Saudi Deports Quarter Million Migrants In 3 3onths

Saudi security forces watch Ethiopians gather as they wait to be repatriated in Manfouha, southern Riyadh. Saudi Arabia says it has deported “more than a quarter million” foreign migrant workers from the kingdom over the past three months.

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA. (AP) — Saudi Arabia says it has deported "more than a quarter million" foreign migrant workers from the kingdom over the past three months.

The Interior Ministry said late Tuesday the foreigners had been residing in the country illegally and were in violation of labor laws. It didn't elaborate. The deportations began after Nov. 4 with a nationwide campaign targeting many of the kingdom's 9 million migrant laborers after years of lax law enforcement.

Many of those deported were Ethiopians accused of crossing into Saudi Arabia illegally through its southern border with Yemen. Most foreign workers in the kingdom are from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines, as well as Egypt and Yemen.

Saudi authorities say booting out illegal foreign migrants will open more jobs for its own citizens.

Argentine President Ends Long Public Silence

Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez talks during a ceremony at the government house in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2014. Fernandez spoke in public for the first time Wednesday since Dec. 10. Her 42-day silence had been feeding speculation in Argentina about her health in the wake of the head surgery she underwent in October. Some opponents have questioned who is running the country.

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — President Cristina Fernandez spoke publicly for the first time in more than 40 days Wednesday, ending a long silence that had Argentines speculating about her health following head surgery.

In a nationally televised address, an energetic Fernandez announced the creation of a program to encourage young, unemployed Argentines to attend public school with an $80 subsidy. She also criticized those who speculated about her condition during her absence.

"It's true that I've had some difficulties, but I'd like to see how others would fare if they had to deal with the things that I've gone through. I'd like to see them running this country," Fernandez told hundreds of supporters who filled the main patio at the Pink House presidential palace.

The 60-year-old president underwent surgery to remove a blood clot Oct. 8. She returned to work Nov. 18. The normally loquacious leader with a love of Twitter last spoke publicly on Dec. 10 and last tweeted on Dec. 13. The uncharacteristic silence fed speculation in Argentina about her health, and some opponents even questioned who was really running the country.

Fernandez's Cabinet members have repeatedly said she is fully in command. But neither they nor Fernandez on Wednesday explained the reason behind the public silence at a time when Argentina is grappling with double-digit inflation, lower economic growth and a fall in foreign currency reserves.
Underscoring Argentina's economic issues, the peso plunged 3.5 percent against the U.S. dollar Wednesday, and the Central Bank didn't even try to spend more of its precious reserves to slow the devaluation.

Economic analysts expect inflation to hit 30 percent this year, heating up what already has been the second highest rate in Latin America after Venezuela. Questions of who was governing are pertinent in Argentina, where Fernandez has the power to rule by decree over many areas of Argentina's economic and social life.

She nationalized private pension funds, renationalized the country's flagship airline and led Argentina's uncompensated seizure of the Spanish company Repsol's controlling, $10 billion stake in the state YPF oil company.

These measures have been popular with many Argentines who blame the privatizations of the 1990s and other free-market policies for the country's economic crisis and debt default in 2001-2002. Along with her late husband and predecessor Nestor Kirchner, she is credited for restoring the presidential power in a country where it had been gravely weakened by the 2001 economic collapse that drove a series of presidents from office

Her silence was a striking contrast to her past. The first years of Fernandez's presidency were like a reality TV show with near daily television speeches, and later she became known for her constant tweets on topics ranging from politics to pictures with Pope Francis or her dogs. Sometimes she recounted casual conversations she had with Argentines on the road, the birth of her grandson and even her musings on the "Game of Thrones," her favorite TV show.

Fernandez, whose terms ends in 2015, accused opponents and the media of trying "to create the sensation that I had reached the end." On Wednesday, she confirmed that she will travel to Cuba for a meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States that begins Monday.
"God willing, we'll travel to Cuba on Friday for the CELAC summit," Fernandez said. "It was said that I had requested a postponement due to health problems. Some were just going around making fools out of people."

