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A Pennsylvania judge on Thursday ordered a suburban Philadelphia clerk to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Commonwealth Court Judge Dan Pellegrini said Montgomery County Register of Wills D. Bruce Hanes did not have the power to decide on his own whether Pennsylvania’s same-sex marriage ban violates the state constitution. It was not immediately clear what the decision would mean to those who have already received a license. …

State officials asked a court to stop a rogue county from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples on Tuesday, nearly a week after a clerk began granting them in violation of Pennsylvania law. The petition filed by the Health Department alleges that D. Bruce Hanes, the register of wills in Montgomery County, “repeatedly and continuously” flouted the law. As of Tuesday afternoon, Hanes’ office had granted 34 licenses and registered six same-sex marriages. … Pennsylvania is the only northeastern state without same-sex marriages or civil unions. Hanes began issuing licenses to same-sex couples shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court struck...

Officials in the third-largest county in Pennsylvania have agreed to issue same-sex marriage licenses, despite a state law that bans the practice. D. Bruce Hanes, the register of wills in Montgomery County in southeast Pennsylvania, said he wants to come down “on the right side of history and the law.” He agreed to issue a license Tuesday to two women who contacted him last week. …

Pennsylvania 'absolutely critical' for Clinton campaign, aide says By Salena Zito and David M. Brown TRIBUNE-REVIEW Saturday, March 8, 2008 Winning the Pennsylvania primary on April 22 is "absolutely critical" to Hillary Clinton's hope of overtaking Barack Obama in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, a top Clinton aide said Friday. Clinton will visit Pennsylvania on Monday and Tuesday, with campaign stops in Scranton, Harrisburg and Philadelphia. Former President Bill Clinton will be stumping for his wife on Tuesday in Pittsburgh, but the campaign did not immediately provide details about that visit. Asked whether Clinton must win Pennsylvania to...

The doctors and scientists streaming into the booth at the allergists' convention were amazed at what the middle-schoolers had wrought. The concept captivated them. It was a handheld scanner that could instantly translate confusing food labels to reveal potentially dangerous ingredients. For the 11 million Americans with sometimes lethal food allergies, it could prevent injury or even death. That it was invented by a bunch of kids barely into their teens only fueled the fascination last month for the annual meeting of the American College of Asthma, Allergy and Immunology. But dozens of would-be buyers of the "allergen scanner" were...