Washington, D.C.: High court deadlocks in Agent Orange case

The Supreme Court kept alive hopes of cancer-stricken Vietnam veterans who want to recover damages for Agent Orange exposure, deadlocking Monday in a case that has implications for anyone who misses out on a settlement of a class-action lawsuit.

Businesses had anxiously awaited a clear-cut decision from the court on when — or how — old class-action settlements can be reopened.

Instead, justices deadlocked 4-4 on a case involving two veterans who blame Agent Orange for their cancer, but got sick too late to claim a piece of the $180 million settlement with makers of the chemical in 1984. The nondecision allows veterans to pursue lawsuits claiming they were wrongfully shut out of the settlement.

The ninth court member, Justice John Paul Stevens, did not give a reason for recusing himself, but his only son was a Vietnam veteran who apparently suffered from cancer before his death in 1996.

California: Police arrest suspect in girl’s abduction

The man police arrested Monday in the brazen kidnapping of a 9-year-old girl sexually assaulted her and held the girl in a house about a mile from the abduction, police said.

Police took David Montiel Cruz, 24, into custody in a pre-dawn raid at the home of a friend. He was arrested less than a mile from where he allegedly kidnapped Jennette Tamayo after brutally beating her mother and brother.

The girl turned up at a convenience store several cities away, shaken but safe, and helped lead police to her alleged abductor.

Cruz was being booked on suspicion of kidnapping, burglary, robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and sexual assault, Wheatley said. He is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday.

Florida: Furious currents lead to six drownings

Six people have died in two days off the coast of Florida’s panhandle.

Of the five people who drowned Sunday, one victim was former CNN bureau chief Larry LaMotte. His friend Ken Brindley, of Conway, Ark., nearly drowned when he went into the water to try to help LaMotte.

Brindley was in critical condition Monday, one of four swimmers who remained hospitalized after encountering treacherous riptides during a day of uncommon danger along the Florida Panhandle. Nearly 40 other people were rescued along a 30-mile stretch of beach in two counties Sunday.

A sixth person, David Dotson, 66, of Milton, drowned Monday in the waters off Pensacola beach.

All six drownings took place in an approximately 40-mile stretch of shoreline.

Pennsylvania: More human remains found in back yard

Three additional sets of human remains have been unearthed from the back yard where the bodies of a missing pharmacist and his girlfriend were discovered last week, officials said Monday.

The additional bone fragments were discovered behind a home in Kingston Township, about 110 miles north of Philadelphia, while authorities unearthed the bodies of pharmacist Michael Jason Kerkowski Jr., 37, and Tammy Fassett, 37.

The coroner said both were strangled and classified their deaths as homicides.

State police continued to search for remains at the home of Hugo Selenski, who was described in an arrest affidavit as Kerkowski’s best friend.

Selenski was arrested Thursday, the same day police found the bodies of Kerkowski and Fassett, for allegedly threatening and robbing Kerkowski’s father.