TEXAS
Clerk pockets man's $1M lottery ticket
AUSTIN — A 25-year-old convenience store clerk pocketed a customer's $1 million winning lottery ticket, claimed the prize and skipped town, possibly back to his native Nepal, authorities said.
Pankaj Joshi took 67-year-old Willis Willis' winning Mega Millions megaplier ticket after Willis asked Joshi in May to check whether any of his numbers were winners, investigators said in a search warrant affidavit last month.
Joshi claimed the prize — about $750,000 after taxes — at the lottery claim center in Austin, had the money wired to a bank account and disappeared, authorities said.
Nick Parveez, Joshi's former manager at Lucky's Food Store in Grand Prairie, near Dallas, called the lottery commission in July to voice his suspicions about Joshi after hearing that his store sold a $1 million winning ticket, according to the affidavit.
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CALIFORNIA
SS notices must be accessible to blind
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Social Security Administration must provide information on benefits in a way that is accessible to blind people.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup's ruling Tuesday in the 2005 lawsuit found the agency is covered by anti-discrimination laws that protect the disabled.
Alsup's ruling states that the agency's notices must be printed in Braille or other formats accessible to blind people.
Alsup noted in his ruling that plaintiffs were sent important notices by the agency that they could not read, resulting in lost benefits.
$2.1B in overtime paid in past 5 years
SACRAMENTO — California auditors say some state employees earned more than $150,000 a year in overtime as the state paid out more than $2.1 billion in overtime during the past five years.
The highest overtime payments went to 26 firefighters, four highway patrolmen and 110 employees at the departments of Veterans Affairs, Mental Health, and Developmental Services.
The audit, released Tuesday, did not include overtime paid to corrections employees at prisons staffed around the clock.
The state auditor criticized union contracts at the Mental Health and Developmental Services departments that allow employees to claim overtime even if they have been off work for other parts of the pay period.
A state law blocked the practice in February, but the new law can be overridden by future collective bargaining agreements, auditors said.
Web-dating author accused in '89 killing
CHULA VISTA — An attorney who wrote a book about Internet dating was arrested Wednesday for investigation of killing his girlfriend's daughter 20 years ago so his girlfriend could gain custody of her granddaughter, authorities said.
Eric Fagan, 74, was arrested at his home in Chula Vista and was being held without bail on suspicion of murder and attempted murder, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said.
Fagan is accused of shooting Cathy Paternoster, then 32, and wounding her boyfriend, Carl Fuerst, then 41, outside their Spring Valley Lake home on an October evening in 1989.
Authorities believe Fagan committed the killing so Paternoster's mother, Betty Paternoster, would obtain custody of the girl.
UTAH
Skeleton is not that of legendary wanderer
SALT LAKE CITY — A skeleton found in the Utah wilderness last year was not that of Everett Ruess, a legendary wanderer of the 1930s, despite initial forensic tests that seemed to have solved an enduring mystery, his nephew told The Associated Press.
"The skeleton is not related to us," Brian Ruess, a 44-year-old software salesman in Portland, Ore., said late Wednesday.
Everett Ruess vanished in southern Utah in 1934, writing in a final letter to his family in California that "as to when I revisit civilization, it will not be soon" and "it is enough that I am surrounded with beauty."
He was 20 and a gifted poet who explored the Southwest over much of four years. In between journeys, he hobnobbed with famous artists of his time.
Initial DNA tests were termed "irrefutable" months ago by University of Colorado researchers, but one of them said Wednesday he accepted as final the new results from the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Rockville, Md.
OHIO
Woman takes back shocking accusations
COLUMBUS — Megan Williams' shocking accusations initially strained the imagination: Seven white people beat her with sticks, forced her to eat feces, raped her and taunted her with racial slurs over several days in a ramshackle trailer in West Virginia.
But the suspects eventually confessed to their actions and pleaded guilty. All but one were sent to prison. Now Williams, who is black, is taking it all back.
Williams lied in 2007 because she wanted to get back at a boyfriend who had beaten her, her attorney, Byron L. Potts, said Wednesday at a news conference in his Columbus office.
