A federal appeals court ruled that California’s ban on same-sex marriage. It became the first in the United States to conclude that a state has no convincing legal or social justification to deny gay and lesbian couples the right to wed.

The ruling brings the issue closer to the US Supreme Court. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals declared that the voter-approved Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. But the 2-1 ruling has revealed a split in judicial philosophy over a state’s ability to prevent same sex marriage. This could be the preview of what’s to come in the Supreme Court.

Proposition 8 supporters said that they plan to appeal the ruling. The appeals court ruling upheld that of former San Francisco Chief US District Judge Vaughn Walker, who also struck down Proposition 8 in 2010. Gay rights advocates celebrated after the announcement of the ruling. Conservatives criticized it. Legal observers said that it would face equal support when gay marriage issue reaches the Supreme Court.

Proposition 8 supporters can ask the 9th Circuit to reopen the case with an 11-judge panel or go to the Supreme Court. It would take a long time before a final ruling will be reached. Legal observers say that it would stretch until next year.

A new tell-all book will be released by Random House on Wednesday that would detail the 18 month affair of a White House intern with President John F. Kennedy. The former intern was 19 when she first met the president and has kept her secret for more than 40 years.

The book is titled Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and its Aftermath. It is written by Mimi Alford, who was a 19 year old debutante working at the White House for the summer. During that time she was known as Mimi Beardsley.

She kept the affair a secret, even to her family. That was until her name was mentioned in JFK’s biography that was published eight years ago. The biography mentioned her affair with the president. Alford’s agent, Mark Reiter, said that Alford was stunned when the affair was posted in tabloids and decided to come out with her version of the events to take control of the story.

According to the book, the affair started after Alford was invited by an aide to go for a midday swim in the White House pool and President John F. Kennedy was there. He then invited her to evening drinks. She admitted that she was a virgin when the affair began in the bedroom of the first lady, who was away at that time. The president then sent her home in a White House car after their first sexual encounter.

Park Police arrested 11 people in Washington’s McPherson Square as they cleared the tents from one of the last remaining Occupy sites in the United States. According to David Schlosser, spokesperson of the United Sates Park Police, one of those arrested was charged with felony assault on a police officer and assault with a deadly weapon. The person has allegedly hit an officer in the face with a brick last Saturday evening. The injured officer was treated at a hospital.

Three other Occupy protesters were charged with assault on a police officer. The Park Police will continue in clearing the park of unsanitary conditions as they faced no untoward incidents Sunday. It was Saturday night when the demonstrators vowed not to leave the premises and urged people to remain nonviolent in their protest.

The Occupy D.C. has been low-key because of the way the authorities handled the protesters. But around 100 arrests have already been made since it started. Demonstrators created havoc on Capitol Hill and they managed to close down K Street Northwest, which is the power corridor of Washington lobbying.

Over the past weeks, officials have been concerned about the cost of monitoring the camps. They were also worried about the unsanitary kitchens, trash and rats, especially around the McPherson camp.

The Catholic Church criticized the White House defense of the new rules that would require religious employers to provide contraception to their workers with regards to the government’s health insurance plans. According to Anthony Picarello, general counsel of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, White House’s information is misleading and wrong. He added that the bishops would pursue all legal avenues available to bring an end to this mandate.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced last month as part of an effort to guarantee that women would get free healthcare services, which include breast pumps, cervical cancer screening, and contraception. They require employers to include the services in their company health insurance plans by August.

Religious organizations can ask for an exemption if the rule violates their beliefs but not if they employ large number of people who don’t share the same beliefs. A Catholic hospital or university with large number of non-Catholic workers must include free contraception in its employees’ health insurance.

The rule change sparked outrage from various religious organizations. Aside from the Catholic bishops, it was criticized by the evangelical Christians, Orthodox Jews and other religious groups. The Catholic bishops branded the rule changes as a violation of conscience.

The unemployment rate in the United States fell in January to a record low in the last three years. At the same time, payrolls increased more than expected. These changes casted doubts on the Federal Reserve’s plan to keep the interest rates low until late 2014.

The jobless rate fell to 8.3 percent, which is the lowest level since February 2009. The Labor Department announced that the nation had a 243,000 increase in jobs, which is the biggest in the past nine months and has exceeded the forecast made by analysts. Service industries grow the most.

Stocks and bond yields jumped on optimism that the US economy would weather the European debt crisis as the labor market improves that led to an increase in household spending. The data showed that factories and retailers increased and this could boost President Barack Obama’s re-election bid. The announcement was made after Fed Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke stated that unemployment rate’s decline would be slow.

Standard and Poor’s 500 index increased 1.5 percent to 1,344.90 at the close of the trading in New York. This is the best start to a year since 1987. The index is up 6.9 percent in 2012. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note is up to 1.92 percent from 1.82 percent.

