(CNN) - A suburban Philadelphia congressman says he has not ruled out a run for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania in 2010 - even if that means bucking the Democratic leadership to challenge newly minted Democrat Arlen Specter.

Rep. Joe Sestak, a retired admiral, told CNN that he had paid no mind to the Democratic leadership when he ran for Congress in 2006.

"They said, 'We don't want you in the race,'" Sestak, 57, told CNN's Rick Sanchez. "'We have someone else.' Called me back the next day to say the same thing. I said, 'I wasn't asking. I was informing you.'

"Here's what I believe. The Democratic political establishment in Washington, D.C., can say whatever they want, and we need to listen to it," he said. "But at the end of the day, this decision is going to be made by us, very independent-minded Pennsylvanians."

By Alan Duke
CNN

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) - DNA evidence has linked a 72-year-old man to a pair of cold-case murders in Los Angeles, police said Thursday, and the man may be linked to as many as 30 murders and dozens of rapes during the 1970s and 1980s.

The Los Angeles Police Department identified the suspect as John Floyd Thomas, Jr., who was charged earlier this month with killing two Los Angeles women more than three decades ago. Thomas was arrested on April 2.

"Detectives believe that this suspect could be linked to as many as 25 other unsolved murder cases and numerous sexual assault cases," an earlier police statement said.

(CNN) - Father Theodore Heck, believed to be the oldest Benedictine monk in the world, died Wednesday at the age of 108, his abbey in Indiana announced. Born in Iowa in 1901, Heck was less than a month shy of celebrating his 80th anniversary as a priest.

Heck was a monk at Saint Meinrad Archabbey in southern Indiana for 86 years, Archabbot Justin DuVall told CNN by phone.

His main calling was as a teacher, DuVall said, adding that Heck had taught "thousands" of students in his career.

And Heck continued learning throughout his own life, said the archabbot, who knew Heck for 40 years. "Every year he would take up a subject and read about it," DuVall said. "When he was 99, he decided he should learn Spanish and when he was 100 he took up the computer."

(CNN) - Five people were killed Thursday after a man tried to attack the Dutch royal family during a Queen's Day celebration by crashing his car near the royal family's bus, Dutch police said.

Authorities are not releasing the name of the man, but said they have charged him with with trying to attack the royal family.

Twelve people were injured in the incident in the Dutch town of Apeldoorn, about 45 miles east of Amsterdam, police spokeswoman Esther Naber told CNN.

Crowds had lined the streets to see Queen Beatrix and her family ride by in an open-top bus during the Netherlands' annual holiday.

As the bus moved along, a black hatchback zoomed past it.  The crowds were behind barriers off the road, but security officials and journalists, including many cameramen, were in the road as the car went by.

(CNN) - Last year, for the first time in U.S. history, blacks and whites voted at roughly the same rates, a new study shows.

The overall turnout rate barely budged, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center - and turnout among white voters actually declined slightly - but, in another first, participation by African-American women was the highest of any gender or race. Nearly 69 percent of black women voted in November.

The difference between African-American and white turnout rates dropped from 7 percent in 2004 to less than 1 percent last year, a statistically insignificant gap.

The report, using census data and the results of a Tufts University study, also found that roughly 1 in 4 voters in the last cycle were African-American, Asian or Hispanic - a new high mark for minority turnout, and double the rate 20 years ago.

The Hispanic electorate grew by more than 21 percent from the previous presidential cycle, according to researchers, with the group now accounting for nearly 1 in 10 voters nationwide.

GENEVA, Switzerland (CNN) - Confirmed cases of swine flu worldwide increased to 257 on Thursday, up significantly from the previous day's total of 147, the World Health Organization reported.

In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it has confirmed 109 cases of 2009 H1N1 in 11 states, an increase of 18 from its previous tally.

There were still eight confirmed deaths, seven in Mexico and one in the United States. But more than 150 deaths in Mexico are suspected to have been caused by swine flu and are being investigated.

The biggest increase in infections occurred in Mexico, which has 97 confirmed cases, WHO said. There were 26 confirmed cases Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - A government official who traveled to Mexico to support the delegation accompanying President Barack Obama later came down with flu-like symptoms, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday.

It is not known if the individual - part of Energy Secretary Steven Chu's security detail - contracted the swine flu virus. The outbreak of the virus appears to have originated in Mexico.

The individual, whose name was not revealed, has since recovered, as have three members of the individual's family who later tested positive for Type A influenza. Tests are currently under way to determine if they contracted the swine flu virus, also known as 2009 H1N1.

The staffer was present at a dinner in Mexico City with President Obama, but never came within six feet of the president, Gibbs added. The individual, who was in Mexico between April 13 and 18, never traveled with the president on Air Force One.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) - An Interior Ministry official said Thursday that the death toll from six car bombs a day earlier had reached 54, with another 106 wounded.

Most of the deaths came when three car bombs parked at separate but nearby marketplaces exploded in quick succession Wednesday in the eastern Baghdad Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City, killing 51 people and injuring 93, the ministry official said.

Three other car bombings followed. Two of those, outside a Shiite mosque in the Hurriya district of northern Baghdad, killed three people and wounded eight. The bombs exploded in close succession shortly before 9 p.m. (2 p.m. ET). A third a few hours earlier injured at least five civilians in a predominantly Shiite area of southwestern Baghdad.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Carrie Prejean, the Miss USA contestant from California who declared her opposition to same-sex marriage on the pageant stage, will star in a new $1.5 million ad campaign funded by the National Organization for Marriage.

Prejean appeared Thursday at a news conference in Washington to unveil the new ad, called "No Offense."

Prejean was roasted by same-sex marriage advocates after she stood up for what she called "opposite marriage" (marriage between a man and a woman) when responding to a question from celebrity blogger Perez Hilton during the pageant. But she's also become a fresh-faced standard-bearer for same-sex marriage opponents, who have rallied to her defense.

"Marriage is good," Prejean said at the news conference. "There is something special about unions of husband and wife.  Unless we bring men and women together, children will not have mothers and fathers."

"She is attacked viciously for having the courage to speak up for her truth and her values," the National Organization for Marriage said in a press release. "But Carrie's courage inspired a whole nation and a whole generation of young people because she chose to risk the Miss USA crown rather than be silent about her deepest moral values."

Executive directors and producers of the Miss California USA pageant released a statement Wednesday lamenting that Prejean had taken on such a "polarizing" issue.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new analysis.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week - 54 percent - said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified - more than 6 in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only 4 in 10 of them did.

The analysis is based on a Pew Research Center survey of 742 American adults conducted April 14-21. It did not include analysis of groups other than white evangelicals, white non-Hispanic Catholics, white mainline Protestants, and the religiously unaffiliated, because the sample size was too small.