Gay marriage rulings in Oklahoma, Utah offer momentum that could lift issue to high court
OKLAHOMA CITY — In less than a month, two federal judges have struck down state bans on gay marriage for the same reason, concluding that they violate the Constitution’s promise of equal treatment under the law.
Although that idea has been the heart of the gay marriage debate for years, the decisions in deeply conservative Oklahoma and Utah offer new momentum for litigants pressing the same argument in dozens of other cases across the country. And experts say the rulings could represent an emerging legal consensus that will carry the issue back to the Supreme Court.
The judge who issued Tuesday’s decision in Oklahoma “isn’t stepping out on his own,” said Douglas NeJaime, a professor of law at the University of California, Irvine. “He’s doing what a colleague in another court did not long ago.”
The more judges who issue such rulings, the more authority other judges feel to render similar decisions, said NeJaime, who expects decisions soon from federal courts in Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Air Force: 34 missile launch officers implicated in cheating probe, whole ICBM force retested
WASHINGTON — In a stunning setback for a nuclear missile force already beset by missteps and leadership lapses, the Air Force disclosed on Wednesday that 34 officers entrusted with the world’s deadliest weapons have been removed from launch duty for allegedly cheating — or tolerating cheating by others — on routine proficiency tests.
The cheating scandal is the latest in a series of Air Force nuclear stumbles documented in recent months by The Associated Press, including deliberate violations of safety rules, failures of inspections, breakdowns in training, and evidence that the men and women who operate the missiles from underground command posts are suffering burnout. In October the commander of the nuclear missile force was fired for engaging in embarrassing behavior, including drunkenness, while leading a U.S. delegation to a nuclear exercise in Russia.
A “profoundly disappointed” Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James, the service’s top civilian official, told a hurriedly arranged Pentagon news conference that the alleged cheating at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., was discovered during a previously announced probe of drug possession by 11 officers at several Air Force bases, including two who also are in the nuclear force and suspected of participating in the cheating ring.
“This is absolutely unacceptable behavior,” James said of the cheating, which Gen. Mark Welsh, the Air Force chief of staff, said could be the biggest such scandal in the history of the missile force.
Weighing more doesn’t boost survival for diabetics; study refutes ‘obesity paradox’ idea
The “obesity paradox” — the controversial notion that being overweight might actually be healthier for some people with diabetes — seems to be a myth, researchers report. A major study finds there’s no survival advantage to being large, and a disadvantage to being very large.
More than 24 million Americans have diabetes, mostly Type 2, the kind that is on the rise because of obesity. About two-thirds of U.S. adults are overweight, including one-third who are obese.
Weighing too much increases the chances of heart disease, cancer and premature death. But some small studies have suggested this might not be true for everyone, and that Type 2 diabetics might even benefit from a few extra pounds — a “metabolic reserve” to help get them through sickness.
The new research — which looked at deaths according to how much people weighed when they were diagnosed with diabetes — dispels that idea.
By wire sources