Nevada

Wind-whipped wildfire remains out of control

An army of firefighters struggled Thursday to contain an explosive wildfire that destroyed at least a dozen luxury homes and threatened 550 other houses and businesses on the edge of Nevada’s capital.

Five people have been hurt in the wind-whipped blaze, which quickly charred more than 9,000 acres of dry brush, grass and timber. At one point, flames came within a half-mile of the governor’s official residence in Carson City, a town of about 50,000 people.

“It’s absolute devastation up there,” Sheriff Ken Furlong said.

Authorities said the fire was started by a person early Wednesday in a canyon near upscale homes and a waterfall on a creek popular with children.

Wisconsin

Suspect charged with raping workers at malls

Authorities Thursday charged a man they believe raped as many as two dozen mall workers dating to 1999, and who allegedly sexually assaulted several children, capturing some of those assaults on video.

Investigators said they connected Fred D. Perry, 34, to the cases after he allegedly tried to abduct a girl at gunpoint from a hotel in February. Days later in a separate child pornography investigation, the FBI arrested Perry at his home and seized videotapes and CD-ROMs that allegedly show the child sexual assaults, which involve five victims under age 13.

Prosecutors filed a complaint charging Perry with two of the sexual assaults they attribute to the so-called mall rapist, who attacked female mall workers in Madison in parking lots or as they worked alone in their stores.

West Virginia

Charges dismissed for two Bush protesters

A judge Thursday dismissed trespassing charges against a couple who wore anti-Bush T-shirts at a July 4 rally for the president at the state Capitol because city ordinances do not apply to Statehouse grounds.

Assistant City Atty. Deloris Martin said she advised the judge that the officers had no authority to charge Nicole and Jeff Rank with trespassing under the city’s ordinances.

Police removed the Ranks, of Corpus Christi, Texas, after the two removed an outer layer of clothing to reveal T-shirts with the words “Love America, Hate Bush” and Bush’s name with a slash through it.

Police have said that after the couple showed the slogan on their shirts, the two were told to go to a designated protest area and did not do so.

Ohio

Girl missing nine years found with mother

A girl reported missing in California nine years ago was found in Ohio, living under a different name with her mother, authorities said.

Prosecutors said a woman recognized the girl’s picture from the Web site of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and called sheriff’s deputies.

She was found Friday in nearby Johnstown, in central Ohio, authorities said.

The girl, Vanesa Brancheau, was 5 when she and her mother, Sheri Lyn Taylor, were reported missing in 1995, the county sheriff’s office said in a news release.

The girl is now 13 and attending school using the name Ariel Rose Wiggins.

Sheriff’s Capt. Rod Mitchell said Thursday that Taylor indicated she and her husband had been fighting for custody of the girl at the time of the disappearance.

Maryland

State fights order to reinstate prison guard

A lawyer for the state told a judge Thursday that a prison guard was fired for her own safety after nude photographs of her raised “quite a ruckus” at her prison.

The state is appealing a November order by an administrative law judge who agreed with Marcie Betts that the pictures of her are a constitutionally protected form of self-expression, and that she should be reinstated with back pay.

Washington County Circuit Court Judge Donald E. Beachley indicated it would be at least six weeks before he rules on the case, and both sides expect further appeals.

Betts, 23, of Hagerstown, has testified that she sold 81 pictures for $300 to a Web site that specializes in nude photos of tattooed women.

California

Divers find no evidence against Peterson in bay

Divers and underwater sonar operators methodically searched the San Francisco Bay after Laci Peterson’s remains washed up, but found nothing to incriminate Scott Peterson, a detective testified Thursday.

Defense attorney Mark Geragos has attempted to show that prosecutors have scant physical evidence linking Scott Peterson to the slaying of his pregnant wife.

“You found sticks, you found pipes, all kinds of debris, but you didn’t find anything related to this case, right?” Geragos asked Modesto Detective Henry Hendee, who was present for more than a dozen searches.

Hendee responded, “Yes.”

CHICAGO

Illinois OKs transplants between HIV patients

Illinois on Thursday became the first state with a law specifically allowing HIV-infected people to donate organs to others with the virus. But before such donations can take place, federal rules will have to change.

Currently, organs from HIV-infected patients are discarded to prevent them from being transplanted into uninfected patients and spreading the AIDS virus.

But those organs could prolong the lives of people who already have HIV, many of whom are living longer because of advances in medicine, said Dr. Patrick Lynch, a liver specialist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital who helped write the legislation signed Thursday by Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Virginia

Parents must supervise nudist camp for teens

A federal judge ruled Thursday a Virginia nudist colony cannot hold its annual summer camp for teenagers without parental supervision.

In denying a motion from the owner of White Tail Park nudist camp, Judge Richard L. Williams said parents or guardians wouldn’t interfere with the youngsters’ enjoyment.

“They are in no way compromised by having a parent in a camper reading ‘Gone With the Wind’ while their children frolic outside,” Williams said.

Camp owner Robert Roche and the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia had sought to block a state law that denies a license to hotels, summer camps or campgrounds that hold nudist camps for children without their parents or guardians.

Tennessee

Bathtub used in King assassination for sale

The bathtub where James Earl Ray stood to assassinate Martin Luther King Jr. is for sale on eBay for $150,000.

“It’s a historical treasure,” said D’Army Bailey, a Memphis judge and owner of the tub.

King was hit by a bullet as he stood on the balcony of The Lorraine Motel while in Memphis to help lead a strike by sanitation workers in 1968. Investigators said the shot came from a bathroom window of a boarding house 200 feet away.

At the hearing in which Ray pleaded guilty to the murder, authorities described how the assassin stood in the tub, knocked out the window screen and shot King.