The court also knocked back a separate appeal against same-sex marriage laws in California, restoring the right to gay marriage in the largest US state and nearly doubling the number of Americans living in states where gay marriage would be legal.
Together, the two Wednesday rulings mark the biggest advance in civil liberties for gay people in a generation, and come amid growing political and international recognition that same-sex couples deserve equal legal treatment.
The most significant legal breakthrough came in the decision led by Anthony Kennedy to rule that the Defense of Marriage Act (Doma) was unconstitutional because it deprived citizens of "equal liberty" before the law.
It's been 70 years since the lynching of Emmett Till, a Black teenager from Chicago who...
Bosnia's national museum has defended a decision to donate funds from the display of a precious...
The mother of a 15-year-old boy who was detained at gunpoint by federal immigration agents is...
Dr. Mimi Syed, an emergency medicine physician from Washington state, is in an Amman hotel room,...