Williams no longer wants to live a lie, Potts said.
"She told me the only thing not self-inflicted were the bruises on her face," Potts said.
Williams, 22, who now lives with a caregiver in Columbus, was in the office with Potts, but she did not appear before reporters.
Judge sentences 3 in plot to kill GIs
TOLEDO — A federal judge has handed down sentences of more than eight years in prison to three Toledo-area men involved in a terrorist plot that the government said targeted U.S. troops.
Mohammad Amawi was sentenced to 20 years on Wednesday, and Marwan El-Hindi was sentenced to 12 years. Both had faced up to life in prison.
Wassim Mazloum was sentenced to eight years and four months.
The three were found guilty last year of plotting to recruit and train terrorists to kill American soldiers in Iraq.
NEW MEXICO
Agents seize items from nuclear scientist
ALBUQUERQUE — Federal agents seized computers, papers, books and electronic equipment from the home of a former Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear scientist, who last year sought to work on a fusion project with Venezuela but says he believes the U.S. government is wrongly targeting him as a spy.
P. Leonardo Mascheroni told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday from his home that four FBI agents searched his home for 13 hours on Monday. The agents, he said, led him to believe they were investigating him for espionage.
"I am not a spy," Mascheroni said. "If I were a spy, a long time ago I would have gone away from the United States with all my knowledge. Instead, I stay in my house all the time and am working all the time and presenting all the time to Congress. Is that what a spy does?"
FBI spokesman Darrin Jones confirmed the agency is pursuing an "ongoing investigation" in Los Alamos, but declined further comment Wednesday.
KANSAS
Legislator to praise Obama in rap video
TOPEKA — A Kansas legislator who drew criticism for a "RedNeck Rap" against Barack Obama says he'll produce another YouTube video praising the president.
But Republican state Rep. Bill Otto also says he won't apologize for his earlier posting.
Otto agreed to make the new video after a meeting Wednesday with Topeka activist Sonny Scroggins, who was critical of the anti-Obama rap.
In the "RedNeck Rap," Otto wore a ballcap calling opossum "the other dark meat." Otto says the words referred to his own "hillbilly" heritage, not to Obama, the nation's first black president.
Otto plans to post the video of his new rap next week and says he'll praise Obama for trying to help older Americans.
Otto is from the town of LeRoy, about 75 miles south of Topeka.
VIRGINIA
Man pretends to be war hero for perks
QUANTICO — A Marine Corps sergeant was sentenced Wednesday to 18 months' confinement and fined $25,000 for pretending to be an injured war hero to get free seats at rock concerts and professional sporting events.
Sgt. David W. Budwah also will be reduced in rank to private and dishonorably discharged after any appeals. He must forfeit all pay and benefits during his confinement and is subject to up to 3 1/2 years of additional prison time if he re-offends within two years.
Navy Capt. Bruce W. MacKenzie, chief judge for the Navy and Marine Corps, gave the sentence after Budwah pleaded guilty to seven counts in a military courtroom on the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Va. The offenses included making false statements, malingering, misconduct and unlawful appropriation, and carried a combined maximum prison term of 8 1/2 years.
Budwah, 34, of Springhill, La., acknowledged during the hearing that he was never deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, as he had claimed. He said he lied about having helped with the 2004 tsunami relief effort and didn't earn eight medals and ribbons he wore on his uniform.
HAWAII
Sen. Inouye becomes 3rd-longest-serving
HONOLULU — Sen. Daniel Inouye becomes the third-longest-serving senator in U.S. history today.
It's a landmark for a lawmaker who has served in Congress since Hawaii attained statehood.
Inouye has held office in the U.S. Senate for nearly 47 years. He passes Sen. Edward Kennedy in seniority following the Aug. 25 death of his longtime Democratic colleague from Massachusetts.
Inouye, 85, says he's honored to have lasted so long since he became the first Japanese-American to serve in Congress.
With 17,095 days in the Senate, Inouye trails only West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd and the late South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond in career longevity.
The Associated Press
