Claire Galofaro

An agonizingly vitriolic election and exhausting four-day wait for results came to an end Saturday morning.

As the traditional Election Day closes in, Americans are exhausted from constant crises, on edge because of volatile political divisions and anxious about what will happen next.

As the world’s attention was fixated on the horrors in Italy and New York City, the per capita death rates in counties in the impoverished southwest corner of Georgia climbed to among the worst in the country.

Defiant Kentucky clerk Kim Davis met briefly with Pope Francis during his historic U.S. visit, an encounter she said validates her crusade against gay marriage.

Clerk Kim Davis returned to work Monday for the first time since being jailed for disobeying a federal judge and said she was faced with a "seemingly impossible choice" between following her conscience and losing her freedom over denying marriage licenses to gay couples.

A county clerk in Kentucky who has invoked "God's authority" and is defying the U.S. Supreme Court by refusing to license same-sex marriage has been summoned along with her entire staff to explain to a federal judge why they should not face stiff fines or jail time.

A clerk's office turned away gay couples who sought marriage licenses on Thursday, defying a federal judge's order that said deeply held Christian beliefs don't excuse officials from following the law.

A single "pop" cut through the quiet morning. On this ordinary Thursday, some thought a car had backfired, or maybe a tire had blown. Sgt. 1st Class Robert Dodge looked up from his computer in an Army recruiting office in a strip mall, more curious than alarmed.

Reaction to today's Supreme Court ruling wasn't welcoming in some of the 14 states that had been the last holdouts against same-sex marriages, creating confusion as some officials embraced the ruling and others resisted it.