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Anti-gay-marriage clerk to seek re-election
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) -- The Kentucky county clerk jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples will run for re-election in 2018, facing voters for the first time since her protest against gay marriage launched a national uproar from rural Appalachia.
An attorney for Kim Davis confirmed she will seek a second term. Filing for Kentucky's 2018 election cycle opens Wednesday.
"She loves her job and she loves the people," said Mat Staver, founder of the Florida-based law firm Liberty Counsel that has represented Davis. "I'm sure (the election) will probably have more attention because of who she is, but you know she doesn't have any major concerns about it."
A spokeswoman for Liberty Counsel said Davis was unavailable for comment because of a medical procedure.
Davis stopped issuing marriage licenses in 2015 after a U.S. Supreme Court decision that effectively legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Five couples sued her, and a judge ordered her to issue the licenses. Davis refused and spent five days in jail.
When she was released, she altered the marriage license form so it would not include her name. The state's Democratic governor at the time agreed to recognize the licenses. The state legislature then changed the law so clerks did not have to sign their name on the licenses.
In July, a federal judge said state taxpayers had to pay the more than $220,000 in legal fees for the couples that sued Davis. The state has appealed the ruling, but it might not be resolved before the 2018 election.
"It's hard for her to make the argument that the $220,000 she has cost taxpayers is a good value for Rowan County residents," said Chris Hartman, director of the Kentucky Fairness Campaign.
But Staver said the money would not be an issue for Davis, noting it would not come out of the county's budget.
Iraqi VP calls Iran-backed militias his nation's top threat
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Iraq's highest-ranking Sunni leader said Tuesday the growing influence of Iranian-backed Shiite militias looms as the nation's most pressing future security threat and called for bolstering U.S. military aid to Sunni forces.
In Washington for talks this week with Trump administration officials and congressional leaders, Iraqi Vice President Osama al-Nujaifi is hoping the administration will deliver on pledges to counter Iran's growing influence inside Iraq and across the Middle East.
Al-Nujaifi is one of Iraq's three vice presidents, and his brother heads a prominent Iraqi defense faction. Both have been represented in Washington by the same lobbyist employed last year by Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump's first national security adviser. In February, Trump fired Flynn, who is now under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.
In remarks Tuesday at the U.S. Institute of Peace, al-Nujaifi described Shiite militias in Iraq operating as a "parallel army" that could divide the nation even as Iraq's military is driving out IS fighters with the aid of American troops.
The Iranian-backed factions "have gained a lot of power and maybe they can pose more problems," al-Nujaifi said.
In an interview with The Associated Press and in an earlier draft of his remarks, al-Nujaifi was more explicit about his interest in securing military aid for Iraqi Sunni factions overmatched by Iran's equipping and training of Shiite militias.
Apollo 12 astronaut Richard Gordon, who circled moon, dies
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Apollo 12 astronaut Richard Gordon, one of a dozen men who flew around the moon but didn't land there, has died, NASA said. He was 88.
Richard "Dick" F. Gordon Jr. was a test pilot chosen in NASA's third group of astronauts in 1963. He flew on Gemini 11 in 1966, walking in space twice. During Apollo 12 in November 1969, Gordon circled the moon in the command module Yankee Clipper while Alan Bean and Charles Conrad landed and walked on the lunar surface.
Gordon died Monday at his home in California, according to the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.
"Dick will be fondly remembered as one of our nation's boldest flyers, a man who added to our own nation's capabilities by challenging his own. He will be missed," acting NASA administrator Robert Lightfoot said in a statement Tuesday.
Born in Seattle, a Navy captain and a chemist, Gordon was such a steely professional that after a difficult first spacewalk, he fell asleep during a break in his second spacewalk. He downplayed Apollo 12 being hit by lightning during launch.
In a 1997 NASA oral history, Gordon said people would often ask if he felt alone while his two partners walked on the moon. "I said, 'Hell no, if you knew those guys, you'd be happy to be alone.'"
Gordon described the Apollo 12 mission, the second moon landing, as full of antics and dust.
When Conrad and Bean returned and docked their lunar module with his command module, Gordon said he looked in and "all I could see was a black cloud in there. I didn't see them at all. I looked in there and said, 'Holy smoke. You're not getting in here and dirtying up my nice clean Command Module.'"