SC Judge Gets Case Of New Trial For Executed Teen

This undated file photo provided by the South Carolina Department of Archives and History shows George Stinney Jr., the youngest person ever executed in South Carolina, in 1944. Supporters of Stinney plan to argue Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014, that there wasn't enough evidence to find him guilty in 1944 of killing a 7-year-old and an 11-year-old girl. The black teen was found guilty of killing the white girls in a trial that lasted less than a day in the tiny Southern mill town of Alcolu, separated, as most were in those days, by race.

SUMTER, SOUTH CAROLINA. (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — Lawyers finally got the chance to argue on behalf of George Stinney, 70 years after the 14-year-old black boy was sent to the electric chair for killing two white girls in South Carolina.

Whether his conviction from that segregation-era court is tossed out is now up to Judge Cameron Mullen after a two-day hearing concluded Wednesday. She gave both sides at least 10 more days to consult witnesses and make more arguments.

The hearing at least gave Stinney something he was denied in 1944 — his day in court. His white lawyer back then called no witnesses and did no cross-examination. He normally handled civil cases and was running to be a legislator at a time when almost all voters were white. The boy was likely the only black face in the courthouse.

At this week's hearing, Stinney's two sisters and brother testified, remembering a young man who liked to draw and walked the family cow to a field near the railroad tracks. They also recalled their fear of white men in uniforms and strange looking cars who came and took the teen and his brother away. Stinney's older brother, Johnny, was let go after George confessed. But he almost never talked about it again. The rest of the family didn't see the teen again until his funeral, when Stinney's body, burned from the electric chair, was put in an open casket.

Solicitor Ernest "Chip" Finney III called his own witnesses, including a storekeeper's son who was 10 at the time and remembered seeing investigators take clothes taken from Stinney's home. Frankie Dyches, the niece of 11-year-old Betty Binnicker who was killed, also testified that they tried to put the case behind them for decades, but it kept coming up. They finally decided to go public when people began accusing them of paying off the real killer, Dyches said.

"He confessed. He was tried and found guilty by the laws of 1944, which were completely different now. It can't be compared. I think it needs to be left as it is," Dyches said. Stinney's supporters are making a novel argument in South Carolina, saying the case was handled so badly that it was never really closed. The only evidence remaining is indictments and some fairly cryptic handwritten notes that appear to be from the prosecutor. Newspaper accounts at the time suggest Stinney confessed and the iron spike or bar used to beat the girls to death was found with Stinney's bloody clothes. But all that evidence is gone.

"The state, as an entity, has very unclean hands," attorney Miller Shealy argued. Finney said there is enough common sense proof that investigators and prosecutors were doing their job and had no sinister motive.

"They weren't trying to railroad every black person associated with Alcolu and these little girls. They made a determination based on facts we don't have today that George Stinney should be detained," Finney said.

The Stinney case has been long remembered by civil rights leaders in South Carolina as another mark on the state's history of race relations. South Carolina executed 289 people in the 20th century, and 82 percent of them were black, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Stinney's father was fired from his mill job hours after the boy's arrest and the family moved about 15 miles away to Pinewood because they were scared people angry about the dead girls might seek revenge.

Both sides and the judge frequently pointed out how the hearing showed how far South Carolina has come in 70 years. Finney, arguing against Stinney, is the son of South Carolina's first black Chief Justice, and this time, the courtroom was filled with Stinney's relatives and other supporters. There was some comfort for them when the hearing was over that his story was finally heard. His supporters have applied for a pardon.

"I'm glad he got his day in court," Stinney's second cousin Irene Hill said. "But what good can it do him now? We can't bring him back, but we can restore his name."

Follow Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at http://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP

Israel Says Foils Al-Qaida Plot On US Embassy

From a web posting by al-Qaida's media arm, as-Sahab, provided by IntelCenter, shows al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri. Israel on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2014, said it had foiled an "advanced" al-Qaida plan to carry out a suicide bombing on the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and bomb other targets, in what analysts said was the first time the global terror network's leadership has been directly involved in plotting an attack inside Israel. The Shin Bet intelligence agency said it had arrested three Palestinians who allegedly plotted bombings, shootings, kidnappings and other attacks, and that the men were recruited by an operative based in the Gaza Strip who worked for al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL. (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — Israel on Wednesday said it had foiled an "advanced" al-Qaida plan to carry out a suicide bombing on the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and bomb other targets, in what analysts said was the first time the global terror network's leadership has been directly involved in plotting an attack inside Israel.

