Judge v. Judge: A federal judge in Alabama has ordered a local probate judge to issue licenses for same-sex marriages in compliance with the her previous order. In making the order, US District Judge Callie Granade is knocking heads with Alabama’s Supreme Court chief justice, who ordered all the probate judges to deny such licenses. Judge Don Davis of Mobile County was the defendant in the action that puts all the probate judges on notice. He immediately began issuing the licenses as ordered.

Ukraine: Heavy fighting has continued in eastern Ukraine as rebels and the army battle over territory leading up to an agreed ceasefire. Some reports said heavy weapons were still pouring over the Russian border in support of pro-Russian rebels even after the ceasefire had been agreed upon. The big guns are supposed to be withdrawn when the ceasefire takes hold … if it does.

World: Al Jazeera English announced that two of their journalists held for more than a year in Egypt have been freed pending retrial on terrorism charges. Mohammed Fahmy and Baher Mohammed have been reunited with their families. Their co-worker, Australian Peter Greste, was let go three weeks ago. The three were arrested while interviewing a member of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and accused of conspiring with a terrorist.

>Conservationists are trying to save the survivors among 198 Pilot whales stranded on a beach on New Zealand’s South Island. Twenty-four of the whales have already died. New Zealand’s Department of Conservation and volunteers are trying to refloat the whales as the tide comes up.

Nation: The Senate yesterday approved Ashton Carter, 60, as the new secretary of Defense. Carter was number two in the Pentagon under Leon Panetta. He takes over from Chuck Hagel, who didn’t survive conflicts with President Obama.

The Obit Page: David Carr, the New York Times writer who pulled himself out of drug addiction to become a sharp chronicler of electronic media in the digital age, collapsed and died in the Times newsroom last night. Earlier in the evening he had moderated a panel discussion on the movie “Citizenfour” about, Edward J. Snowden, the man who handed national security secrets to Wikileaks.

Carr was a piercing intellect who got right down to the nut of things. He recently wrote about NBC’s disgraced Brian Williams, “We want our anchors to be everywhere, to be impossibly famous, globe-trotting, hilarious, down-to-earth, and above all, trustworthy. It’s a job description that no one can match.”

Carr loved going out and talking to people and finding out about their lives and what they were thinking. He even examined his own earlier life as a junkie in his book, The Night of the Gun. He said about journalism, “No wonder everybody’s lined up, trying to get into it. It beats working.”

Big Screen: The much anticipated and already highly criticized movie “50 Shades of Grey” has opened in wide release. It’s based on the bra-busting novel of the same name. USA Today’s critic points out with apparent disappointment that only 15 of the movie’s 125 minutes feature sex scenes. Feminists have already decried the flick because the main character Anastasia never has an orgasm. Maybe that was left for the sequel.

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