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RT Rybak will headline the convention banquet on Friday.
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• RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) -- The South Dakota School of Mines & Technology is hosting a conference on partnerships between federal and non-federal agencies managing fossils found on public lands.
• The 2014 Conference on Fossil Resources runs through Thursday at the Rapid City school. It is attracting nearly 120 paleontological experts from around the world.
• The university's Museum of Geology is a repository for federal, tribal and state. Museum associate director Sally Shelton says it's considered by several agencies to be a poster child for good professional relations between museums and agencies.
• The conference will highlight the history of Fossil Cycad National Monument between Hot Springs and Edgemont. It's the only National Park Service unit ever decommissioned because its main resource was removed or stolen.
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• JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) -- Over the years, the Alaska Supreme Court has chipped away at laws deemed discriminatory against gay couples. In 2005, for example, the high court found it unconstitutional to deny certain benefits to the same-sex partners of state employees.
• But it wasn't until now -- after U.S. Supreme Court decisions led to federal courts around the country striking down bans on same-sex marriage over the last year -- that some activists felt the time was right to challenge Alaska's first-in-the nation constitutional ban on gay marriage.
• On Monday, five couples filed a lawsuit in federal court to overturn the ban approved by voters in 1998. The plaintiffs-- four couples married outside Alaska and one unmarried couple -- say the ban violates their right to due process and equal protection under the U.S. Constitution.
• Sean Egan, one of the plaintiffs along with his husband, David Robinson, said somebody had to do this. Egan, 28, is a graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Robinson is in the military. He said it's offensive they've had to "jump through so many hoops" to prove they're married so they could live together in family housing or Robinson could use the gym. He said his mom wanted nothing to do with him when he came out as gay, and while his dad has come around, the only real family he has is Robinson.
• And to have the state "just, I don't know, spit on that and treat us as if we were

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