Two cops, suspect dead in Calif. shootings

Updated 1:50 a.m. EST

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. Two police officers were shot and killed Tuesday while investigating a sexual assault, and a suspect was also fatally shot, authorities said.

Santa Cruz police Chief Kevin Vogel says Sgt. Loren Butch Baker and Detective Elizabeth Butler were gunned down in mid-afternoon Tuesday as they followed up on a sexual assault investigation. He says Baker was a 28-year veteran of the department and Butler had been with the department 10 years. Vogel says Baker was married and the father of two daughters, while Butler leaves behind two young sons.

A suspect, identified as 35-year-old Jeremy Goulet, was shot and killed a short time later while authorities were pursuing the gunman, the Santa Cruz County sheriff's office said.

Residents on the adjoining streets where the shootings occurred received an automatic police call warning them to stay locked inside. About half an hour later, more than a dozen semi-automatic shots echoed down the streets in a brief shootout that killed the suspect.

Witnesses described hearing a "multitude of gunfire" - with 20 or more shots fired during that gun battle between the suspect and law enforcement, reports CBS San Francisco station station KPIX-TV.

Police were going door-to-door in the neighborhood, searching homes, garages, even closets, although the sheriff said authorities didn't know if another suspect remained at large.

Police, sheriff's deputies and FBI agents filled intersections, some with guns drawn, in what is ordinarily a quiet, residential neighborhood in the community about 60 miles south of San Francisco.

A store clerk a few buildings away from the shooting said the barrage of gunfire was "terrifying."

"We ducked. We have big desks, so under the desks we went," said the clerk, who spoke on condition of anonymity and asked that her store not be identified because she feared for her safety.

She said she remained locked in her store hours after the shooting and was still scared.

Two schools were locked down during the shooting. The students were later evacuated by bus to the County Government Center about half a mile away.

As darkness fell, helicopters and light aircraft patrolled above the neighborhood, which is about a mile from downtown Santa Cruz and the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. The campus of University of California, Santa Cruz, is about five miles away.

The city's mayor, Hilary Bryant, said in a statement that the city was shocked over the shootings.

"Tonight we are heartbroken at the loss of two of our finest police officers who were killed in the line of duty, protecting the community we love," the statement said. "This is an exceptionally shocking and sad day for Santa Cruz and our Police Department."

Santa Cruz has faced a recent spate of violence, and community leaders had scheduled a downtown rally Tuesday to speak out against shootings. That and a city council meeting were canceled after teary-eyed city leaders learned of the deaths.

Those shootings include the killing of Pauly Silva, a 32-year-old martial arts instructor who was shot outside a popular downtown bar and restaurant on Feb. 9.

Two days later, a UC Santa Cruz student waiting at a bus stop was shot in the head during a robbery. She is recovering from her injuries.

Then on Feb. 17, a 21-year-old woman was raped and beaten on the UC Santa Cruz campus. Four days later, a Santa Cruz couple fought off two men who came in their home before dawn and threatened them with a sword.

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Inside Organized Retail Crime Raids

We used to call it shoplifting, but these days the foot soldiers of retail crime rings are known as boosters. Police even have an acronym for these operations: ORC, which stands for Organized Retail Crime.

"It's just like a Fortune 500 company," said Sergeant Eric Lee of the Gardena Police Department in Gardena, Calif. "All of this is just organized."

Watch the full story on "Nightline" TONIGHT at 12:35 a.m. ET

Police say big retail stores, from Walgreens to J.C. Penny, are getting hit by highly sophisticated shoplifting networks that steal and resell everything from underwear to razors to milk. According to the National Retail Federation, theft can amount to annual losses as high as a $37 billion for retail businesses.

"Every store in every city has to go through this," Lee said. "They wait until no one's paying attention and they walk out."

Tide detergent is currently a hot target because it is compact, expensive and easy to sell on the streets for profit, police said. The Street name: "liquid gold."

