The Huffington Post

An appeals court ruled Thursday that a law that denies a host of federal benefits to gay married couples is unconstitutional.

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston said the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, discriminates against gay couples.

The law was passed in 1996 at a time when it appeared Hawaii would legalize gay marriage. Since then, many states have instituted their own bans on gay marriage, while eight states have approved it, led by Massachusetts in 2004.

The appeals court agreed with a lower court judge who ruled in 2010 that the law is unconstitutional because it interferes with the right of a state to define marriage and denies married gay couples federal benefits given to heterosexual married couples, including the ability to file joint tax returns.

During arguments before the court last month, a lawyer for gay married couples said the law amounts to “across-the-board disrespect.” The couples argued that the power to define and regulate marriage had been left to the states for more than 200 years before Congress passed DOMA.

Actor Martin Sheen, who played President Josiah Bartlet in the “West Wing,” is in Dayton, Ohio, campaigning with Brown on Wednesday.

The two will tour The Foodbank in Dayton at 10:00 a.m. and help put together backpacks with food for children who receive free or reduced lunches at school. Children are able to take the backpacks home on weekends so they have food for the weekend.

The pair is also doing a meet and greet at 2:00 p.m. at the Dayton Cultural Center, meeting with activists and volunteers and thanking them for their support. 

“As usual, I was sitting in the front of my London taxi cab asking myself what life was all about.

Then all of a sudden, a worldly-wise North American man approached my cab and asked to be taken to the Brook’s club in St James’s. For some unknown reason, I felt an overwhelming urge to ask this particular passenger for some advice.

I hesitated for a while, and finally, my words came out.

‘Excuse me sir, what the best bit of advice you’ve ever been given?’”

Based on that question, London Cabbie Mark Solomon recently compiled a book with some of the answers passengers gave him.

Rudy Eugene, 31, of North Miami Beach was shot multiple times during the grisly assault on the Downtown exit ramp of the busy MacArthur Causeway. The Miami Herald reports he had been arrested 8 times since the age of 16, including a battery charge which was later dropped and 4 instances involving marijuana.

“I wouldn’t say he had [a] mental problem but he always felt like people was against him type of attitude,” ex-wife Jenny Ductant told Local 10, saying the marriage ended when Eugene became increasingly violent. “No one was for him, everyone was against him.”

“[I]f New York State legislation dubbed the Internet Protection Act passes as planned, anonymous online speech will be banned on New York-based websites.

Wired noticed the bill on Tuesday after it was quietly introduced in both chambers of New York’s legislature to combat cyberbullying.

The legislation requires that the web administrator of any New York-based site, including blogs, social networks, online publications and message boards, “remove any comments posted on his or her website by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post,” upon request.”

If this legislation passed, would it impact how often you comment on articles?

Oral storytelling is part of the Middle Eastern tradition, with some scholars going as far as to say that bedtime storytelling began centuries ago in a tent in the Arabian desert.

Because of my personal fascination with storytelling, wherever I visit I always search for the traditional storyteller.

I discovered that in the Iraqi version of Cinderella the heroine is a dark beauty with black eyes and big, strong feet.

In Lebanon and Syria she is blonde and thin, with “petite” feet.

In Iran, she has magic powers.

And the famous slipper is not made from glass, as in the western version, but from cloth embroidered with gold and precious gems.

Trip Airlines says the pilot ejected the man before takeoff as he made loud, sexist comments upon learning the pilot was a woman.

If you’re feeling aggressive, or just bored, scream in a cat’s face.