360 News Briefs

Senate Approves Jobless Aid, Road Funding

The Senate on Tuesday passed a $10 billion measure to maintain unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and provide stopgap funding for highway programs after a holdout Republican dropped stalling tactics that had generated a Washington firestorm.

The bill passed by a 78-19 vote. It passed the House last week and President Obama is likely sign the bill into law quickly so that 2,000 furloughed Transportation Department workers can go back to work on Wednesday.

Doctors faced the prospect of a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments, and federal flood insurance programs had lapsed with Monday's expiration of an earlier stopgap bill that passed late last year. Tuesday's action will provide a monthlong extension of the expired programs to give Congress time to pass a yearlong - and far more costly - fix that's also pending.

Without the legislation, about 200,000 jobless people would have lost federal benefits this week alone, according to the liberal-leaning National Employment Law Project. Jobless people normally get 26 weeks of unemployment benefits and 20 more weeks in states with higher unemployment rates. The legislation extends several additional layers of benefits added since 2008 because of the stubborn recession.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has called up a $100-billion-plus measure to provide a longer-term extension of unemployment benefits that would last through the end of the year, along with a full-year extension of higher Medicare payments to doctors, help for states with their Medicaid budgets and a continuing a variety of expired tax breaks for individuals and businesses.

Missing California Teen's Body Believed Found

A body found in a shallow grave Tuesday is believed to be that of 17-year-old Chelsea King, whose disappearance last week led to the arrest of a registered sex offender, authorities said.

The remains were found buried in a park about 10 feet from the shoreline of a tributary to Lake Hodges, San Diego County Sheriff William Gore said.

"While the body has not been positively identified, there is a strong likelihood that we have found Chelsea," he told reporters. Gore said he had informed the teen's parents.

"Obviously they are devastated and I ask that you respect their privacy during this extremely difficult time," he said.

The body was spotted at 1 p.m. by search divers working their way up the tributary just south of the lake. Gore said it was in an area that had been searched extensively since King vanished on Thursday and was not far from where a piece of evidence - a shoe - had been discovered previously.

Police, meanwhile, said the registered sex offender suspected in King's disappearance likely assaulted a jogger in December in the same park. The 22-year-old Colorado woman managed to fend off her attacker on Dec. 27 in Rancho Bernardo Community Park on the northern edge of San Diego, where King's 1994 BMW was found with her belongings inside, police Capt. Jim Collins said.

Police said evidence has linked 30-year-old John Albert Gardner III to both cases but further details have not been released. Collins, however, said a swab taken from the elbow of the Colorado woman did not match Gardner's DNA. Gardner is now in custody without bail for investigation of murder and rape in the King case.

Gardner of Lake Elsinore pleaded guilty in May 2000 to molesting a 13-year-old female neighbor. Prosecutors said he lured the victim to his home with an offer to watch "Patch Adams," a 1998 movie starring Robin Williams

The girl was beaten before escaping and running to a neighbor.

Gardner served five years in prison after prosecutors rejected a psychiatrist's advice to seek stiffer punishment, court documents state. Prosecutors said in 2000 that Gardner's lack of a significant prior criminal record justified less than the maximum sentence. They also said they wanted to "spare the victim the trauma of testifying." Gardner had faced a maximum of nearly 11 years in prison under terms of his plea agreement. Prosecutors urged six years - the sentence later ordered by a judge.

In their 11-page sentencing memo, prosecutors said Gardner "never expressed one scintilla of remorse for his attack upon the victim" despite overwhelming evidence. Psychiatrist Dr. Matthew Carroll wrote in sentencing documents, "There is no known treatment for an individual that sexually assaults girls and does not admit to it in any way."

Paul Pfingst, the San Diego County district attorney in 2000, said he had no memory of the case but added a six-year sentence was not unusual for someone with no significant prior criminal record.

Post Office: Cut Losses By Cutting Saturday

The post office is renewing its drive to drop Saturday delivery - and plans a rate increase -- in an effort to fend off a projected $7 billion loss this year. Without drastic action the agency could face a cumulative loss of $238 billion over 10 years, Postmaster General John Potter said in releasing a series of consultant reports on agency operations and its outlook.

Frederic V. Rolando, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, also urged Congress to provide the post office with "financial breathing room," but he opposed eliminating one day of delivery.

As Americans turn more and more from paper to electronic communications, the number of items handled by the post office fell from 213 billion in 2006 to 177 billion last year. Volume is expected to shrink to 150 billion by 2020. At the same time, the type of material sent is shifting from first-class mail to the less lucrative standard mail, such as advertising. And as people set up new homes and businesses, the number of places mail must be delivered is constantly increasing.

The agency has asked Congress for permission to reduce delivery days and has previously discussed the need for other changes such as closing some offices. Cutting back Saturday home delivery, however, does not mean post offices would close that day.

There seemed to be concern on the part of Congress that officials had not looked at all possible options, Potter said, adding that was part of the reason for the three consultant studies.

Potter said he would like to see mail delivery cut to five days a week starting next year. Later this month, he said, the Postal Service will ask the independent Postal Regulatory Commission to review its plans for the service reduction. Under the law, the agency is not supposed to raise rates more than the amount of inflation, but there is a loophole allowing for higher increases in extraordinary situations such as the current recession and drop in mail volume.

He said the USPS's governing board is engaged in lively discussions of rate increases, though he declined to speculate on a new price. Currently, first-class stamps cost 44 cents. Rates for other classes vary. A proposal before the Postal Regulatory Commission has estimated that increases of 3 percent this year and 10 percent next year would be needed to get the agency back to break-even.

Man Allegedly Calls 911 200+ Times In Days

Maybe he was bored. Maybe he just likes prank phone calls. But for some reason, a Florida man allegedly called 911 more than 200 times in a recent 3-day span. Highlands County sheriff's deputies said Timothy Todd Lawrence spoke only to female dispatchers, and made sexually explicit remarks to one of them. He told dispatchers he did not need emergency assistance.

Lawrence allegedly made 151 calls on Feb. 13 between 2 a.m. and 10:52 a.m. alone. He continued the calls over the next few days. The 31-year-old Avon Park man was arrested Thursday. It was unclear if he had legal representation.

Woman Walking Dog Falls 200 Feet

A woman walking her dog fell 200 feet down the Panorama Bluffs late Monday afternoon, KERO-TV in Bakersfield reported.

When rescue crews arrived shortly after 7:30 p.m., it took them quite some time to locate the woman, Ross Kelly, Bakersfield Fire Department battalion chief, said. Crews then rappelled down the mountain and were able to rescue the woman. Crews discovered that she had been down there for three to four hours.

Fire crews said the woman had suffered some type of leg injury in the fall but was in stable condition. Kelly said that it took 54 minutes to bring the woman back up to the top of the bluffs. The dog she was walking did not fall with her but apparently ran off.

AP; San Diego County Sheriff's Dept.; Reuters; Highlands Today, http://highlandstoday.com; KERO-TV