National Roundup ...

CALIFORNIA
Boardwalk crash suspect had gone to day job center
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The man charged with ramming his car through a weekend crowd on the Venice Beach boardwalk was a regular at a Southern California day-labor center.
The Los Angeles Daily News reports Nathan Campbell was at the Malibu Community Labor Exchange hours before his Dodge killed a honeymooner and injured 16 others. He has pleaded not guilty to murder.
Campbell was a center regular last year and reappeared in July.
Exchange director Oscar Mondragon says Campbell was known as a calm, helpful man who’d gotten regular jobs.
He says Campbell told him he’d bought a car in Denver and was living in it.
Mark Hewitt says Campbell had struggled with alcohol problems but was sober Saturday hours before the incident and told Hewitt he was going to Venice to do laundry.

NORTH CAROLINA
Marine’s rank is lowered for defiling corpses
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) — A Marine Corps sniper captured on a YouTube video urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan is being reduced in rank after pleading guilty at a court-martial.
Marine Corps spokesman Col. Sean Gibson says Sgt. Robert W. Richards of Seminole, Fla., was tried Wednesday at Camp Lejeune and was reduced one rank to corporal.
The video got international attention. It shows four Marines in full combat gear urinating on the bodies of three Afghans in July 2011.
Richards faced a number of charges including dereliction of duty and violating orders. Military prosecutors said Richards had filmed himself and others urinating on the corpses.
Gibson says Richards’ sentence means eight Marines have been punished for their involvement in the incident through administrative punishments or courts-martial.

MASSACHUSETTS
Nanny charged in baby death seeks dismissal of case
WOBURN, Mass. (AP) — Lawyers for an Irish nanny charged with murder in the death of a Massachusetts baby are seeking to have charges dismissed based on what they say is prosecutorial misconduct and lack of probable cause.
Aisling McCarthy Brady has been indicted on a murder charge in the death of Rehma Sabir in January.
Her lawyers accuse Middlesex prosecutors of acting unethically in the way they presented evidence to the grand jury. The defense also contends the case is so weak that it does not meet the low legal threshold of probable cause.
Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said in a statement to The Boston Globe her office is working on a response to the defense allegations, which they will soon file in court.

CALIFORNIA
Parents of young woman crushed by tree sue PG&E
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The parents of a camp counselor crushed to death by a falling tree near Yosemite National Park are suing Pacific Gas & Electric and the camp’s arborist.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports the family of 21-year-old Annais Rittenberg contends the arborist and a tree contractor for the utility were negligent.
An 80-foot oak near power lines fell onto benches at Camp Tawonga in Tuolumne County on July 3. Four other women were injured.
The suit, filed Wednesday in San Francisco, contends the tree was in a “zone of grave danger,” and inspectors should have known it was dangerously weak.
A PG&E spokeswoman says the utility hadn’t received the suit and had no comment. The Chronicle reports the tree-inspection companies were unavailable for comment.

NEW YORK
Hudson river crash families seek lighthouse
NANUET, N.Y. (AP) — The families of two people killed after their powerboat slammed into a barge in the dark waters of the Hudson River are launching a memorial fund for a new lighthouse.
The families of Lindsey Stewart and Mark Lennon hope the lighthouse could save others’ lives.
The two were killed July 26. Four others, including Stewart’s fiance, were injured. The construction barge was beneath the Tappan Zee Bridge.
Stewart’s mother, Carol Stewart-Kosik, and Lennon’s brother, Raymond, tell The Journal News they’re planning a Web page to promote the lighthouse fundraising effort.
Stewart-Kosik says this week will be hell for the families. The wedding was to have taken place Saturday. Lennon was supposed to be the best man.
Now, Stewart-Kosik says, “we’re just going to surround ourselves with family.”

PENNSYLVANIA
Drunk passenger forces airline flight to return
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Officials say a flight bound for Spain had to return to Philadelphia after a drunken passenger caused a disruption and had to be restrained by others onboard.
Philadelphia International Airport spokeswoman Victoria Lupica says the US Airways Flight 742 took off for Barcelona at about 7:50 p.m. Wednesday but returned at about 9:45 p.m. Police say the unidentified man was restrained by fellow passengers. No one was injured.
The plane was cleared to resume its trip.
Earlier Wednesday, officials said an investigation into a bomb threat made in connection with a different trans-Atlantic flight that landed in Philadelphia turned up nothing suspicious. US Airways Flight 777 from Shannon, Ireland, landed in an isolated part of Philadelphia International Airport, where its passengers were questioned, but nothing was found.

NEW YORK
Man sentenced to 5 years in Taliban drug plot
NEW YORK (AP) — A man who admits taking part in a plan to sell drugs to people who purported to represent the Taliban has been sentenced in New York.
Prosecutors say Francis Sourou Ahissou was sentenced Wednesday in Manhattan federal court to five and a half years in prison. In May he pleaded guilty to participating in a conspiracy to import narcotics into the U.S.
The 48-year-old is a citizen of Togo, in West Africa. He was arrested in February 2011 in Liberia.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara says the man and others agreed in 2010 to sell multiple kilograms of cocaine to confidential informants for the Drug Enforcement Administration who purported to work for the Taliban. The cocaine was to be imported into the U.S. and resold.