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CALIFORNIA
City criticizes ban on gay marriage in filing
SAN FRANCISCO -- Twelve same-sex couples and the city filed legal papers Thursday that call California's ban on gay marriage unconstitutional, bigoted and archaic.
"This is the beginning of what is going to be the decisive battle" over gay marriage in California, city attorney Dennis Herrera said a morning news conference. The move came in a case that is expected to ultimately decide whether the ban violates the state constitution.
The city and the National Center for Lesbian Rights released the documents less than a month after the state Supreme Court invalidated the more than 4,000 same-sex marriage licenses the city issued between Feb. 12 and March 11.
WASHINGTON STATE
Guardsman guilty of trying to aid al-Qaida
FORT LEWIS -- A National Guardsman accused of trying to give al-Qaida information about U.S. troops, including methods for killing soldiers, was found guilty Thursday on all five counts of trying to help the terrorist network.
The verdict in Spc. Ryan Anderson's court-martial, which began Monday, was announced late Thursday afternoon.
Anderson, a tank crewman whose 81st Armor Brigade unit is now in Iraq, was accused of trying to give terrorists information about U.S. troops' strength and tactics.
The terrorists he thought he was meeting with were actually undercover federal agents, prosecutors said.
Anderson, a 27-year-old Muslim convert, could face a maximum penalty of life in prison.
CALIFORNIA
Marine found guilty of abusing Iraqi prisoners
CAMP PENDLETON -- A Marine reservist was found guilty Thursday of dereliction of duty and abuse of prisoners last year at a makeshift detention camp in Iraq, but cleared of assaulting a 52-year-old Iraqi man who later died there.
Marine Sgt. Gary Pittman, 40, a federal prison guard in New York in his civilian life, was acquitted of the most serious charge, of karate-kicking 52-year-old Nagem Hatab in the chest shortly before the Iraqi was found dead in a dusty yard at the facility known as Camp Whitehorse.
An autopsy found Hatab had six broken ribs, as well as deep bruises, and apparently died from suffocation caused by a broken bone in his throat.
The jury was to begin sentencing deliberations today. Pittman could receive up nine months in a military prison and a bad-conduct discharge.