MADISON, Wisconsin (Reuters) – Wisconsin's Republican governor vowed on Friday to press ahead with legislation to curb the union bargaining rights of public employees as part of a deficit-cutting plan even as protests against the measure swelled.

Speaking at a news conference on the fifth consecutive day of demonstrations against the proposal, Governor Scott Walker said the state is broke and cannot pay its bills unless the plan is approved.

"I told the voters what I would do to get Wisconsin working again," Walker said of his election in 2010. "We are going to do what it takes to get this budget on track."

Republicans have majorities in both the state Senate and the Assembly. In a bid to scuttle the proposal, Senate Democrats fled the state on Thursday and Friday to deprive the Senate of the needed quorum for a vote.

The lawmakers apparently left the state because they were concerned that they would be compelled to return to the Capitol by police if they stayed in Wisconsin.

Republicans have a quorum in the state Assembly and could pass the plan there over the weekend.

Police estimated that 35,000 protesters converged on the Capitol grounds in Madison on Friday, with another 5,000 demonstrators packed inside the building itself, said Carla Vigue, a spokeswoman with the Wisconsin Department of Administration.

On Thursday, a crowd estimated at 30,000 people protested inside and outside the Capitol building.

The protests have so far been peaceful and police said there were no incidents or arrests on Friday.

TEA PARTY

But the potential for confrontation emerged when the conservative Tea Party movement, which supports deep budget cuts, announced that it would hold a rally supporting the Republicans at the Capitol on Saturday.

Drew Ryun, the president of American Majority Action, one of the conservative groups planning Saturday's demonstration, said organizers were "meeting fire with fire."

"We have buses coming in from all over the state," Ryun said. "We see this as the opening salvo of the 2012 election season. The Tea Party movement facing off against the unions. And we like the odds."

Wisconsin is the flashpoint for a national struggle over efforts to roll back pay and union rights of state and local government workers. If the majority Republicans in Wisconsin prevail, other states could be emboldened to take on powerful public employee unions.

The Milwaukee Public School system, which serves 85,000 students in the state's largest city, canceled all classes on Friday after nearly 630 unionized teachers called in sick.

"Every day the crowds are bigger," said Jay Heck, the executive of Common Cause Wisconsin, a non-partisan advocacy group based in Madison, said of the union protests.

President Barack Obama sided with the demonstrators on Thursday, calling the governor's proposal an "assault on unions." U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner criticized Obama and said he backed fellow Republican Walker.

Walker's administration puts the deficit for the remainder of the current fiscal year at $137 million and for the next two fiscal years under its biannual budget at $3.3 billion.

Republicans want state workers to increase contributions to pensions to 5.8 percent of salary, and double contributions to health insurance premiums to 12.6 percent.

They also want to limit collective bargaining to the issue of wages, and cap increases to the rate of inflation, with a voter referendum needed for bigger increases.

Walker said the alternative is to layoff more than 10,000 workers.

Walker was to unveil his state budget proposal for the next two fiscal years on February 22, but on Friday his office said that speech would be put off until March 1.

U.S. state and local governments are struggling to balance budgets after the recession decimated their finances. Some states such as Wisconsin, Texas, Arizona and Ohio are relying mainly on cuts in spending to balance the books. Others such as Minnesota and Illinois are raising taxes.

(Additional reporting by Vickie Allen in Washington, Darren Hauck in Madison, John Rondy in Milwaukee and Andrew Stern, James Kelleher and Karen Pierog in Chicago; Editing By Greg McCune and Eric Beech)

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Pirates have hijacked a yacht with four Americans on board off the coast of Oman, a regional maritime expert and an advocacy group monitoring piracy in the Indian Ocean said on Saturday.

"The S/V Quest was attacked by pirates in the Indian Ocean and the four Americans on board are being held hostage," advocacy group Ecoterra said in a statement.

Ecoterra said the 58-foot yacht was owned by Jean and Scott Adam. It was not immediately clear if the couple were sailing the yacht at the time of the attack.

Pirate gangs in the Indian Ocean are making tens of millions of dollars in ransoms, and despite successful efforts to quell attacks in the Gulf of Aden, international navies have struggled to contain the piracy owing to the vast distances involved.

The couple began their world trip in 2004, according to their website.

An U.S. official in Nairobi declined to comment and said the Pentagon Public Affairs was handling press enquiries.

East African maritime expert Andrew Mwangura said the yacht was sailing from India to Salalah in Oman when the sea-bandits struck on Friday afternoon.

(Editing by Richard Lough)

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Convicted "Green River Killer" Gary Ridgway pleaded guilty on Friday to his 49th murder charge, after being shouted down in court by a man in the audience as he tried to apologize.

Ridgway, who is considered the nation's most prolific serial killer, spoke in a hoarse voice as he entered the guilty plea on his 62nd birthday, admitting that he killed 20-year-old Rebecca Marrero, who was last seen alive on December 3, 1982.

Under a plea deal Ridgway made in 2003, he was spared the death penalty in exchange for confessing to all of the murders linked to him at the time or any that were later discovered.

Ridgway, who is serving a life prison term without the possibility of parole, had previously confessed to Marrero's murder but prosecutors said at the time that they didn't have enough evidence include her killing in the plea deal.

The convicted killer started to apologize in court on Friday for Marrero's murder, but was cut off when an unidentified man sitting with the victim's family began shouting obscenities at him.

The victim's sister, Mary Marrero, her 79-year-old mother standing shakily at her side, told King County Superior Court Judge Mary Roberts that her family has been devastated by the murder and wished that Ridgway faced the death penalty.

"The day she came up missing I wanted to kill myself," Mary Marrero said, her voice breaking. "I still feel that today ... There is so much anger. What does it take to get the death penalty in the state of Washington? I do not agree with this plea deal."

"If I had one thing to ask today, it would be to kill him," she said.

"I appreciate you are not content with the outcome of this case," Roberts said to Marrero's family. "But I hope find some justice in it."

Ridgway has confessed to nearly 70 murders, most of his victims young female prostitutes or runaways. He was dubbed the Green River killer because the bodies of several of his victims in the early 1980s were found in or near the river, which runs through south King County.

Marrero's skeletal remains were found by teenagers December 23 of last year.

Rebecca Marrero, the mother of a 3-year-old girl, was last seen alive leaving a motel near the Seattle-Tacoma Airport.

(Editing by Dan Whitcomb)