In brief
'TOUGH TIMES' BLAMED
Woman arrested in bank robberies
A 45-year-old woman is under arrest in connection with at least six bank robberies in the Bay Area over the past two months.
Fremont, Calif., police said Daphne Elizabeth Cole was arrested and jailed on suspicion of six bank robberies and an attempted robbery in Hayward, Union City, Fremont and Newark beginning April 1.
Police said Cole admitted robbing the banks, blaming "tough times." Police did not say how much was taken.
Cole was arrested after an officer making a routine traffic stop saw her vehicle driving by. It matched the description of the robber's vehicle. Police traced the car to Cole and arrested her as she left a doctor's appointment.
POSSIBLE INDIAN REMAINS
Workers find skeleton declared to be ancient
Construction workers digging near Cannery Row in Monterey, Calif., have found a female skeleton that may be thousands of years old.
Frank Donangelo, vice president of planning and development for the Cannery Row Company, said workers stopped digging immediately after finding the remains on Wednesday and called police.
The coroner and a pathologist were called in, and determined that the bones are ancient, and those of a woman who may have been a member of the Esselen Indian tribe. Other tribal artifacts have been uncovered near the site during previous construction.
Archaeologist Susan Morley is working on the site, and plans to continue the dig Monday. Morley could not say how old the remains are, but bones found at the site previously have been dated from 2,000 to 6,000 years old.
GIRL, MAN INJURED
Two young brothers killed in house fire
A house fire killed two young brothers and injured two other people early Friday, authorities said.
Firefighters pulled the boys from inside the home but they were pronounced dead at a hospital, said Rialto, Calif., fire Capt. Art Poduska.
They were identified as David Cisneros, 3, and Mario Cisneros, 5, according to a San Bernardino County coroner's news release.
The coroner's statement said they were found in one of the home's back bedrooms after the fire was put out.
The boys' mother, Viviana Delgado, told KABC-TV the boys were in a bathroom.
Their grandmother, Irma Delgado, told KCBS-TV she tried to guide them to safety.
"I was just crawling down on the floor to show the kids how and I just lost them and the fire department told me that they found them in the bedroom with their puppy," she said.
Two adults and a 1-year-old girl were outside the house when firefighters arrived. The girl suffered smoke inhalation, and a 54-year-old man had second-degree burns.
CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL
Lawsuits say charities squandered donations
The California attorney general's office has filed eight lawsuits alleging that charities in four counties squandered millions of dollars of donations intended to help police, firefighters and veterans.
The lawsuits filed Friday in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and San Mateo counties name 53 individuals accused of deceiving hundreds of thousands of Californians with bogus phone solicitations.
Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. said most of the money collected paid for aggressive telemarketing, bloated overhead and, in one case, a 30-foot sailboat.
The lawsuits were filed in conjunction with the Federal Trade Commission and other states as part of a nationwide charity fraud sweep.
HAWAII'S FIRST
Interisland ferry files for bankruptcy
The company running Hawaii's first interisland car and passenger service is filing for bankruptcy, two months after a state Supreme Court ruling effectively shut it down.
A statement from Hawaii Superferry said the expenses of maintaining its two vessels have weighed down the company because it doesn't have any revenues.
The ferry service sought charter opportunities around the world, but those efforts haven't produced results in time for the company to meet its financial obligations.
The Hawaii Superferry said a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing was the unavoidable next step.
The Hawaii Supreme Court ruled March 16 that a state law allowing the company to operate while an environmental study was being conducted was unconstitutional. The court said the study needed to be completed first.
