NATIONAL BRIEFS

CALIFORNIA: Human remains found in well

Hundreds of bone fragments have been unearthed from what appears to be a mass grave used by two men called the "Speed Freak Killers." The grisly discoveries were made at an old well near the Northern California town of Linden. Death row inmate Wesley Shermantine had claimed the well could hold 10 or more victims from a 1980s and '90s killing spree. Along with bones, searchers found clothes, a purse and jewelry on Sunday, 45 feet deep in the well on an abandoned cattle ranch. More than 300 human bones have been found. Searchers will resume digging Tuesday, weather permitting. The search, going at a "slow and tedious" pace, is expected to last several more days. The remains were found with the help of a map prepared by Shermantine, who with childhood friend Loren Herzog became known as the "Speed Freak Killers" after their arrests in 1999. Shermantine, convicted of four murders, was sentenced to death. Herzog was convicted of three murders and given 77 years to life, later reduced to 14 years. Paroled in 2010, Herzog committed suicide last month after Sacramento bounty hunter Leonard Padilla told him Shermantine was disclosing the location of the well.

WASHINGTON: Meeting with a future leader

Vice President Xi Jinping, who takes over as leader of the world's most populous nation later this year, is to meet Tuesday with President Barack Obama and other top officials at a time when the perceived economic threat posed by China to the United States is featuring prominently in the Republican Party presidential nomination process. He'll also make a stop Wednesday in Iowa to meet local politicians and families with whom he stayed on a 1985 visit while serving as a local official in charge of the pork industry. Xi finishes the U.S. leg of his visit in California for meetings with business leaders and will stop in Ireland and Turkey before returning home.

FLORIDA: Parents say hazing was condoned

The parents of a Florida A&M band member who died after being hazed filed a wrongful-death lawsuit Monday against the owner and the driver of a charter bus where the ritual took place, claiming the company's managers told drivers to ignore hazing. On the night Robert Champion died, the driver even stood guard outside the bus, the lawsuit said, and forced the drum major back on the bus after he got off to vomit.