In the news
Sam Brownback, the Republican governor of Kansas, rescinded an executive order issued in August 2007 by Democratic predecessor Kathleen Sebelius barring discrimination against gays and transexuals in hiring and employment throughout much of state government, saying Sebelius had acted “unilaterally.”
Jon Stewart, the host of The Daily Show, will later this year leave the job he has held since 1999, according to Stewart and Comedy Central President Michele Ganeless, who said it had been an “honor and privilege” to work with the comedian.
Ashton Carter, 60, moved closer to becoming the next secretary of defense, receiving a 25-0 vote in the Senate Armed Services Committee, whose chairman, John McCain, R-Ariz., said he hopes the full Senate will vote today.
John Dehlin, 45, a married Utah father of four who for the past decade has run a website that offers doubting Mormons a forum to chat, has been excommunicated, which is not a lifelong ban but is the next-highest punishment for a church member.
Marcus Paulk, 28, former child star on the 1990s sitcom Moesha who was arrested for drunken driving in Arizona on the morning of the Super Bowl, was sentenced to a year of unsupervised probation.
Bernard Hogan-Howe, Britain’s top policeman, said that keeping a watch on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has taken refuge at the Ecuadorean Embassy since June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden for questioning about possible sexual assaults, is “sucking our resources” and police are reviewing options.
U.S. Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the chief of naval operations, said at a lecture in Australia that lasers that shoot down drones with precision and electromagnetic cannons that fire more than 100 miles are part of the future of naval warfare.
Dan Patrick, Texas’ lieutenant governor, said National Guard troops sent to the Texas-Mexico border last summer will stay indefinitely and not return home in March as planned.
Jenifer Lynn Patterson, 24, a Fairmont, N.C., woman accused of smuggling marijuana into a county jail in her 4-year-old son’s pants, was charged with providing drugs to an inmate.
Jimmy Wales, the Wikipedia founder, is among the winners in Israel of this year’s Dan David Prize for scientific, technological and cultural accomplishments.