RICHMOND, Va. — Following a seismic political shift in Virginia's top elected offices, the new attorney general has concluded the state's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional and he will no longer defend it in federal lawsuits, his office said today.

Virginia, widely considered a battleground state in the nationwide fight to grant same-sex couples the right to wed, will instead side with the plaintiffs who are seeking to have the ban struck down, a spokesman for Attorney General Mark Herring said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

“After a thorough legal review of the matter, Attorney General Herring has concluded that Virginia's current ban is in violation of the U.S. Constitution and he will not defend it,” spokesman Michael Kelly wrote.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A second chemical was released during a spill that contaminated the water supply for 300,000 West Virginians, state officials said Wednesday, though the newly identified substance appears to be less toxic than the coal-cleaning agent already known to have leaked.State officials sharply criticized the company at the center of the Jan. 9 spill for failing to report the presence of the second chemical and ordered them to disclose everything that leaked into the Elk River from their storage tank by 4 p.m. Wednesday.Freedom Industries responded by the afternoon that only those two chemicals, which are sometimes paired during coal processing, seeped into the river.