JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri’s Republican legislative leaders are seeking to appeal a court ruling requiring officials to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.

Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey and House Speaker Tim Jones have filed a motion asking to intervene in a Jackson County court case so they can appeal it to the state Supreme Court.

Judge J. Dale Youngs ruled in October that Missouri must legally recognize same-sex couples who got married elsewhere — even though Missouri has a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage.

Democratic Attorney General Chris Koster decided not to appeal that case. But Koster is appealing separate federal and state court rulings striking down the gay marriage ban.

Dempsey said no taxpayer dollars are being spent on the legislators’ court filings.

The leading website for naming your baby has tallied up the most popular names of the year and

the winners announced today in a media release are Liam and Charlotte for the third year in a row. “Entertainment is influencing baby naming more than ever,”

says BabyNames.com founder, Jennifer Moss. “We’re seeing celebrity names and character names flooding the popularity charts. The name Liam, for

example, started to become popular after the actor Liam Neeson, but then jumped to #1 when Liam Hemsworth came on the scene.”

Parents are also using popular character names from fiction, especially television. Moss says the name Aria/Arya hit the top ten

names for girls after the television shows Pretty Little Liars and Game of Thrones both featured popular characters with that name.

 

BabyNames.com compiles its name ranking from the site members’ favorite name lists. “We have millions of members that add names to

their favorite name lists each year,” states Moss. “So we can track which names are trending in real time. Our lists often predict the

actual birth name trends by one to two years.”

 

So what entertainment names are rising fast? According to the BabyNames.com trends, we will be seeing more baby boys named Archer

(Archer), Finnick (The Hunger Games) and Atticus (To Kill a Mockingbird). For girls, watch for Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Hazel

(The Fault in our Stars), and Piper (Orange is the New Black).

 BABYNAMES.COM’S TOP 20 BABY NAMES FOR 2014  include alternate spellings of the same name

Girls                   Boys

1 Charlotte      Liam

2 Amelia         Noah

3 Aria             Oliver

4 Olivia         Ethan

5 Violet         Asher

6 Ava           Benjamin

7 Sophia            Henry

8 Emma           Owen

9 Scarlett                Caleb

10 Nora             Jackson

11 Audrey          Grayson

12 Aurora         Declan

13 Vivienne       Landon

14 Lily               Alexander

15 Abigail         Levi

16 Chloe         Aidan

17 Adalyn        Finn

18 Ella           Elijah

19 Elizabeth        Lucas

20 Alice             Gavin

LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pregnant and worried about your medication? The Food and Drug Administration is revamping confusing labels on prescription drugs to make it easier to understand which medications may pose risks to the baby.

Women take an average of three to five prescription drugs during pregnancy, for everything from asthma to infections. It’s hard to tell which are safest, or even if they’ll require a different dose. The letters A, B, C, D and X are used to convey risk, but FDA acknowledges that’s misleading.

On Wednesday, FDA announced it is scrapping that system. Starting next summer, labels on new prescription drugs must clearly state what’s known about safe use during pregnancy or breastfeeding, including whether the information comes from studies in people or only in animals. Older drugs will phase in the new labels.

JIM SALTER, Associated Press

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — The stepfather of Michael Brown has apologized for angry comments he made after the grand jury decided not to indict the police officer who killed his stepson, but says those comments had nothing to do with fires and violent rioting that ravaged Ferguson and the surrounding area.

Louis Head said Wednesday in a statement to CNN that he was full of emotions on the night of Nov. 24, when he yelled “Burn this bitch down!” and other comments. Head does not have a listed phone number and there was no response when an Associated Press reporter knocked at his door.

St. Louis County police are investigating Head’s comments as part of a broader inquiry into the rioting. Twelve commercial buildings were destroyed in the aftermath of the announcement.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The long-running dispute over a proposed social media policy at the University of Kansas is one step closer to resolution.

The University Senate Executive Committee on Tuesday settled on a procedure for how the university should respond when faculty, staff and student employees are accused of improper use of social media.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports an initial review panel would determine if a complaint should be pursued. Then a second board would consider the evidence and recommend disciplinary action.

The controversy over social media use began in September 2013 when university journalism professor David Guth posted a tweet criticizing the National Rifle Association. In response, the Kansas Board of Regents implemented a policy that allows top administrators to discipline or fire employees who post troublesome social media comments.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is singling out Boston, San Francisco, Seattle and 13 other cities for leading their peers in efforts to address climate change.

The winners of the competition for cities will receive additional government resources to deal with global warming’s impacts, including data tools and a dedicated coordinator to help cities access federal funding.

Minneapolis, Salt Lake City and Portland, Ore., made the cut. So did Knoxville, Tenn., Montpelier, Vt., and Oberlin, Ohio. California’s Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe is recognized for cutting energy consumption, while Dubuque, Iowa, is addressing flooding issues.

Washington, D.C., and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs are being recognized together, as is Kansas City in Kansas and Missouri. Other winners include California’s Sonoma County, Florida’s Broward County and Michigan’s Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas officials say more state, municipal and school district workers will qualify for health coverage starting next year because of the federal health care law.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports more than 2,000 employees will become eligible for full-time health benefits starting Jan. 1. The director of the Kansas State Employee Health Plan says the expansion is the result of the federal Affordable Care Act. The law requires large employers to provide health benefits to full-time employees.

Officials say the increase will cost state and local taxpayers about $5.3 million a year.

Under the federal law, anyone who works at least 30 hours a week is a full-time employee.