Metro Briefs

MARYLAND

ANNAPOLIS

PG speed cameras get Senate approval

The state Senate yesterday approved a measure allowing speed-monitoring cameras in Prince George’s County, where eight people were killed at an illegal drag race in February.

The bill would allow speed cameras at up to 10 locations on highways with speed limits from 45 to 55 mph. Additional cameras could be used on county roads with speed limits under 45 mph. They would not be used on the Capital Beltway, nor on Routes 50 or 301.

The bill was approved on a 25-20 vote and now heads to the House of Delegates.

ANNAPOLIS

House joins Senate in OK’ing DNA bill

A proposal to take genetic material from people charged with certain crimes cleared the legislature yesterday after weeks of debate.

The House voted 130-7 to expand Maryland’s DNA database to include some people who haven’t been convicted of a crime. Currently, only convicted people must submit samples.

The bill has passed the Senate, though the two chambers must settle differences before sending a final bill to Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley, who proposed the plan.

BALTIMORE

Father denied bail; suicide risk cited

A judge yesterday ordered a Montgomery County father held without bail after he told police he drowned his three young children in a hotel bathtub.

District Court Judge Nathan Braverman also ordered Mark Castillo of Rockville to be evaluated for suicide risk.

Mr. Castillo is charged with murder in the drowning deaths of his children — ages 6, 4 and 2 — hours before he was to return them to their mother Saturday evening.

HYATTSVILLE

Boy, 12, kills man attacking his mother

A 12-year-old boy fatally stabbed a man who was attacking his mother, county police said.

Officers were called to a home at 8:25 p.m. Monday and found Salomon Noubissie, 64, with a stab wound to the upper body. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Police say the 12-year-old stabbed Mr. Noubissie when he saw him choking his mother. Police said the initial assault was domestic in nature. Mr. Noubissie and the boy’s mother lived in the home.

VIRGINIA

RICHMOND

Execution stayed for cop killer

Gov. Tim Kaine stayed the execution of a man who killed a police officer until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on lethal injections.

Mr. Kaine yesterday delayed Edward Nathaniel Bell’s execution, scheduled for Tuesday, until July 24.

It is the second Virginia execution and one of 30 nationally delayed by the Supreme Court’s deliberations over whether lethal injection is constitutional as a means of execution.

Bell, 43, was convicted in 2001 in the fatal shooting of Winchester police Sgt. Ricky Timbrook in October 1999.

Mr. Kaine, a Democrat who has allowed executions to be conducted despite personal objections to the death penalty, also said he will stay other executions due before the Supreme Court’s ruling.

RICHMOND

Judge voids ad ban for alcohol at colleges

A federal judge overturned Virginia’s decades-old ban on alcohol-related advertising in college newspapers, saying the law violates the student publications’ constitutional right to free speech.

U.S. Magistrate Judge M. Hannah Lauck on Monday sided with the student newspapers at the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech, which said the restrictions on alcohol references — including phrases such as “happy hour” — in print and online hampered their ability to make money because they had to turn down potential advertisers.

The Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control’s rules were adopted to curb underage student drinking. Judge Lauck said that while reducing underage drinking and abuse of alcohol is in the government’s interest, the ABC’s experts failed to show that the ad ban reduced such behavior.

From wire dispatches and staff reports