Dozens of gay couples waited excitedly outside of San Francisco’s City Hall as clerks resumed issuing same-sex marriage licences, one day after a federal appeals court cleared the way for the state of California to immediately lift a 4 1/2 year freeze.

The winners in the US Supreme Court case that overturned California’s same-sex marriage ban tied the knot at San Francisco City Hall yesterday, about an hour after a federal appeals court freed same-sex couples to obtain marriage licences for the first time in four years.

POLICE in riot gear and biohazard suits removed anti-Wall Street activists from an encampment outside the Los Angeles City Hall, arresting an estimated 200 people.