"Sometimes we get rings that just do alcohol," Lee said. "And then we get some that do just meat and seafood."

Investigators say boosters move the loot for cents on the dollar to fencing operations -- the black market resellers of the stolen goods -- which sell the stolen merchandise in plain sight in stores. Boosters, fencers, Mr. Bigs, all of those involved in these shoplifting operations can potentially make millions a year from boosting and re-selling stolen goods.

Craigslist Crackdown: Cops Go After Thieves Watch Video

And Mike Swett is on the case. A former Riverside County sheriff's deputy in Los Angeles, Swett was badly injured in a car wreck and now works as a full-time private investigator on the ORC beat who has worked with Target, Marshalls, T.J. Maxx. Stores hire him to do his own undercover police work, catching thieves before involving local law enforcement.

"Kind of like working a narcotics case, it's like you've got low-level, mid-level and then top dog," Swett said. "We like to go after the top dog and the only way to get to the top dog is mid-level first."

At his command center -- his apartment -- Swett showed off the boxes upon boxes of tapes and photographs he has collected, the fruits of countless silent stake-out hours.

Swett said he has been casing two joints in L.A. for months, both alleged to be mid-level fencing operations. "Nightline" was invited to ride along with him when he sent undercover agents in for a final reconnaissance mission.

At some stores and shopping malls, clerks do little to stop shoplifters and often let them run, which has contributed to the growing fencing operations.

"[The stores] don't want their employees to get injured," Swett said. "So oftentimes they will call the police, but by the time we get there they are already in their car and they are gone."

This leaves professional investigators like Swett to put the pieces together and bust open the gangs to lead over-stretched police departments to the prey.

When raid day arrived, a motorcade of squad cars departed from the Gardena, Calif., police department and pulled up to one fencing operation. Swett said the merchandise being sold was boosted goods.

"There is Victoria's Secret, expensive Victoria's Secret, the gift sets," he said, pointing down a line of tables. "J.C. Penny, Miramax, its real stuff not counterfeit."

He spotted a bottle of Katy Perry brand perfume, which usually retails for around $90 but one seller had it priced at $59.

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SDP to address Budget 2013 "shortcomings" in its own "Shadow Budget"

SINGAPORE: The opposition Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) said it'll address the "shortcomings" of the government's Budget 2013 and propose a more efficient way of prioritising Singapore's expenditure estimates in its own "Shadow Budget".

The party said on Tuesday that the measures in Budget 2013 have failed to address Singapore's long-term needs.

It said while the Budget attempts to address systemic problems, it still falls short of addressing what Singapore really needs.

The SDP welcomes Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam's effort to tackle the problem of income disparity through the Wage Credit Scheme (WCS).

However, it felt that the WCS will not be an effective remedy if the root cause of the income gap is not addressed.

The root cause, the SDP said,, is the continued downward pressure on wages brought about by the importation of lower-wage foreign labour.

The SDP welcomed the move to raise the foreign worker levy for 2014 and 2015 but urged the government to rethink its policy of importing more foreign workers and to introduce minimum wage.

Turning to healthcare, the SDP said it's heartening to note that the Budget will increase funding of Eldercare, a programme which it supports.

However, it wants the 3M-system of Medisave, Medishield and Medifund replaced by a single-payer system, as well as government healthcare expenditure raised from the current 30 per cent to the international norm of about 70 per cent.

- CNA/ck

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Senate Republican: Pentagon overstating forced cuts

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said the overall amount of defense spending will actually still rise despite the cuts.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Texas senator believes cuts may not be as bad for defense as the Pentagon says


• John Cornyn could face criticism from fellow Republicans with GOP strong on defense


• Pentagon would absorb half of the automatic, government-wide spending cuts


• Cuts due to take effect on Friday absent congressional action to avert them

Washington (CNN) -- Anticipating possible political backlash if forced federal spending cuts kick in as expected later this week, the Senate's No. 2 Republican said Monday that he is preparing a message he plans to hit hard: The cuts are not going to have as negative an impact as the Pentagon and others in the Obama administration are saying.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said he plans to make the case to other Republicans and the public that despite warnings from the Pentagon that the mandated cuts will be devastating, the overall amount of defense spending will actually still rise.

