INTERNATIONAL NEWS in brief

Police manhunt on for opposition leader

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP):

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said Saturday that a police manhunt was underway for Leopoldo Lopez, the hard-line opposition leader behind anti-government demonstrations that ended with three deaths.

The socialist president's announcement came amid dueling pro-government and student-led opposition demonstrations held in different parts of the capital, Caracas.

Lopez "ordered all these violent kids, which he trained, to destroy the prosecutor's office and half of Caracas, and then goes into hiding," Maduro told thousands of supporters at a rally to denounce what he called a United States-backed "fascist" plot to oust him from power. "Turn yourself in, coward."

US officials have denied plotting to oust Maduro, and on Saturday, Secretary of State John Kerry expressed concern over the rising tensions and violence surrounding the protests.

Fight against gay marriage intensifies

JEFFERSON CITY, Missouri (AP):

Opponents of same-sex marriage are scrambling to find effective responses, in Congress and state legislatures, to a rash of court rulings that would force some of America's most conservative states to accept gay nuptials.

Some gay-marriage foes are backing a bill recently introduced in both chambers of Congress that would leave states fully in charge of their marriage policies, though the measure stands little chance of passage. In the states, they are endorsing a multitude of bills - some intended to protect gay-marriage bans, others to assert a right, based on religious freedom, to have nothing to do with gay marriages should those bans be struck down.

In Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Virginia, federal judges have voided part or all of the bans on same-sex marriage that voters approved between 2004 and 2006. Each of the rulings has been stayed pending appeals, and a final nationwide resolution may be a few years away in the United States Supreme Court.

The trend is unsettling to the activists who oppose gay marriage, and some have called for extraordinary measures in response.

Havana mob hotel Capri reopens

HAVANA (AP):

In its heyday, Havana's Capri hotel and casino was the playground of men known as The Blade and The Fat Butcher.

It was also a pleasure garden for headline stars who portrayed Mafiosi on the silver screen: George Raft, known for hoodlum roles such as Guino Rinaldo in 1932's Scarface, was the casino's celebrity 'greeter' and made his home in the 19th-floor penthouse.

Havana's hedonistic mob-and-movie-star days came to an end with Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, and the hotel drifted into a long, slow decline. But now the Capri is back in business after being closed more than a decade ago. Its rebirth is part of Cuba's latest bid to trade in on its colourful pre-Communist past and attract tourist dollars to fund its socialist present.

"It's a feeling of that era (at the Capri). I think in Cuba you feel that in general," said Roberto Escalante, a 62-year-old Mexican university professor who was staying in the hotel this month during an academic conference. "It's very comfortable. It's missing some services still, but yes, you feel like you're back in those times - which were good!"