Some conservative states balk at gay marriage action; supporters prepare challenges
WICHITA, Kan. — Conservative officials in some of the six states where Supreme Court action this week likely cleared the way for same-sex weddings say they won’t issue marriage licenses to gay couples until their hands are forced. Now, gay rights advocates are preparing to do just that.
James Esseks, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Project, called the court’s action a “watershed moment for the entire country,” and other gay rights activists described plans Tuesday to challenge remaining bans.
On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to take up appeals from five states seeking to preserve their bans. Six other states — Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming — would be bound by those same appellate rulings that were put on hold.
Many are eligible for waivers from health law’s tax penalty, but getting one may be ordeal
WASHINGTON — Millions of Americans may qualify for waivers from the most unpopular part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. But getting that exemption could be an ordeal.
Community groups are concerned about a convoluted process for waivers from the law’s tax penalty on people who remain uninsured. Not everyone is complaining, however: Tax preparation companies are flagging it as a business opportunity.
The law’s requirement that Americans carry health insurance remains contentious. Waivers were designed to ease the impact.
But while some exemptions seem simple, others will require math calculations.
Some involve sending in the application — by mail — and supporting documents, such as copies of medical bills, police reports, obituaries, utility shut-off notices — even news articles. Consumers will have to dig up the documentation — it’s not like filing the W-2s they get from employers.
Japanese, US scientists win Nobel Prize for energy-efficient light source
STOCKHOLM — An invention that promises to revolutionize the way the world lights its homes and offices — and already helps create the glowing screens of mobile phones, computers and TVs — earned a Nobel Prize on Tuesday for two Japanese scientists and a Japanese-born American.
By inventing a new kind of light-emitting diode, or LED, they overcame a crucial roadblock for creating white light far more efficiently than incandescent or fluorescent bulbs. Now LEDs are pervasive and experts say their use will only grow.
“Incandescent light bulbs lit the 20th century; the 21st century will be lit by LED lamps,” the Nobel committee said in announcing its award to Japanese researchers Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano and naturalized U.S. citizen Shuji Nakamura.
Their work, done in the early 1990s, led to a fundamental transformation of technology for illumination, the committee said. And when the three arrive in Stockholm to collect their awards in early December, “they will hardly fail to notice the light from their invention glowing in virtually all the windows of the city.”
Nakamura, 60, is a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Akasaki, 85, is a professor at Meijo University and Nagoya University in Japan, while Amano, 54, is also at Nagoya. Akasaki and Amano made their inventions while working at Nagoya, while Nakamura was working separately at the Japanese company Nichia Chemicals.
North Korea acknowledges existence of labor camps
UNITED NATIONS — A North Korean official publicly acknowledged to the international community the existence of his country’s “reform through labor” camps Tuesday, a mention that appeared to come in response to a highly critical U.N. human rights report earlier this year.
Diplomats for the reclusive, impoverished country also told reporters that a top North Korea official has visited the headquarters of the European Union and expressed interest in dialogue, with discussions on human rights expected next year.
North Korea’s deputy U.N. ambassador Ri Tong Il said the secretary of his country’s ruling Workers’ Party had visited the EU, and that “we are expecting end of this year to open political dialogue between the two sides.” The human rights dialogue would follow.
Choe Myong Nam, a North Korean foreign ministry official in charge of U.N. affairs and human rights issues, said at a briefing with reporters that his country has no prison camps and, in practice, “no prison, things like that.”
By wire sources