RENO (AP) – A 50-year-old father of six has admitted that he asked an undercover detective to kill his wife who lives in Utah.

James Gau, of Reno, pleaded guilty in Washoe District Court to one count of solicitation to commit murder and faces 2-15 years in prison at his February sentencing. Deputy District Attorney Bruce Hahn said Gau remains free on bail following Friday’s court appearance.

Detectives said Gau told an officer posing as the hit man that he was gay and wanted to be with his new boyfriend. Detectives said Gau moved to Reno in the last several weeks after separating from his wife and telling her he wanted to live with his boyfriend.

For weeks, police said Gau tried to recruit people to kill his wife before meeting in July with the undercover officer and giving the officer a picture of his wife with their six children and her address.

Police said Gau promised to pay the detective a couple of thousand of dollars once his wife’s insurance policy paid out.

MOUNT LAUREL (AP) – A Princeton University student who argued that his conservative views were not accepted on the campus confessed to fabricating an assault and sending threatening e-mail messages to himself and some friends who shared his views, authorities said Monday.

Princeton Township police said that Francisco Nava, of Bedford, Texas, was not immediately charged with any crime, but that the investigation was continuing.

Nava claimed to have been assaulted Friday by two men off campus, police said. But he later confessed that scrapes and scratches on his face were self-inflicted, and that the threats were his work, too, said Detective Sgt. Ernie Silagyi.

A spokesperson for the Ivy League university said punishment, which could range from a warning to expulsion, was pending Monday.

``The university takes all matters related to the safety of its community members very seriously,’’ said spokesperson Lauren Robinson-Brown. ``It’s particularly concerning that a student would fabricate such matters.’’

Nava did not respond immediately to an e-mail from The Associated Press on Monday, and a phone listing for him could not be located.

Nava, a 23-year-old junior politics major, found himself at the center of one campus controversy recently when he wrote a column for the student newspaper criticizing the school for giving out free condoms, which he said encouraged a dangerous ``hook-up culture.’’

A short time later, Nava made his first report to the university public safety office that he was receiving threatening messages in his campus mailbox. A friend says Nava told him one message read, in capital letters: ``ONE MORE ARTICLE AND YOU WON’T LIVE TO SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY.’’

Other members of the Anscombe Society, a conservative student organization, who have spoken out against premarital sex and same-sex marriage, said they received similar threats. So did Robert George, a professor in the politics department.

Robinson-Brown would not say exactly how the university responded to the threats. But she said that, in general, when students are threatened they are given access to counselors, assured that the campus security force will take their calls right away and can be moved to new dorm rooms.

Another student wrote in the campus newspaper Friday that the threats Nava received did not get the same forceful response as anti-gay graffiti that appeared this semester outside the dorm rooms of some gay students.

Brandon McGinley called it a double standard, which made it seem OK to ``use intimidation tactics to silence the voices of morally conservative students.’’

But the threats, like the attack, are apparently a hoax.

``Everyone feels saddened, shocked and surprised to have been dragged along in this,’’ McGinley said. ``We’re all extremely concerned for (his) mental state.’’

McGinley said it was a surprise that Nava, who was a resident assistant in a dorm and a member of a campuswide committee on religious life, would be involved in such a hoax.

But he said that after the purported attack, Nava’s friends began comparing notes and found several inconsistencies he told them about threats and the attack. He said they told authorities about them.

FARMINGTON (AP) – The beating of a man in Farmington in September is being prosecuted as a hate crime.

The district attorney’s office filed notices in cases against Scott Thompson, 21, of Aztec; Jerry Paul, 40, of Shiprock; and Craig Yazzie, 37, of Dennehotso, Ariz., that it will seek a hate crime sentencing enhancement on charges initially filed in October. That could mean an additional year of prison time for each felony conviction.

``It was a gay-bashing kind of deal – that’s the way it reads to me,’’ Deputy District Attorney Brent Capshaw said.

Attorneys for the three men said the hate crime enhancement is unwarranted.

Matthew Shetima told police he was walking through an alley Sept. 22 when several men attacked and hit him, yelling derogatory comments. When he fell, they began kicking him, yelling, ``You want to die, faggot?’’ according to the police report.