The Shin Bet intelligence agency said it had arrested three Palestinians who allegedly plotted bombings, shootings, kidnappings and other attacks. It said the Palestinian men, two from Jerusalem and one from the West Bank, were recruited by an operative based in the Gaza Strip who worked for al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri.

While a number of groups inspired by al-Qaida have carried out attacks against Israel before, this appeared to mark the first time an attack was directly planned by al-Qaida leaders. The Shin Bet said the Palestinians planned on attacking a Jerusalem conference center with firearms and then kill rescue workers with a truck bomb. Al-Qaida also planned to send foreign militants to attack the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv on the same day using explosives supplied by the Palestinians, it said.
It said five men whose identity and nationality were not disclosed were to fly into Israel with fake Russian passports to attack the American embassy. It was not clear where the men are located. The Palestinian operatives had planned on several other attacks, it said. One included shooting out the tires of a bus and then gunning down passengers and ambulance workers.

The agency said it the plot was in "advanced planning stages" but gave no further information on how close the men got to carrying it out. It said the Palestinians from Jerusalem had used their Israeli resident cards to scope out and gather intelligence on targets. They were arrested in the past few weeks, it said.

A number of al-Qaida-inspired groups have carried out rocket attacks from Gaza and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, as well as shootings in the West Bank. Israeli intelligence calls these groups part of a "global jihad" movement.

Aviv Oreg, a former head of the Israeli military intelligence unit that tracks al-Qaida, said the plot marked the first time it has been directly linked to an attempted attack in Israel. "This is the first time that Ayman al-Zawahri was directly involved," he said. "For them, it would have been a great achievement."

The Shin Bet said the three suspects made contact with al-Qaida over the Internet. It said they planned on traveling to Syria — where various jihadist groups are battling the forces of President Bashar Assad — for training.

Oreg said that many foreign fighters fighting the Assad regime are from Chechnya and predominantly Muslim parts of Russia and speculated that the militants with the phony documents would be from there.

Al-Qaida-inspired groups are on the rise in the Gaza Strip, which is run by the Islamic militant Hamas. These groups accuse Hamas of being too lenient because it has observed cease-fires with Israel and has stopped short of imposing Islamic religious law, or Shariah, in Gaza.

In the West Bank, Israel and the Palestinian Authority of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have cracked down on Islamic militants. Three Salafis, members of a movement that advocates a hard-line interpretation of Islamic law, were killed in a shootout with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank last November.

Israel Orders Migrants To New Detention Facility

An African migrant covers his mouth with tape during a protest in front of the U.S. embassy demanding asylum and work rights from the Israeli government in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2014. About 60,000 African migrants, mostly from Sudan and Eritrea, have trekked through Egypt and other Muslim countries to reach Israel in recent years. Some are fleeing violence or oppression in their home countries while others are seeking better economic opportunities in Israel.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL. (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — Israeli authorities have begun ordering hundreds of African migrants to report to a new detention center in the country's southern desert while it seeks to find them a place to settle and offers incentives to leave, an official said Wednesday.

Daniel Solomon, a legal adviser for Israel's Interior Ministry, said Wednesday that several hundred migrants are expected in the new Holot facility by the end of the month, with the number swelling to 3,500 by the end of February. The migrants will remain there while Israel processes asylum requests and searches for other countries to take them in.

The move is Israel's latest step to cope with an influx of some 50,000 African migrants, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan, who have poured into Israel in recent years. The Africans claim they are refugees fleeing persecution and danger. Israel says they are economic migrants seeking jobs, though it is barred from sending them home because they could face danger in their conflict-ridden countries.
Solomon said that no one would be deported, but the migrants would be given incentives to leave. Holot is meant to be an "open" facility, where residents can come and go. But they must sign into the facility several times a day and sleep there, making it impossible for them to stray far away.

"All their needs will be taken care of," he said. "The idea being basically taking them off the job market, they are not allowed to work outside the facility even though they are free to come and go."
He said Israel would move to quickly process requests for refugee status by Holot residents. He also said Israel has offered Africans grants of several thousand dollars to leave, and worked out a deal with a third country in Africa to take in the migrants. He refused to identify the third country or say what Israel had offered in return, but said he expected it to begin taking in migrants in the near future.
Solomon said the Interior Ministry has begun issuing summons for people to report to Holot when they try to renew visas to stay in the country. The effort is starting with young males who have been in the country for the longest amount of time.

