In brief: Alabama chief justice resists gay marriage ruling

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Alabama is set today to become the 37th state where gays can legally wed, prompting one couple to pitch a tent outside a courthouse to wait even as the state’s chief justice was making an 11th-hour attempt late Sunday to keep the weddings on hold.

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore sent a letter to probate judges ordering them to refuse to issue same-sex marriage licenses when the courts open for business today. Moore wrote that the judges weren’t bound by a federal judge’s ruling Jan. 23 that the marriage ban was unconstitutional.

“Effective immediately, no probate judge of the state of Alabama nor any agent or employee of any Alabama probate judge shall issue or recognize a marriage license that is inconsistent with (the Alabama Constitution),” Moore wrote.

But Susan Watson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, called the move by the conservative chief justice “grandstanding” and predicted licenses would be issued shortly.

“We will see marriage equality in Alabama tomorrow. I don’t think the probate judges in Alabama are going to defy a federal court judge’s order,” Watson said.

U.S. District Judge Callie Granade ruled the state marriage ban was unconstitutional and in a clarification order said probate judges have a legal duty under the U.S. Constitution to issue the licenses.

SpaceX launch halted late in countdown

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – SpaceX may try again tonight to launch a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a space-weather satellite after a launch was scrubbed just before its scheduled blastoff Sunday night.

The flight was postponed with 2 minutes, 26 seconds remaining in the countdown because the Air Force reported problems with the radar systems needed to track the rocket’s ascent.

Whether a launch can come in the next opportunity, at 6:07 p.m. today, depends on what the Air Force determines about its radar issue. There was no word Sunday night when that might come.

But there also will be interest in what happens as the Falcon’s second stage pushes that satellite into orbit. The 14-story first stage will power back down to Earth, aiming to land in one piece on an unmanned SpaceX barge in the Atlantic Ocean.

California wildfire evacuees await all clear

SWALL MEADOWS, Calif. – Ira Hanson milled around an evacuation center near tiny Swall Meadows on Sunday afternoon, not quite sure what to do after learning the dream home he and his late wife had built 30 years earlier was damaged in a wildfire that consumed 40 homes and buildings.

Sheriff’s deputies had banged on the door and urged him to get out less than 48 hours earlier, and he’d fled the house with little more than his medications and a pillow. Officials later told him fire crews had to knock down one of the home’s walls in an effort to save another house next door, but he had yet to see the damage.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Hanson, 79. “It’s like having a nightmare and you’re going to wake up any minute and it won’t be true.”

Fire crews increased containment of the wind-driven wildfire that ravaged communities along the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, but they said Sunday they still didn’t know when the roughly 250 residents evacuated from Swall Meadows and nearby Paradise would be able to return home.

The fire started Friday afternoon near a highway on the border of Inyo and Mono counties. It blew up when 50- to 75-mph winds whipped through wooded areas near the two communities for about three hours.

Cell use may be checked in Jenner crash

LOS ANGELES – Investigators likely will seek Bruce Jenner’s cellphone records to determine if the Olympic gold medalist was texting when he was behind the wheel of an SUV involved in a chain-reaction crash in Malibu that killed a woman, authorities said Sunday.

The agency likely will collect phone records for all drivers in Saturday’s multi-vehicle accident, so investigators can check call and text data, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Philip Brooks said.

The sheriff’s department has custody of all the vehicles and will be inspecting them to ensure they are mechanically sound or whether a defect prevented somebody from stopping in time. Investigators are trying to determine who or what triggered the crash on the Pacific Coast Highway. Five people were taken to the hospital. None had visible injuries, Brooks said.

Jenner said in a statement Sunday he will cooperate with the probe “in every way possible.”

“My heartfelt and deepest sympathies go out to the family and loved ones, and to all of those who were involved or injured in this terrible accident,” the statement said.

Jenner was traveling north when his black Cadillac Escalade rear-ended a Lexus sedan that had just struck the back of a black Toyota Prius, Brooks said. The Lexus veered into oncoming traffic and collided head-on with a black Hummer. The driver of the Lexus – Kim Howe, 69, of Calabasas, California – was pronounced dead at the scene.

Authorities said Jenner cooperated with investigators, passed a field sobriety test and voluntarily submitted a blood sample to determine whether he was intoxicated.