The Episcopal Church yesterday voted to confirm the first openly gay bishop in the church and the first worldwide in the Anglican Communion. The Los Angeles Times reports the Rev. V. Gene Robinson may be the first openly gay bishop of any major church ever.

The vote was originally scheduled for Monday but was put off after allegations of misconduct against Robinson emerged at the eleventh-hour. But the church’s committee dismissed the allegations.

Opponents of Robinson’s confirmation have already announced they plan to appeal the vote on the international level. Conservative Episcopalians in the U.S. also called for a national meeting in October to possibly discuss splitting from the church to form a more orthodox wing of the Anglican church in the United States.

Robinson told reporters after the 62-43 vote, “I am proud to be in a church which works to be a safe place for all of God’s children.”

Pentagon officials have admitted they dropped firebombs on Baghdad during the recent invasion of Iraq that were “remarkably similar” to napalm.

An American who works with the Halliburton subsidiary of Kellogg Brown and Root has died in Iraq after a bomb or mine exploded under his truck yesterday north of Tikrit.

Arab League members voted yesterday not to recognize the U.S.-appointed Governing Council in Iraq.

More information is emerging about what is in the 28 deleted pages of the Congressional 9/11 Report. The New Republic quotes an unnamed official who read the full report who says, “Everyone’s chasing the charities. They should be chasing direct links to high levels of the Saudi government. We’re not talking about rogue elements. We’re talking about a coordinated network that reaches right from the hijackers to multiple places in the Saudi government.”

A new study has revealed that pregnant women who were near Ground Zero on Sept. 11 were more than twice as likely to have underweight babies.

The Center for Constitutional Rights yesterday filed a federal lawsuit against the Justice Department to overturn portions of the USA Patriot Act. It is the second lawsuit against the Patriot Act in the last two weeks.

In the British village of Longworth, the former British weapons expert David Kelly will be buried today. Kelly died three weeks ago amidst a growing scandal in Britain when it was revealed that he may have been the high level British official who told the BBC that the Blair administration had sexed up intelligence on Iraq. Officials say Kelly committed suicide on July 19, days after coming under intense questions by members of Parliament. Kelly’s comments to the BBC and his death has been front-page news in Britain for weeks. Some questions arose over his death last week when it emerged that he was wearing four electrode pads at the time of his death. Health officials said he was undergoing tests on his heart.

The state of Texas is planning to execute 40-year-old Jose Rivera. Rivera was convicted of committing murder and sexual assault in 1993. The state has rejected calls from Rivera’s attorneys for DNA tests even though the state’s chief witness now claims Rivera is innocent.