News

TINLEY PARK, Ill. — Tensions flared Saturday over who should lead an Illinois Republican Party grappling with internal divisions and fallout from a dismal showing in the 2012 elections.

PHOENIX — The City Council in the southern Arizona community of Bisbee will rewrite a recently enacted civil union ordinance after being threatened with a lawsuit by the state Attorney General’s office, which said the ordinance ran afoul of a state ban on same-sex marriage.

LOS ANGELES — A 33-year-old West Hollywood man who felt sickened by bacterial meningitis earlier this week has been declared brain dead amid warnings to sexually active gay men about the deadly strain of illness, officials said.

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Officials warned sexually active gay men on Friday to beware of a potentially deadly health threat after a case of bacterial meningitis was detected in Los Angeles County.

Just weeks after releasing a “turnaround plan” focused on building a more inclusive GOP aimed at attract minority voters, including “welcoming” attitudes on gay rights, members of the Republican National Committee on Friday voted unanimously to reaffirm language in the GOP platform defining marriage “as the union of one man and one woman.”

LEES SUMMIT, Mo. — The daughter of a Missouri man who was arrested after refusing to leave the bedside of his spouse at a Kansas City hospital earlier this week, is speaking out, and has called the hospital’s statement of events “absolute and utter bullshit.”

HINCKLEY, Minn. — The chief political group opposed to legalizing same-sex marriage in Minnesota is taking its case on the road with a series of rallies across the state.

PARIS — The French Senate voted Friday to legalize same-sex marriage in France, putting a landmark bill on track to become law by summer.

LONG BEACH, Calif. — A former Marine accused in the beating of a man outside a Long Beach gay bar will be extradited from Illinois to face felony hate crime charges.

BALTIMORE — A Baltimore pediatric neurosurgeon who made derogatory comments comparing same-sex marriage to bestiality has withdrawn as commencement speaker at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.