In recent weeks, African migrants have staged a series of demonstrations in Tel Aviv demanding they be recognized as refugees — a status that would give them residency rights. Several thousand Africans demonstrated outside the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv on Wednesday demanding asylum and the right to work.

Kenyan Author Lashes Out At Anti-Gay Laws: I'm Gay

Prize-winning Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina talks during a television interview in Nairobi, Kenya Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2014. Wainaina, one of Africa's leading literary figures, spoke to The Associated Press on Wednesday to explain his decision to publicly declare his homosexuality in an online essay last weekend, in light of a wave of new legislation further criminalizing homosexuality in Nigeria and Uganda.

NAIROBI, KENYA (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — African literary light Binyavanga Wainaina says he's known he was gay since he was 5 though he did not have a homosexual encounter until he was 39.

To celebrate his 43rd birthday, the prize-winning Kenyan has published an online essay telling the world that he is gay. His story contributes to an increasingly fierce debate about gays in Africa and is a protest against laws that seek to further criminalize homosexuality.

It is illegal to have gay sex in most African countries. Gays in many parts of the continent face severe harassment, physical threats and judicial punishment. Kenya has a law banning sodomy. Uganda, a neighbor to the west, recently passed legislation that calls for life in prison for some gay acts.

Wainaina's essay, painful to read, this week announced what he wishes he had told his mother before she died 14 years ago: "I am a homosexual, mum." In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, he said he came out to help preserve his dignity.

"All people have dignity. There's nobody who was born without a soul and a spirit," he said. " There is nobody who is a beast or an animal, right? "Every one, we, we homosexuals, are people and we need our oxygen to breathe."

Wainaina, whose hair is dyed in rainbow colors, lashed out at recently passed laws against homosexuality in Nigeria and Uganda. He also criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin, who faces criticism over Russia's law banning "gay propaganda" aimed at youth.

"I can't sleep at night because there are people who I may know or who I don't even know ... who may be dying or being beaten or being tortured right now in a Nigerian cell or three weeks ago in a Ugandan one," he said.

Dennis Nzioka, a gay right activist in Kenya, welcomed Wainaina's public announcement and said his prominence may influence other gay people in Africa and Kenya to come out publicly — particularly the older professionals who have been living a double life.

Nzioka said Wainaina's announcement was both inspirational and courageous. "Courageous, because to do this in the Kenyan society knowing very well what he can face; ostracization and rejection," Nzioka said.

He said the reaction of most people was negative and is symptomatic to the homophobia that exists in Kenya. In Nigeria on Wednesday, thousands of protesters demanded the executions of 11 men arrested for belonging to gay organizations.

Demonstrators threw stones into the Shariah court in the north Nigerian city of Bauchi until security officials fired into the air. The judge closed the court abruptly so the accused men could be safely returned to prison.

They were detained in a frenzy of arrests of alleged gays apparently precipitated by this month's passage of a new bill that further criminalizes homosexuality. The Same Sex Prohibition Act makes it illegal to even hold a gay meeting — a law that human rights activists say will endanger efforts to fight AIDS.

In Kenya, homosexuality is not a crime, but the law forbids sodomy, and partners of the same sex are likely to receive extra attention from police. Wainaina said he is not afraid to come out. He accused weak leaders of politicizing sexual orientation.

In Nigeria, President Goodluck Jonathan signed the new law as his own party fractured over his perceived desire to run for re-election next year. "You are like, mmm, what's a cheap, easy way to score points, because you always need gangs right? Every human being has a bit of gangster in him," Wainaina said. "You should press the right button."

Associated Press Writer Tom Odula contributed to this report from Nairobi, Kenya.

Uganda To Deport British Man Charged In Gay Sex

Briton Bernard Randall, 65, stands in a holding cell after a court hearing which ordered him to be deported, at the Chief Magistrates court in Entebbe, Uganda Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2014. A Ugandan court on Wednesday ordered the deportation of Randall who faced criminal charges following publication of images of him having sex with another man, in Uganda where homosexuality is illegal and lawmakers recently passed a draconian new bill that prescribes life imprisonment for "aggravated" homosexual acts.