Cornyn conceded that until now he had been parroting what Defense Secretary Leon Panetta continuously warns -- that automatic, government-wide cuts could jeopardize national security.

But the veteran senator said he looked into it and will now argue that even if the cuts go through on March 1, the Pentagon will still see its budget go up.

Cornyn's preview of what he hopes will be a Senate GOP argument is significant since defense cuts are usually something Republicans adamantly oppose. He will surely run up against some in his party who strongly disagree.

To be sure, Cornyn called himself a defense "hawk" and did say the role of the federal government should be first and foremost to protect American citizens.

But he also believes that the deficit should be paramount since the United States has ended its fighting in Iraq and is winding down the war in Afghanistan.

He added that if "God forbid" another 9/11 happens, Congress would act.

Still, Senate Republicans are considering a proposal this week that could alleviate some impacts of the cuts by giving the president flexibility to decide where they would occur.

However, GOP sources tell CNN that Republicans have not yet worked out among themselves whether their measure would give the president that flexibility on all domestic agencies and programs or just on defense.

GOP sources say they are likely to work that out when Senate Republicans huddle for their regular lunch on Tuesday.

The $85 billion in forced spending cuts were written into law intentionally to be indiscriminate.

The law does not allow, for example, the Pentagon to keep funding going for a ship building program by shifting money being spent on a military golf course. And it does not allow the Health and Human Services Department to keep children in Head Start programs by cutting deeper in another agency.

Part of the reason Senate GOP leaders have not decided yet how broad that flexibility should be -- whether it should apply just to the defense cuts, as many Republicans want, or to domestic cuts as well — is due to differences in opinion among Republicans over how much power to give the president.

But it is a key decision, since granting the president flexibility in cuts across the board could make it hard for conservative Democrats, such as those from defense industry-rich Virginia, to oppose.

That's because such an approach could soften the political burden for those Democrats who would be able to argue to their constituents they did everything possible -- including providing flexibility to the White House -- if economic damage ripples through their states.

But one influential Republican senator told CNN on Sunday that he opposes giving the president so much flexibility because it undermines the decision-making authority of Congress.

"I say to my Republican friends, if you want to give the president flexibility as to how to exact these cuts in defense spending, then why don't we go home and just give him the money? I am totally opposed to that," Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said on CNN's "State of the Union." "We spent too long on defense authorization and finding out what this country needs to secure this country without saying, 'Hey, well we'll just let the president have the, quote, flexibility.'"

A competing Senate Democratic proposal would replace the automatic spending cuts with a mix of tax increases on wealthier Americans and more targeted spending reductions than those currently required. Democratic leaders believe it will get more than 50 votes -- so they will be able to claim it won a majority in the chamber -- but will fall short of the 60 it would need to win Senate approval.

In the meantime, both sides are preparing for no change -- and for forced spending cuts to take effect Friday.

Democratic leadership sources admit that whether or not they can ultimately do anything to change the way across-the-board cuts are enacted will depend on the level of public outcry -- and media coverage.

Democrats admit the impact may not be felt for at least a month, maybe more.

Assuming no legislation is passed to alter the cuts this week, sources in both parties say they are already looking ahead to the next big deadline on March 27, when the funding for the government runs out.

A Democratic congressional source tells CNN that at this point, Democrats do not believe the White House wants to use that debate to revisit forced spending cuts, but the source said that could change depending on public reaction to the cuts.

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Gaza militants fire rocket into Israel, police there say

JERUSALEM Israeli police say a rocket has been fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel. A police spokesman says there was damage to a road but no injuries.

It's the first such rocket from the Palestinian territory to land in Israel since Israeli-Gaza fighting last November.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld says the remains of a rocket were found on Tuesday near the city of Ashkelon, in southern Israel.

