In brief: Ban on gay marriage won’t be defended
WASHINGTON – Newly elected Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring filed a court opinion Thursday declaring the state’s voter-approved ban on gay marriage unconstitutional and announcing his office will no longer defend the law.
The decision follows recent federal court opinions striking down gay marriage bans in Utah and Oklahoma.
3 dead, 20-plus hurt in Indiana pileup
MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. – More than 40 vehicles, many of them semitrailers, collided amid whiteout conditions in a massive highway pileup that left three people dead and more than 20 others injured – at least one critically – in northwestern Indiana, police said Thursday.
The pileup on Interstate 94 eastbound began Thursday afternoon near Michigan City, about 60 miles from Chicago, according to Indiana State Police, and at least one person was trapped in a vehicle for hours.
Priorities USA to support Clinton run
WASHINGTON – One of the most potent outside political groups is lining up behind Hillary Rodham Clinton and has recruited President Barack Obama’s campaign manager as a leader.
Priorities USA confirms it will align itself with Clinton, if the former secretary of state seeks the White House in 2016. The group also said its co-chairman will be Obama re-election campaign manager Jim Messina.
Immigration court limiting shackles use
SAN FRANCISCO – Federal authorities will limit the use of shackles on immigrants who appear before immigration judges under a settlement of a class-action lawsuit approved Thursday.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will avoid shackling immigrants at the San Francisco immigration court in many hearings. Immigrants will still be shackled at a type of brief, procedural hearing in which several detainees are addressed at the same time.
‘Revenge porn’ site operator arrested
LOS ANGELES – A notorious “revenge porn” website operator and another California man have been charged with stealing nude photos from hundreds of hacked email accounts and posting the images online.
Hunter Moore, 27, who has been dubbed by some media outlets as “the most hated man on the Internet,” was arrested Thursday at his home in Woodland. FBI agents also arrested Charles Evens, 25, of the Studio City area of Los Angeles.
Evens pleaded not guilty in a Los Angeles court while Moore appeared in court in Sacramento but didn’t enter a plea, U.S. attorney’s spokesman Thom Mrozek said.
Both remained jailed.
From 2010 to 2012, Moore ran a website that posted nude and explicit photos, including some submitted to the site by former lovers and spouses without the permission of the people in them.