KAMPALA, UGANDA (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — A Ugandan court on Wednesday ordered the deportation of a British man facing criminal charges related to images of him having sex with another man.

A lawyer for Bernard Randall said prosecutors were using the excuse of an expired visa to seek Randall's deportation after failing to find evidence against him in the criminal case. Lawyer Francis Onyango said his client traveled to Uganda on a tourist visa that expired after his passport was stolen.

Jane Kajuga, a spokeswoman for Uganda's directorate of prosecutions, said prosecutors dropped the case but did not explain why. Randall, 65, likely will be flown out of the country on Thursday after a magistrate ordered his immediate deportation, police commander Edgar Nyabongo told The Associated Press.

The Briton was charged last year with trafficking in obscene material. His laptop computer was stolen from his home and photos on the computer showing him have sex with another man were sent to a Ugandan newspaper that published them. That led to the charges.

Randall will be the second foreigner deported from the East African country over alleged homosexual offenses. Last year the British producer of a gay-themed play was deported after being jailed for staging the play without official authorization. Such authorization is not usually required to stage a play.

Homosexuality has been criminalized in Uganda, where lawmakers last month passed a new bill that prescribes life imprisonment for "aggravated" homosexual acts. The bill, which appears to have wide support among Ugandans, has been opposed by the president, who says it is too harsh.
Rights groups have condemned the bill, saying it is draconian.

Nuremberg Documents On Display In Berlin

A handwritten notice by Isaac Stone, who headed the Berlin Document Center and the U.S. Foreign Service Office in the 1940s, of the interrogation of Nazi leader Robert Ley, is on display at the Jewish Educational Center in Berlin, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2014. A collection of documents used by prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trials to help convict top Nazis is being put on public display in Berlin ahead of its auction in Israel. The Berlin Jewish Education Center says the documents going on display Wednesday were discovered by a collector at a flea market in Israel a half year ago and are to be auctioned Jan. 29. Many are English translations of Nazi documents used by prosecutors in their cases against Nazis like Hermann Goering and Rudolf Hess, who were convicted at the international tribunal after the war.

BERLIN, GERMANY (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — In a typewritten affidavit, former Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoess admitted that "victims were executed and exterminated there by gassing and burning." In handwritten notes from the 1945 interrogation of Robert Ley, the Nazi official blames Germany for its own defeat, saying the country was "too lazy and too incompetent."

The documents used by prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trials to help convict top Nazis are among a trove of some 500 pages that surfaced last year at a flea market in Tel Aviv. About 20 pages went on display Wednesday at the Berlin Jewish Education Center, where they will be available for the public to see through Jan. 27, Holocaust Remembrance Day, before they are sold at auction in Israel.

The documents provide a window into how the prosecution team approached the ground-breaking war crimes trial, though they don't appear to contain previously unknown information, said Eran Reiss of Jerusalem's Kedem Auction House, where the files are to be sold Jan. 29.

"Even if the documents do exist elsewhere, this is a unique opportunity for a buyer," Reiss said. Almost 70 years after the war, when most survivors of Nazi atrocities are now dead, Jewish Educational Center director Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal said it was important to put them on display.
"Such documents help people to understand, to learn and to remember," he said. The landmark Nuremberg trials began in November 1945 — the same year World War II ended — and established for the first time charges like "war crimes" in international law.

Of the 23 defendants, 12 were sentenced to death including Hermann Goering, Adolf Hitler's air force chief and top aide. Ley committed suicide before the trial began. Auschwitz commandant Hoess was only called as a witness in Nuremberg but was later convicted and executed in Poland. Hitler's similarly named deputy, Rudolf Hess, was sentenced to life in prison.

The trial files were collected by Isaac Stone, a historian and U.S. Army intelligence analyst who was assigned to gather documents for the Nuremberg prosecution team. They fall into three general categories — English translations of original documents, photostatic copies of documents, and some original pages, including handwritten interrogation reports written by Stone, Reiss said.

Stone, who moved to Israel in 1970, gave some of his documents to a friend, whose widow donated them to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1994. It is not clear how the newly found documents collected by Stone, who died in 1974 in Jerusalem, ended up at a flea market in 2013, Reiss said.

