A federal judge on Tuesday threw out a piracy charge against six Somalis in the April attack on the USS Ashland naval ship in the Gulf of Aden. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Raymond Jackson granted a motion by the defendants to dismiss the piracy charge. They still face other charges in the attack, in which one of their companions was killed. Jackson noted that the Somali attackers never attempted to board the Ashland. He ruled that the U.S. government failed to demonstrate that any attack on the high seas amounts to piracy.