There have been protests throughout the West Bank in recent days in support of Palestinians held in Israeli jails. This weekend, Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradat, 30, died under disputed circumstances, prompting more protests.

A statement from the Palestinian president's office says President Mahmoud Abbas has instructed Palestinian security officials to preserve order in the West Bank, but he blames Israel for the violence.

Thousands attended Jaradat's funeral procession in the West Bank of Hebron, Monday.

Palestinian officials say autopsy results show Jaradat was tortured by Israeli interrogators, while Israeli officials say there's no conclusive cause of death yet and that more tests are needed.

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Americans Targeted for Allegedly Running Underage Prostitution in Philippines

Arthur Benjamin is sitting at the edge of a small stage, wearing a lavender Hawaiian shirt and nursing a bottle of San Miguel Light beer. The 6-foot-6 mustachioed Texan lazily watches the half dozen or so girls dancing rather unenergetically around the stage's pole.

"I forgot your gift again, it's in the car," Benjamin says to one of the girls on stage, shouting above the pop music blaring from the speaker system.

The small, dingy bar, which Benjamin says he owns, is called Crow Bar. It's in a rundown part of the picturesque Subic Bay in the western Philippines, about a three hour drive from the capital, Manila. Home for 50 years to a United States naval base, Subic Bay has become synonymous with foreigners looking for sex in the long string of bars that line the main road along the coast.

Watch the full story on "Nightline" TONIGHT at 12:35 a.m. ET

The bars in this area are often packed with older foreign men ogling the young Filipina women available for the night for a "bar fine" of around 1,500 Filipino pesos, or just over $35. Many of the bars are owned and operated by Americans, often former military servicemen who either served on the base or whose ships docked here until the base was shuttered under political pressure in 1992.

Most of the prostitutes working in the bars are indeed 18 or older. But in the Philippines, just a small scratch to the surface can reveal a layer of young, underage girls who have mostly come from impoverished rural provinces to sell their bodies to help support their families.

Benjamin, 49, is, according to his own statements, one of the countless foreigners who has moved beyond just having sex with underage girls to owning and operating a bar where girls in scantily-clad outfits flaunt their bodies for patrons.

"My wife recently found out that I have this place," he tells an ABC News "Nightline" team, unaware they are journalists and recording the conversation on tiny hidden cameras disguised as shirt buttons.

Benjamin said that a "disgruntled waitress" had written his wife on Facebook, detailing his activities in Subic Bay.

"She sent her this thing saying that I have underage girls who stayed with me, that I [have anal sex with them], I own a bar, I've got other girls that I'm putting through high school, all this other crap," he said.

"All of which is true," he laughed. "However, I have to deny."

He sends a text message summoning his current girlfriend, a petite dark-skinned girl called Jade, who he said is just 16 years old. Benjamin says he bought the bar for her about a year ago and while most still call it Crow Bar, he officially re-named it with her last name.

"She needed a place to stay, I needed a place to do her. I bought a bar for her," he says, explaining that she lives in a house out back by the beach.

"You're not going to find anything like this in the States, not as a guy my age," he said as he looked down at Jade. "Ain't going to happen."

Benjamin is the latest target of Father Shay Cullen, a Catholic priest with a thick Irish brogue and fluency in the local language, Tagalog. Through his non-profit center called Preda, he's been crusading against underage sex trafficking in the Philippines for 40 years.

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Vatican 'Gay lobby'? Probably not

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Benedict XVI not stepping down under pressure from 'gay lobby,' Allen says


• Allen: Benedict is a man who prefers the life of the mind to the nuts and bolts of government


• However, he says, much of the pope's time has been spent putting out fires

Editor's note: John L. Allen Jr. is CNN's senior Vatican analyst and senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter.

