners rejected Omaima Nelson’s request for freedom following a five-and-half-hour hearing at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, where she has been serving a life sentence.

Nelson, now 43, represented herself at the hearing and argued that she should be paroled because she has become a changed person and she wanted “to live the good life God meant.” She claimed she was sorry, though she continued to say she killed in self-defense.