 Congratulations are in order for Senator Thad Cochran, Republican of Mississippi, who married Kay Webber, a longtime aide, in Gulfport, Miss., on Saturday. Cochran, 77, married Kay Webber, 76, an executive assistant who first joined his office in 1981, in a private family ceremony in Gulfport, Miss., his office said in a one-sentence statement Monday. Critics also pointed to records that showed the six-term senator rented the basement apartment of Webber’s $1.6 million Washington rowhouse as proof of an untoward relationship. Cochran spokesman Jordan Russell told the Clarion-Ledger a year ago that Webber “is a member of the staff and a trusted aide, and any other suggestion is silly gossip.” 
 
 Rumors of the couple’s marriage had begun to swirl earlier this month, the Mississippi newspaper reported Monday, though Cochran staffers denied knowing of any wedding as recently as last week. A blogger and supporter of Mr. Cochran’s opponent took pictures of the senator’s bedridden wife, who died in December, and posted them in a video online.
– Thad Cochran's camp batted down rumors last year of a romance between the senator and longtime aide Kay Webber, the New York Times reports, amid criticism that Webber had joined Cochran on 28 taxpayer-funded trips to 45 countries costing more than $150,000. Now, in a one-sentence statement, his office confirms that Cochran, 77, put a ring on it on Saturday during a private family ceremony in Gulfport, Miss., the Clarion-Ledger reports. Cochran's wife of 50 years—photographed by an anti-Cochran blogger in a nursing home last year—died in December at 73 after suffering from dementia, the Washington Post reports. A Cochran rep says Webber, 77, who joined Cochran's staff in 1981, will stay on as an executive assistant. Supporters of Chris McDaniel, Cochran's challenger in the Republican US Senate primary, argued last year that Cochran was carrying on an affair with Webber, a claim they backed up with records showing the senator rented Webber's basement apartment in Washington while his wife spent 13 years in a nursing home. At the time, Cochran's office maintained Webber was "a member of the staff and a trusted aide," who attended meetings and social functions with the senator while organizing his schedule. "Any other suggestion is silly gossip," his office said.