LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – The Arkansas Department of Human Services instructed its staff Monday to accept applications from unmarried couples who’d previously been banned from serving as foster or adoptive parents.

Last week, a Pulaski County circuit judge struck down the state’s law that banned unmarried couples living together from fostering or adopting children. Judge Chris Piazza said in his ruling that the law infringed on a person’s right to privacy.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said Monday that the state will appeal the judge’s ruling to the Arkansas Supreme Court.

“Initiated Act 1 was approved by approximately 57 percent of the voters in the 2008 election,” McDaniel said in a statement. “I believe the people of Arkansas deserve to have the state’s highest court decide whether or not to override their decision.”

Munsell said she wasn’t aware of any applications filed Monday by people who were previously barred from serving as adoptive or foster parents because of the law. She said their applications will be accepted, but stressed that the process often takes months and that the decision could change, pending any court action.

A group of families, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, sued in 2008 to overturn the ban. They argued that there are too few families willing to adopt or foster in Arkansas, which has an average of 1,600 children on waiting lists, and that good homes were being arbitrarily cut from the list.

The law effectively banned gays and lesbians who lived together from adopting or fostering children because they are unable to legally marry in Arkansas.

TORRANCE, Calif. (AP) – A convicted felon accused of targeting gay men who were looking for dates online was charged with kidnapping, robbery, carjacking and other crimes in Superior Court Monday.

Angel Pena Ayala, 24, who was on parole for a previous carjacking conviction, was arrested Friday and pleaded not guilty Monday in Torrance Superior Court, said Los Angeles County district attorney’s officials.

He was charged with eight felony counts, including the allegation that the crimes were committed for a street gang.

Hermosa Beach police said Ayala placed an online ad on Craigslist.org in the personals section and met his victim at the man’s home in Hermosa Beach in March.

Authorities accused him of pulling a handgun on the man and ordering him to put his TV, computer and camera into his car.

Ayala is accused of ordering the victim to drive to a nearby ATM and forced him to withdraw money. Ayala released the victim in El Segundo and drove off in the man’s car, which was found abandoned in Los Angeles, said Sgt. Robert Higgins.

Investigators identified Ayala through fingerprints from the recovered vehicle.

He is also charged with committing a similar crime in West Hollywood four days earlier.

Alaya told investigators he committed as many as three crimes a night, said Hermosa Beach police and prosecutors.

Police suspect there might be more victims who didn’t report being robbed because of the nature of the crime, Higgins said.

The two victims had Asian names, according to the complaint filed in court, but police said they didn’t know if Alaya targeted Asian men.

After police arrested Alaya, he slipped out of his handcuffs and tried to escape the police car. Police stopped him as he tried to climb from the backseat cage into the front seat of the patrol car.

“He said he was going to take the police car and run,” Higgins said. “He told (an officer) he was going to prison for a long time and he just wants to get away.”

Ayala is being held on $4.4 million bail and faces life in prison if convicted of all counts.

LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. (AP) – Some residents of Laguna Beach are urging the city to give historic status to a building that housed a famous gay bar where Rock Hudson once held court for decades.

Gay activists have said the Boom Boom Room at the Coast Inn on Pacific Coast Highway is an essential part of the city’s history and have asked owner Steven Udvar-Hazy to find a way to preserve it.

Udvar-Hazy bought the property five years ago and closed the bar in 2008.

The city’s planning commission approved his proposed renovation on April 14. He plans to turn the hotel into a 10-suite boutique inn with a rooftop pool but no bar or restaurant.

After several hearings, the Laguna Beach Heritage Commission has opted not to give the space, which was built in 1928, a coveted “K” rating, which provides protected status and tax breaks for the owner.

Udvar-Hazy had sought the special rating, but instead got a “C” rating, a lesser designation that cites the building’s significance as a Spanish revival building.

His current renovation plans would turn the bar space into parking, though he has said he might preserve the mural and wood floor from the bar.

City officials, Udvar-Hazy and his architect have all agreed that the renovated building will include an interpretive exhibit to explain its “social and physical history,” which could include references its significance as a hub of gay life.

But that is too small a tribute for those who seek to save the Boom-Boom.

“What makes (the Coast Inn) significant is being taken away, the nightclub,” activist Audrey Prosser told the commissioners at a hearing.

The ocean-view bar originally catered to Marines and was called the Seven Seas, but it evolved into the Boom Boom Room, a center for the city’s thriving gay and artistic community and famous as a frequent spot for Hudson.

“It is a great source of pride, because this city was founded by gay artists,” said Fred Karger, whose organization Save the Boom first fought to keep the bar open and now seeks to preserve the space.

But architect Morris Skenderian has downplayed the gay aspect of the inn’s history.

“For many years it provided a gathering place for many events for a variety of causes and was frequented by both the straight and gay community,” he wrote in a Feb. 11 letter to the commission.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – The sponsors of California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage want a federal judge to strike numerous campaign e-mails and memos from evidence in the trial over the proposition’s constitutional validity.

Lawyers for the group Protect Marriage told Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in court papers filed Friday that allowing the documents to remain in the trial record would violate the First Amendment freedom of association rights of the measure’s supporters.

Walker is presiding over a case brought by two gay couples seeking to overturn Proposition 8. He heard two-and-a-half weeks of testimony in January, but delayed closing arguments so he could review the evidence. The proceedings have been on hiatus since then.

MCKEE, Ky. (AP) – The mother of a high school student who police say was attacked by a group of friends who tried to push her off a cliff says her daughter was targeted because she is gay.

Three high school students have been charged with kidnapping and attempting to kill 18-year-old Cheyenne Williams by pushing her off a falls in Jackson County.

Williams’ mother, Dee Johnson, said her daughter is openly gay.

In court documents, Williams alleges the other teens tried to “to inflict bodily injury or to terrorize” her.

Corrine M. Schwab of Sandgap, Ashley N. Sams of Annville – both 18– and a 17-year-old girl not identified because of her age have been charged in the case. A message left at Sams’ home was not returned Wednesday. A number for Schwab’s home could not be located. Court records did not list an attorney for either woman.