Republicans in the House said that senior officials at the Justice Department should have known about the controversial strategies employed at the failed operation to track illegal firearms deals to Mexico because the information were readily available to them. President Barack Obama’s administration has been criticized for over a year over the Fast and Furious operation that was designed to determine how guns were smuggled from Arizona to Mexican drug cartels.

It turned out that US agents lost track of weapons. As many as 2,000 weapons were sold by gun dealers to people believed to be part of the Mexican drug cartels. But as of January 2011, fewer than 600 were recovered.

The Fast and Furious ran from late 2009 until early 2011. It came to light after two weapons from the operation were found in Arizona in December 2010 near the scene of a shootout between the US Border Patrol and illegal immigrants that killed agent Brian Terry.

Republican Representative Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, released a memo that described how other federal authorities were already tracking down the gun smugglers of the drug cartel a year before Terry was killed.

Issa and the other Republicans on the committee said that senior Justice Department officials could have known guns were sold without adequate surveillance from wiretap apps and the information they had about a similar sting during the Bush administration called Wide Receiver.

Political analyst Scott Rasmussen said that the United States is in the middle of a fiscal crisis and the federal office in charge of decreasing the deficit has failed to do so. The Rasmussen Reports released the statement after the Congressional Budget Office announced that the federal budget deficit would reach $1.1 trillion in 2012.

Rasmussen said that the deficit would go up to $4 trillion in debt in 2012. The government ignored the cost of benefits that were promised for future Medicare and Social Security recipients. Estimates vary when it comes to the costs but they would be in the range of $3 trillion a year.

The CBO is not to be blamed for the accounting fiasco. The agency does a good job within the ground rules made by Congress but they often don’t make sense. Former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin said that the debt from the past is a problem but the future potential debt is a crisis.

The government doesn’t consider the debt piling up for future Social Security and Medicare benefits because they are officially declared as non-existent. The Federal Government uses the term trust fund, which has a different meaning from the private sector. A private trust owns the trust’s income and could also own the trust’s assets.

President Barack Obama asked Congress to act on the bipartisan measures that will extend the tax breaks for small businesses as well as help startup companies raise funds. The president said that he would sign the legislation immediately.

Obama wants to include in his 2013 budget proposal a set of business measures that have been sitting in Congress or have already passed the Republican controlled House to give entrepreneurs incentives to expand existing businesses or start new ones. He made these proposals during a Cabinet meeting at the White House. The president noted during the meeting that Karen Mills, head of the Small Business Administration, participated as a full member of the Cabinet.

The White House wants to remove the taxes on capital gains from investments in small businesses as well as a one year extension on the ability of all businesses to deduct the costs of software and equipment purchases. The administration also wants a new 10 percent tax credit for small businesses that would spur jobs or increase wages in 2012.

The president’s proposals would make it easier for new companies to raise money for capital and go public. It embraces the measures that have already passed the House or have bipartisan support in the Senate.

With just eight days before the Missouri presidential primary, Rick Santorum campaigned at the St. Charles County. He touted his proposals to improve the competitiveness of American manufacturers. The former Pennsylvania senator wants the government to get out of the way.

Santorum called for the repeal of the federal tax on companies that manufacture in the United States. He also wanted to get rid of all regulations imposed by President Barack Obama’s administration. He called for the approval of the Keystone pipeline as well as amending the educational system so that it serves parents more.

Santorum spoke before 350 people and was the first one to visit the state among the four remaining candidates. The Missouri primary is schedule for February 7, which is just a popularity contest this year with no national convention delegates at stake.

The selection of Missouri’s 52 delegates wouldn’t start until local caucuses on March 17. Santorum criticized the back-and-forth attacks employed by frontrunner Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich just a few days before the Florida primary.

Santorum is behind the two in the recent survey in Florida. He rejected Gingrich supporters’ call for him to step down from the race. Santorum’s camp said that the upcoming Missouri primary would allow their candidate to go head-to-head against Romney.

At least 400 Occupy protesters were arrested in Oakland after they fought with the police, who in turn fired tear gas and bean bag projectiles. This is the largest number of arrests made in a single day since protests started last year.

Authorities said that the official number of arrests was between 200 and 300 but an Oakland emergency operations center released a statement that raised the number to more than 400. It added that the Oakland Police would announce a more precise number later on Sunday.

Riot police battled with the demonstrators, which resulted to three officers and a protester injured. It started in the afternoon when the activists wanted to take over a downtown convention center. The battles lasted into the night.

Oakland became the flashpoint of the national Occupy protests against economic inequality, which began last year in New York. It spread to several cities across the United States. Most protests have been peaceful and it sparked national debate regarding how the country’s wealth is held by the richest 1 percent of the population. President Obama is trying to take advantage of the situation by proposing higher taxes on millionaires.

Protesters focused on Oakland after former Marine Scott Olsen was injured during a protest in October. He was supposedly hit in the head by a tear gas canister but authorities never issued an official statement with regards to the incident.