(CNN) -- Suffice it to say that of all possible storylines to emerge, heading into the election of a new pope, sensational charges of a shadowy "gay lobby" (possibly linked to blackmail), whose occult influence may have been behind the resignation of Benedict XVI, would be right at the bottom of the Vatican's wish list.

Proof of the Vatican's irritation came with a blistering statement Saturday complaining of "unverified, unverifiable or completely false news stories," even suggesting the media is trying to influence the papal election.

Two basic questions have to be asked about all this. First, is there really a secret dossier about a network of people inside the Vatican who are linked by their sexual orientation, as Italian newspaper reports have alleged? Second, is this really why Benedict XVI quit?

John L. Allen Jr.

The best answers, respectively, are "maybe" and "probably not."

It's a matter of record that at the peak of last year's massive Vatican leaks crisis, Benedict XVI created a commission of three cardinals to investigate the leaks. They submitted an eyes-only report to the pope in mid-December, which has not been made public.

It's impossible to confirm whether that report looked into the possibility that people protecting secrets about their sex lives were involved with the leaks, but frankly, it would be surprising if it didn't.

There are certainly compelling reasons to consider the hypothesis. In 2007, a Vatican official was caught by an Italian TV network on hidden camera arranging a date through a gay-oriented chat room, and then taking the young man back to his Vatican apartment. In 2010, a papal ceremonial officer was caught on a wiretap arranging liaisons through a Nigerian member of a Vatican choir. Both episodes played out in full public view, and gave the Vatican a black eye.

Pope Benedict XVI

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In that context, it would be a little odd if the cardinals didn't at least consider the possibility that insiders leading a double life might be vulnerable to pressure to betray the pope's confidence. That would apply not just to sex, but also potential conflicts of other sorts too, such as financial interests.

Vatican officials have said Benedict may authorize giving the report to the 116 cardinals who will elect his successor, so they can factor it into their deliberations. The most immediate fallout is that the affair is likely to strengthen the conviction among many cardinals that the next pope has to lead a serious house-cleaning inside the Vatican's bureaucracy.

It seems a stretch, however, to suggest this is the real reason Benedict is leaving. For the most part, one should probably take the pope at his word, that old age and fatigue are the motives for his decision.

That said, it's hard not to suspect that the meltdowns and controversies that have dogged Benedict XVI for the last eight years are in the background of why he's so tired. In 2009, at the height of another frenzy surrounding the lifting of the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying traditionalist bishop, Benedict dispatched a plaintive letter to the bishops of the world, voicing hurt for the way he'd been attacked and apologizing for the Vatican's mishandling of the situation.

Even if Benedict didn't resign because of any specific crisis, including this latest one, such anguish must have taken its toll. Benedict is a teaching pope, a man who prefers the life of the mind to the nuts and bolts of government, yet an enormous share of his time and energy has been consumed trying to put out internal fires.

It's hard to know why Benedict XVI is stepping off the stage, but I doubt it is because of a "gay lobby."

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of John L. Allen Jr.

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Putin signs law banning smoking in public places

 

MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning smoking in public places in Russia from June, a cornerstone of the government's bid to improve public health, the Kremlin said Monday.

The law, called "On protecting the health of citizens from the danger of passive smoking and the consequences of the use of tabacco," makes smoking illegal in restaurants, cafes, hotels, trains and a host of other places.

-AFP/sb

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South Korea swears in first woman president

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The inauguration of Park Geun-hye is held in Seoul, South Korea


• Park becomes the East Asian nation's first female president


• Her father was Park Chung-hee, who ruled South Korea from 1961 to 1979


• She's vowed a softer approach to North Korea, hoping to build a "zone of trust"

(CNN) -- Park Geun-hye made history Monday by becoming South Korea's first female president, pledging to secure South Korea against the threat of an increasingly hostile North Korea at the same time as mending bridges with Pyongyang.

"North Korea's recent nuclear test is a challenge to the survival and future of the Korean people, and there should be no mistake that the biggest victim will be none other than North Korea itself," she said. "I urge North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions without delay and embark on the path to peace and shared development."

