In brief: Fire in Staten Island townhouses injures 34

NEW YORK – Fire tore through three townhouses on Staten Island early Thursday, injuring 34 people including two young children who were tossed out of a second-floor window into the arms of neighbors below, authorities and witnesses said.

About 200 firefighters responded to the blaze, which erupted at about 1 a.m. A Fire Department of New York spokesman said 23 firefighters and 11 civilians suffered injuries ranging from minor to serious but none was considered life-threatening.

No cause has been determined.

Court delays order on gay marriage

SALT LAKE CITY – More than 1,000 couples who rushed to wed after a judge overturned Utah’s gay marriage ban will have to keep waiting for many of the legal benefits of being married following an appeals court decision Thursday.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted Utah’s request to delay the implementation of a ruling that ordered state officials to start recognizing the marriages next week.

The Denver-based judges gave the four same-sex couples who sued Utah until next Thursday to file papers laying out why the order should be implemented. The court must next choose whether to lift or extend the temporary stay.

Man accused of stabbing children

NEW YORK – A recently released convict was charged by New York City police Thursday with murder, attempted murder, assault and other crimes in the stabbing death of a 6-year-old boy and critical wounding of a 7-year-old girl in a Brooklyn elevator.

Daniel St. Hubert, who was arrested Wednesday night shortly after he was publicly identified as a suspect in Sunday’s gruesome attack in a public housing building, is also suspected in the stabbing of a homeless man at a Manhattan subway platform three days after Sunday’s elevator attack, police said.

He’s also being eyed in last week’s fatal stabbing of an 18-year-old just blocks away from Sunday’s scene, police said.

St. Hubert, 27, hasn’t been formally charged in those two stabbings and investigators are still testing forensic evidence, police said.