SACRAMENTO (AP) – An aide to the California National Guard’s top general was suspended Wednesday, pending an investigation into Internet postings in which he advocates mass violence and denigrates state officials, women, minorities and gays.

The guard placed Senior Airman Travis Gruber, 27, personal assistant to Maj. Gen. William Wade II, on paid administrative leave shortly after the Contra Costa Times raised questions about his Web site, Howtokillpeople.com.

Investigators will “look into the content of the Web site and make a determination into whether any of it is a violation of military law and regulations,” said guard spokesperson Lt. Col. Jon Siepmann, who confirmed that Gruber held his position for more than a year.

Despite its name, the Web site does not give instructions on how to kill people. Much of it contains social commentary, vulgar humor, sex jokes and photos of Gruber, including one of him pointing a gun at black people in tribal garb, according to the Times.

“I, honestly, would like nothing more than to assist in the wholesale slaughter of every idiot on the face of the planet,” Gruber, of Sacramento, allegedly wrote on the site.

Gruber’s job gave him access to the state’s leaders, such as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. In one posting, Gruber questioned the governor’s intelligence, and in another, he posted a fake Internet conversation in which he used profanity to describe Schwarzenegger.

Military law forbids soldiers from using “contemptuous words” about civilian leaders.

Gruber said Wednesday in a statement released through Siepmann that he is “sorry if I have misrepresented or left a black mark on the California Military Department. I was under the impression that I was writing anonymously.”

In the statement, he added that he does not “condone acts of violence or aggression.’’

WEST CHESTER (AP) – An attorney for a tow truck driver accused of drugging and sexually assaulting several men in Chester County told jurors his client is not a “monster.”

Mark Ethan McFall is accused of giving out medication and then molesting the unconscious or groggy men, often recording his acts. He is charged with rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual assault, unauthorized administration of an intoxicant and related counts.

McFall, 43, a former South Coatesville police officer, has said the encounters with the men were consensual. Defense attorney Justin J. McShane suggested Monday that the men may have contacted authorities because of grudges against his client.

“He’s a human being; he’s a man, and he’s bisexual,” McShane said in his opening statement. “None of those three is against the law.”

Chief Deputy District Attorney Robert L. Miller said testimony from each of three men allegedly assaulted in Chester County and a fourth who said he was molested during a trip to Brigantine, N.J., would “shine the light of sunshine on the acts of Mark McFall.”

WILKES-BARRE (AP) – Two men charged with killing a producer of gay pornographic movies had talked about wanting to lure his most popular performer to their rival company, a former roommate testified.

Justin Andrew Hainsley testified Monday in the first day of a preliminary hearing for Harlow Cuadra, 25, and Joseph Kerekes, 33. The hearing to determine whether they face trial in the January stabbing of Bryan Charles Kocis is scheduled to continue Thursday.

Hainsley said he had heard Kerekes and Cuadra talk about performer Sean Lockhart. They wanted to recruit him to work for their Web site, but Lockhart was under contract with Kocis’ company, they said. Hainsley said he had heard the two describe Kocis’ Cobra Video as their biggest competitor.

Dr. John Consalvo and Bill Lisman, Luzerne County coroners, said 28 or 29 stab wounds punctured Kocis’ lung, heart and groin area, his trachea and spine were slashed, and 80 percent of the body was charred by third-degree burns. Investigators said Kocis’ house was set on fire after he was killed.

BOSTON (AP) – Former Boston City Councilor David Scondras pleaded guilty on Tuesday to charges that he tried to lure someone he thought was a 15-year-old boy into meeting him for sex.

Scondras, 61, was sentenced in Lawrence District Court to 18 months of probation and ordered to register as a sex offender. In addition, he must not use the Internet during his probation and is not allowed to work with children under the age of 16.

Charges of assault and battery on a police officer, resisting arrest, larceny under $250, and providing liquor to a person under 21 were dismissed.

Scondras was arrested by police in the early morning hours on Monday, Oct. 9, in the parking lot of the Day Charter School in Lawrence. He thought he was meeting a 15-year-old boy that he had been exchanging instant messages with.

It turned out to be a 20-year-old man, who alerted police.

Scondras, a Harvard-educated tenant activist, was Boston’s first openly gay councilor when he was elected in 1983. He was voted out of office 10 years later.

CINCINNATI (AP) – A Hamilton County judge has put two women on probation and ordered them to do 200 hours of community service for falsifying election petitions. They were working last year for an unsuccessful effort to repeal Cincinnati’s gay rights ordinance.

Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman told Lois Mingo and Precilla Ward on Monday that cheating on election petitions is really robbing people of freedom.

They earlier pleaded guilty to election falsification. Both had been working for the group called Equal Rights Not Special Rights, which withdrew petitions for last fall’s ballot because some signatures collected were obvious phonies.

MARSHALL (AP) – A former inmate who lost his federal civil rights lawsuit against several Texas prison system officials over claims he was raped by fellow prisoners has been sentenced to 19 years in prison for robbery.

Roderick Keith Johnson, 39, was sentenced after pleading guilty Monday to robbing a service station in Marshall in February, said District Attorney Joe Black.

Authorities said he had given the clerk a note that read: “I have [a] 9 mm. Put the money in the bag.” Officers arrested him near the station and found a bag of money in his possession, police said.

In his civil suit filed in 2002, Johnson had sought unspecified damages against Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials at the Allred Unit near Wichita Falls, where he said prison gangs raped him almost daily during his 18 months there.

Johnson, who had been in prison for violating his probation terms on a burglary conviction, said he was targeted by inmates because he is gay.

In 2004, a Wichita Falls grand jury declined to indict 49 prisoners Johnson had accused of sexually assaulting him.

Before the suit went to trial, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans dropped eight of the original 15 defendants in the case.

After a month-long trial in 2005 in Wichita Falls, jurors found that the six prison officials were not liable in violating his constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment by ignoring his pleas for protection from inmate rapes. One official had been dropped from the suit during the trial.

Johnson, who returned to his native Harrison County after his release from prison, previously said that he had started a program in Austin for former inmates to re-enter society and wanted to create the same program in East Texas.

CHARLESTON (AP) – Leaders of the ACLU’s West Virginia chapter say Charleston is just the first step in their campaign to ban discrimination in employment and housing on the basis of sexual orientation.

Charleston’s City Council voted Monday night to add gays and lesbians to the city’s human rights ordinance. The ordinance already bars discrimination in employment and housing on the basis of race, color, creed, national origin, sex, age or physical disability. West Virginia ACLU Director Andrew Schneider said Charleston is the first government in West Virginia to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Schneider said the ACLU will lobby other cities to take similar action, and he believes the campaign will be successful.

“It’s definitely one of our issues. We’re certainly about making WestVirginia a place that both upholds and advances civil liberties for everyone,” Schneider said Tuesday. “A majority of Americans agree: We have a right to earn a living and support our families, regardless of our sexual orientation.”

He said the ACLU also will continue to lobby the Legislature to enact a statewide ban. Such a measure died in committee during this year’s regular session.