Reiterating her policy of 'trustpolitik' - a policy based on deterrence combined with cautious approaches to North Korea - she said she intended to "lay the groundwork for an era of harmonious unification where all Koreans can lead more prosperous and freer lives and where their dreams can come true."

"I will move forward step-by-step on the basis of credible deterrence to build trust between the South and the North."

She said South Koreans stood at a new juncture, confronting the difficulties of the global financial crisis as well as the threat from the North.

"I will usher in a new era of hope whereby the happiness of each citizen becomes the bedrock of our nation's strength which in turn is shared by and benefits all Koreans," she said.

When she was elected last December, Park broke barriers in the patriarchal East Asian nation, though she is deeply connected to its past. Her father, Park Chung-hee, was one of the founders of modern Korea who took power after a coup d'etat and ruled heavy-handedly for 18 years before being shot dead by his intelligence chief in 1979.

Read more: Park faces tough challenges

His memory still divides South Korea -- some regard him as the cornerstone of South Korea's present prosperity, others see him as a dictator who ignored human rights and crushed dissent.

Although she has apologized for human rights violations during his rule, Park has been criticized for not doing enough to distance herself from his legacy.

Still, any concerns about her family's past weren't enough to prevent 52% of voters from elevating her to the presidency.

Park, 61, and her opponent, the Democratic United Party's Moon Jae-in, offered similarly moderate plans during the campaign, addressing income inequality, reining in the power of family-owned conglomerates and improving relations with North Korea.

On North Korea, Park distinguished herself from former President Lee Myung-bak, who demanded an end to Pyongyang's nuclear arms program as a condition of economic aid, by offering a softer, carrot-and-stick approach.

I will move forward step-by-step on the basis of credible deterrence to build trust between the South and the North
Park Geun-hye

She visited the North Korean capital in 2002 and met with its late leader Kim Jong Il. Since then, his son Kim Jong Un has taken over in Pyongyang, continuing a policy of defiant work on the country's budding nuclear program, including a test earlier this month that drew widespread international condemnation.

"Precisely because trust is at a low point these days, South Korea has a chance to rebuild it," Park told Foreign Affairs magazine before she won the election. "In order to transform the Korean Peninsula from a zone of conflict into a zone of trust, South Korea has to adopt a policy of 'trustpolitik,' establishing mutually binding expectations based on global norms."

Domestically, Park campaigned as a fiscal conservative, advocating tax cuts for business to boost investment and jobs and vowing to restructure welfare programs. At the same time, she promised soon after winning election "to take care of our people one by one."

In a speech at the headquarters of her Saenuri political party Thursday morning, she invoked a phrase coined by her father, who also served as president in an era when he was encouraging people to pull South Korea out of poverty.

"I would like to re-create the miracle of 'let's live well' so people can worry less about their livelihood and young people can happily go to work," Park said.

CNN's Greg Botelho and Peter Shadbolt contributed to this report.

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Michelle Obama makes surprise Oscars appearance

First lady Michelle Obama, on a video screen, announces the winner for best picture along with actor Jack Nicholson at the 85th annual Academy Awards on Feb. 24, 2013, in Hollywood, Calif. / Getty

First lady Michelle Obama made a surprise appearance at the Oscars, opening the envelope that contained the name of the best-picture winner, "Argo."

51 Photos

Oscars 2013: Show highlights

Appearing via streaming video from the White House, Mrs. Obama said all of the nominees demonstrated that "we can overcome any obstacle."

15 Photos

Oscars 2013: Press room

She said that message is "especially important for our young people" and thanked Hollywood for encouraging children "to open their imaginations."

The first lady was introduced by Jack Nicholson, who noted that the best picture trophy is usually announced solo.

Mrs. Obama wore a silver, art deco-inspired gown by Indian-born American fashion designer Naeem Khan. It was the same dress she wore for the Obamas' dinner with the nation's governors at the White House on Sunday night.

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