"We do not know what happened during those 40 years," he said. The opening asking price for the documents, which are being sold as a complete set, is $2,500 and the auction house's estimate is that they will sell for between $5,000 and $6,000, Reiss said.

Elton John Challenges New Russian Anti-Gay Law

Entertainer Elton John speaking during a panel discussion after receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rockefeller Foundation in Washington. Elton John is declaring his support of the Russian people, and he says they still accept him despite that country's harsh new anti-gay law. John said Wednesday that he visited Russia in December concerned that the new law would affect how he was treated as "an openly gay foreigner." He says he received a warm welcome.

NEW YORK (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — Entertainer-songwriter Elton John is declaring his support of the Russian people, and he says they still accept him despite that country's harsh new anti-gay law.

Passed last year, the so-called "gay propaganda" law bans promotion of "non-traditional sexual relations" to minors. John said Wednesday that he visited Russia in December concerned that the new law would affect how he was treated as "an openly gay foreigner." He says he received a warm welcome.

But if foreign visitors are unaffected by the law, John says it has legitimized "vicious homophobia" against gay Russians. John calls the legislation "deeply dangerous" to the gay and lesbian community, and "deeply divisive" to Russian society.
He volunteered to introduce Russian President Vladimir Putin to gay Russians to help promote understanding.

Online:
http://www.eltonjohn.com/

Wendy Davis' Story May Have Misstated Details

Texas Sen. Wendy Davis heads over to speak to reporters after an education roundtable meeting in Arlington, Texas. Davis' rise from a teenage single mother living in a trailer park to Harvard Law School is a centerpiece of her campaign for Texas governor, but some of the details of her personal story may be fuzzier than first thought.

AUSTIN, TEXAS. (AP) — Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis' rise from a teenage single mother living in a trailer park to Harvard Law School is a centerpiece of her campaign for Texas governor, but some of the details of her personal story may be fuzzier than first thought.

Davis' critics said Monday that the small discrepancies suggest her past is not quite as inspirational as she has lead Texans to believe. Davis dismissed the issue as a baseless personal attack. Texas hasn't elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994, but Davis became an overnight political star with her filibuster of abortion limits last summer and so far has raised enough money that she could keep the race for governor close.

Davis, now 50, has long said she first took a job at 14 to help support her single mother and three siblings in Fort Worth, Texas. By 19, she was married and divorced with a child of her own and living in a mobile home.

After community college, she graduated from college at Texas Christian University and with honors from Harvard Law School. She later returned to her home state and built a successful legal career before jumping into politics.

But the Dallas Morning News reported Sunday that Davis was 21 — not 19 as stated in her online Texas Senate biography —when her first marriage ended in divorce. Also, Davis and her daughter Amber lived only a few months in her family's mobile home.

Things got easier financially when she married her second husband, attorney Jeff Davis. His income helped raise Amber and the couple's daughter together, Dru, as well as pay for her to finish college and attend Harvard. Jeff Davis also kept the couple's two daughters while their mother was studying in Boston and, when the couple divorced in 2005, he won parental custody and she was ordered to pay child support, according to the newspaper.

"My language should be tighter," she told the Morning News. "I'm learning about using broader, looser language. I need to be more focused on the detail." In a statement released to the media Monday, Davis said that "the truth is that at age 19, I was a teenage mother living alone with my daughter in a trailer and struggling to keep us afloat on my way to a divorce." She also clarified that she didn't officially file for divorce until age 20 and that it wasn't finalized until the following year.
Davis didn't address how long she and Amber lived in a trailer. But Davis' statement did say her daughters lived with her in Boston during her first year at Harvard and that she split time between Massachusetts and Texas to see them after that. It noted that Jeff Davis "helped her fulfill her dream of attending Harvard by cashing in a 401(k)" retirement account but added that the couple took out loans to cover the costs.

Davis blamed Abbott, who Texas' current attorney general, for raising questions about her past. "We're not surprised by Greg Abbott's campaign attacks on the personal story of my life as a single mother who worked hard to get ahead," she said. "But they won't work, because my story is the story of millions of Texas women who know the strength it takes when you're young, alone and a mother."
Abbott campaign spokesman Matt Hirsch countered in his own statement Monday that Davis had "systematically, intentionally and repeatedly deceived Texans for years about her background, yet she expects voters to indulge her fanciful narrative."

