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• WASHINGTON (AP) -- House conservatives want to extend to a full three years the current freeze on cost-of-living pay increases for the nation's 2 million civilian federal workers.
• They say that blocking a modest raise proposed by President Barack Obama for the last nine months of this year will save $11 billion over the long run and that well-compensated federal employees can afford it.
• Democrats, and a few Republicans, say federal workers have already done more than their fair share in helping reduce the federal deficit and they are being singled out for punishment by anti-government lawmakers.
• The House on Thursday took up legislation by freshman Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., that would block the 0.5 percent pay increase Obama ordered in December and scheduled to go into effect at the end of March. DeSantis said federal spending is out of control and his bill "tackles Congress and our bloated federal government head-on." His bill would affect across-the-board pay increases but not merit and longevity raises.
• The GOP-led House is expected to pass the bill on Friday, but it's likely to receive a cold reception in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
• ___

• BIG BEAR LAKE, Calif. (AP) -- Karen and Jim Reynolds say they came face to face with fugitive Christopher Dorner, not on a snow-covered mountain trail, but inside their cabin-style condo.
• During a 15-minute ordeal just a stone's throw from a command post authorities had set up in the massive manhunt for the ex-Los Angeles police officer, the couple said Dorner bound them and put pillowcases on their heads. At one point, he explained that he had been there for days.
• "He said, 'I don't have a problem with you, so I'm not going to hurt you,'" Jim Reynolds said. "I didn't believe him; I thought he was going to kill us."
• Police have not commented on the Reynoldses' account, but it renews questions about the thoroughness of a search for a man who authorities declared was armed

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