A Northern California man accused of sending threatening e-mails to President Barack Obama and other officials has pleaded not guilty to federal charges.

Federal authorities say 59-year-old John Gimbel of Crescent City sent a new batch of messages on Sept. 28 after previously being warned to stop. Authorities say the e-mails contained racist, profane language and included threats to the first lady.

Gimbel was arrested Oct. 6 by the U.S. Secret Service and was indicted before Obama appeared in San Francisco on Thursday for a fundraiser.

Randall Davis, Gimbel's former attorney, says Gimbel argues he was exercising his free speech rights.

On Monday, a federal public defender was appointed to the case, which has been transferred to San Francisco.

The former Yale lab technician charged with killing a graduate student last month is scheduled to appear in a Connecticut courtroom.

Raymond Clark III is due in New Haven Superior Court on Tuesday. His lawyer says he will plead not guilty after deciding whether waive his right to a probable cause hearing.

Police say Clark strangled the 24-year-old Annie Le (LAY') and hid her body behind a wall in the laboratory building where they both worked. Authorities have not released a motive.

People charged with murder in Connecticut have the right to a probable cause hearing, in which both sides can introduce evidence and call witnesses. A judge then decides whether the case can move to trial.

Le's body was found on what was to be her wedding day.

A cadre of murderers and rapists, several of whom victimized young girls, will be set free from North Carolina prisons this month after state courts agreed that a decades-old law defined life sentences as only 80 years long.

Dozens more inmates could be released in the coming months unless the state can figure out a legal recourse to keep them behind bars, officials said Thursday. Gov. Beverly Perdue called them "dangerous criminals" who have repeatedly been denied parole.

"I'm appalled that the state of North Carolina is being forced to release prisoners who have committed the most heinous of crimes, without any review of their cases," Perdue said in a statement.

One of the 20 inmates set for release, Bobby Bowden, had argued that a law adopted in 1974 clearly defined life sentences as just 80 years. The 60-year-old convicted murderer believed that the statute, combined with good conduct credits, means his life sentence is now complete.

The Court of Appeals sided with Bowden last year. North Carolina's Supreme Court rejected an appeal from the state earlier this month after a lawyer from the attorney general's office had argued that the 80-year figure was ambiguous and likely meant to determine when somebody would be eligible for parole.

Washington's secretary of state can release the names and addresses of people who signed petitions calling for a public vote on the state's expanded benefits for domestic partners, a federal appeals court said Thursday.

A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a previous decision by U.S. District Judge Ben Settle in Tacoma to block release of the petitions.

Settle held that releasing the names could chill the First Amendment rights of petition signers.

Stephen Pidgeon, an attorney for the petition sponsors, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Despite the appeals court ruling, the names weren't immediately released.

Janelle Guthrie, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Rob McKenna, said her office must now ask a Thurston County judge to lift a temporary restraining order issued Wednesday forbidding the release of the petitions until the 9th Circuit could rule.

Homeowners and businesses resisting the forced sales of their properties for a massive development in Brooklyn have told New York's top court it's unconstitutional for a state agency to order them out.

In oral arguments Wednesday at the Court of Appeals, a lawyer for owners and tenants says Bruce Ratner's proposed $4.9 billion, 22-acre Atlantic Yards project mainly enriches private interests. Ratner is the New Jersey Nets' principal owner and wants to build a new arena for the team, plus office towers and apartments.

The Empire State Development Corp. says the area was blighted, and the project is a legitimate government use of eminent domain to take property for public purposes.

Lower courts have upheld the project. A ruling is expected next month.

A fugitive who avoided prosecution for more than four decades after hijacking a 1968 Pan American flight to Cuba pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges including kidnapping and aircraft piracy.

Luis Armando Pena Soltren, 66, appeared in Manhattan federal court on charges stemming from his involvement in the hijacking of the flight that left John F. Kennedy International Airport bound for Puerto Rico on Nov. 24, 1968.

Soltren said "not guilty," through a Spanish translator when asked by a federal magistrate judge how he pleaded to the 1968 indictment.

He will be held in jail pending a bail application and his lawyer, James Neuman, told the judge Soltren did not need medical attention.

Soltren, a U.S. citizen who lived in Cuba for 41 years, surrendered to authorities at JFK airport on Sunday, knowing he would be arrested, according to authorities.

Neuman told reporters outside the courtroom he could not yet explain why Soltren had voluntarily come back to the United States.