Meanwhile, another potential question about Davis' past comes from the Facebook page of her mother, Ginger Cornstubble, which references attending Muleshoe High School in West Texas. That contradicts a 2012 suggestion by Davis that her mother had just a sixth grade education.

But in her statement, Davis said her mother "had attended school only into the ninth grade." Davis announced last week that she received $12.2 million through the end of 2013 and has $9.5 million in cash-on-hand. Abbott raised $11.5 million to end last year and reported a war chest of $27 million.

ACLU Sues Utah For Not Recognizing Gay Marriages

Plaintiffs Matthew Barraza, left, and his husband Tony Milner, right, look on as their son Jesse, 4, plays, during a news conference on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014, in Salt Lake City. The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the state of Utah over the issue of gay marriage, saying the official decision to stop granting benefits for newly married same-sex couples has created wrenching uncertainty. The lawsuit filed Tuesday says the state has put hundreds of gay and lesbian couples in legal limbo and prevented them from getting key protections for themselves and their children.

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH. (ASSOCIATED RESS) — The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the state of Utah over the issue of gay marriage, saying the official decision to stop granting benefits for newly married same-sex couples has created wrenching uncertainty.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday says the state has put hundreds of gay and lesbian couples in legal limbo and prevented them from getting key protections for themselves and their children. "They've put a giant question mark over the lives of all these people that have married," said John Mejia, legal director for the ACLU in Utah.

Utah governor's spokesman Marty Carpenter responded by saying that Gov. Gary Herbert "has said throughout this process that his responsibility is to follow the law. That is exactly what the administration is doing, and we respect the rights of those who disagree to take their grievances before a judge."

The four married gay and lesbian couples in the lawsuit spoke Tuesday during a news conference about how the state's action is harming them. They cited a range of concerns that include emergency medical decision-making and child-raising.

Matthew Barraza and Tony Milner have a 4-year-old son, Jesse, but only Barraza is legally recognized as a parent. "Heaven forbid if something should happen to one us, Jesse would have the security of having the other parent take care of him," said Milner, 34. "Now, because of the state's refusal to recognize our marriage, this peace of mind is once again out of reach."

The four couples are among more than 1,000 gay and lesbian couples rushed to marry after a federal judge in Utah overturned the state's same-sex marriage ban on Dec. 20. U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby ruled that the same-sex marriage ban violates gay and lesbian couples' constitutional rights. Those weddings came to a halt on Jan. 6 when the U.S. Supreme Court granted Utah an emergency stay — something two lower courts denied them.

After the Supreme Court issued the stay, Herbert told state agencies to hold off on moving forward with any new benefits for the couples until the courts resolve the issue. Agencies were told not to revoke anything already issued, such as a driver's license with a new name, but they are prohibited from approving any new marriages or benefits. More recently, the state tax commission announced that newly married gay and lesbian couples can jointly file their taxes for 2013.

The state made clear it was not ordering agencies to void the marriages, saying instead that validity of the marriages will ultimately be decided by the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is weighing an appeal from the state.

Mejia of the ACLU disagrees with that assessment, saying the marriages performed during the 17-day window when gay marriage was legal are valid no matter what the court rules. He said the couples have vested rights in their new unions and should be able to move forward with efforts to make partners legal guardians of children, or add their spouses to their health insurance or pension plans.

It could take more than a year for the courts to rule on Utah's same-sex marriage ban, especially if it moves to the U.S. Supreme Court, Mejia said. "These families need to plan their lives going forward," Mejia said. "We're seeking a declaration that these valid marriages must be recognized."
The state of Utah has 20 days to file a court response to the suit, said Salt Lake City attorney Erik Strindberg, who is working with the ACLU on the lawsuit. The state could ask a state judge to put the case on hold until the federal appeals court rules, Strindberg said. But the ACLU would fight such a request, he said.

The ACLU believes the federal government has taken the correct stance on the new marriages. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder came out days after Herbert's decree and said the federal government will honor the gay marriages and grant benefits. That means that same-sex couples who were married in Utah can file federal taxes jointly, get Social Security benefits for spouses and request legal immigration status for partners, among other benefits.

There are currently 17 states that allow gay marriage with Utah and Oklahoma in limbo pending decisions by appeals courts.

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