Los Angeles: Condit sees no reason not to seek re-election

Rep. Gary Condit deflected questions about missing intern Chandra Levy on Monday during an interview with CNN’s Larry King, and said there was no reason he shouldn’t seek re-election.

“I have a good 30 years of public service,” Condit told King. “There was just no reason for me to walk away from something I love to do, and that’s to be a public servant.”

Condit said reporters should focus on police trying to find out what happened to Levy, not on him.

Police sources have said Condit admitted having a romance with Levy, 24, but that he is not considered a suspect in her disappearance.

Condit is seen as an underdog in the March 5 Democratic primary.

Maryland: Crew members missing from sunken tugboat

A tugboat collided with a cargo ship in the fog and sank early Monday. Five crew members were rescued and four others were still missing when the U.S. coast guard called off the search at sunset.

The tug, called Swift, was one of two that had been towing a barge on the Elk River when it hit the larger, 520-foot ship about a half-mile offshore, authorities said.

The Swift sank within minutes off Port Herman. The barge, carrying dredging materials, was almost completely submerged by sunset.

The cargo ship, the A.V. Kastner, was carrying a load of gypsum rock. It sustained two holes about the size of a manhole above the waterline, said Coast Guard Ensign Steve Youde. None of its 26 crew members was injured.

Atlanta: Mentally ill inmate’s sentence commuted

After an outcry from advocates for the mentally ill, the Georgia parole board commuted the death sentence Monday of a killer who is said to be so delusional he thinks actress Sigourney Weaver is God.

Alexander Williams’ sentence was commuted to life in prison without parole just hours before a stay of execution was to expire at midnight.

Williams, 33, had been facing lethal injection for the 1986 murder of a 16-year-old girl.

Williams, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia after his trial, was 17 in 1986 when he raped and murdered Aleta Bunch. Williams kidnapped the girl from an Augusta shopping mall.

St. Louis: Police arrest one inmate who escaped from jail

Police arrested one of five inmates Monday who escaped from a jail by climbing through the ceiling of a shower stall and using a bedsheet to descend from a hole chiseled in the wall.

Larry D. Catchings, 34, was arrested without incident in the rural Mississippi town of Hazlehurst, police said. Authorities did not give further details on the arrest.

The other four escapees remained at large.