Shetima said the men pulled him into a hotel room and continued to punch and kick him until he escaped.

Paul and Yazzie were charged with kidnapping and felony aggravated battery. Thompson is charged with kidnapping and misdemeanor aggravated battery.

Their attorneys contended the district attorney is using the hate crimes prosecution to sensationalize the case, and said the enhancement is unwarranted because the men did not go searching for a homosexual to attack.

``Here you don’t have this active aggression of young men looking to beat up a homosexual,’’ said Thompson’s attorney, Cosme Ripol.

``You have a homosexual continually advertising his homosexuality, and he’s coming around these guys and wanting to cry and share his pain and anguish over a failed relationship, over booze,’’ he said. ``That scenario doesn’t meet the standard the New Mexico Legislature intended when it passed the hate crimes statute.’’

GALVESTON (AP) – The opening of the first gay and lesbian visitor center is the latest indication that this historic Texas island city could become a tourism and residential hotspot for GLBT people, observers said.

Laura Villagran, publisher of The Gay and Lesbian Yellow Pages, opened the visitor center earlier this month near the heart of the city’s tourist district. The center adds to an expanding gay infrastructure, which also includes the Harbor Metropolitan Community Church, which opened last year and caters to gay worshippers, and the city’s first Pride festival in October.

A recent survey by Stephen Klineberg, a Rice University sociology professor and pollster, found the city of 57,000 to be the most liberal in the Houston region on the issue of same-sex marriage. Forty-five percent of Galveston participants said same-sex marriage should be given legal status, while that number was no higher than 33 percent among neighboring areas.

Tim Brookover, a Galveston native and editor of OutSmart magazine, said the city has long had a gay presence, “but people didn’t recognize it or talk openly about it.”

RICHMOND (AP) – A high school official made a mistake by telling a student to cover up a lesbian-themed T-shirt or face suspension, the school’s principal said Friday, a day after the ACLU demanded the school apologize to the teen.

Bethany Laccone, 17, said she was asked to cloak a logo of two interlocked female symbols while attending a class this month at I.C. Norcom High School in Portsmouth. She’s a full-time senior at nearby Woodrow Wilson High School, where she has not faced a similar ultimatum.

In a letter sent Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia asked Norcom administrators to remove any mention of the incident from Laccone’s records and agree not to similarly censor other students.

The school’s dress code prohibits ``bawdy, salacious or sexually suggestive messages.’’ ACLU leaders want administrators to clarify that students can express political views.

The ACLU gave the school until Jan. 11 to respond or possibly face further action.

``What’s happening to Bethany Laccone is a clear-cut case of unconstitutional censorship,’’ said Kent Willis, executive director of the Virginia chapter.

On Friday, Norcom principal Lynn Briley said the school would comply.

``Yes, we did make a mistake,’’ Briley told The Virginian-Pilot newspaper of Norfolk.

Briley agreed that Laccone had been censored, but said no note had been placed in her file. She said she would apologize to Laccone and try to meet the group’s other demands.

Laccone says she wore the bright red shirt earlier this month and was pulled aside by her teacher and asked not to wear it again. Afterward, she was allowed to return to class.

One week later, she returned to class wearing the shirt.

``It’s my favorite T-shirt,’’ said Laccone, who is a lesbian.

Laccone said her teacher asked her to cover her shirt by zipping her jacket; when she didn’t, she was escorted to the assistant principal’s office. Once there, Laccone said she was given a choice.

``I could either zip up my jacket, turn my shirt inside out, or get suspended,’’ said Laccone, who covered the shirt, but told her parents about the incident.

According to the ACLU, administrators later told Laccone’s father the shirt had upset a conservative instructor and interfered with her ability to teach.

In Thursday’s letter, they argue the T-shirt ``intended to convey a particularized, political message that lesbian identity should be celebrated and is a source of pride.’’

Laccone said she just wants to wear her shirt.

``I don’t feel like I should have to hide my sexuality,’’ she said.

She told the newspaper she hoped the victory would encourage other gay people to not fear wearing their pride on their sleeve, literally.

``I hope that some people won’t be scared to show who they are and can be proud of it,’’ Laccone said.