Sequestration: Surrender Is in the Air

The budget ax is about to fall, and there's little lawmakers in Washington are doing to stop it.

Despite a parade of dire warnings from the White House, an $85 billion package of deep automatic spending cuts appears poised to take effect at the stroke of midnight on Friday.

The cuts – known in Washington-speak as the sequester – will hit every federal budget, from defense to education, and even the president's own staff.

On Capitol Hill, Senate Democrats and Republicans each staged votes Thursday aimed at substituting the indiscriminate across-the-board cuts with more sensible ones. Democrats also called for including new tax revenue in the mix. Both measures failed.

Lleaders on both sides publicly conceded that the effort was largely for show, with little chance the opposing chamber would embrace the other's plan. They will discuss their differences with President Obama at the White House on Friday.

"It isn't a plan at all, it's a gimmick," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said today of the Democrats' legislation.

"Republicans call the plan flexibility" in how the cuts are made, said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "Let's call it what it is. It is a punt."

The budget crisis is the product of a longstanding failure of Congress and the White House to compromise on plans for deficit reduction. The sequester itself, enacted in late 2011, was intended to be so unpalatable as to help force a deal.

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Republicans and Democrats, however, remain gridlocked over the issue of taxes.

Obama has mandated that any steps to offset the automatic cuts must include new tax revenue through the elimination of loopholes and deductions. House Speaker John Boehner and the GOP insist the approach should be spending cuts-only, modifying the package to make it more reasonable.

"Do we want to close loopholes? We sure do. But if we are going to do tax reform, it should focus on creating jobs, not funding more government," House Speaker John Boehner said, explaining his opposition to Obama's plan.

Boehner, McConnell, Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will huddle with Obama at the White House on Friday for the first face-to-face meeting of the group this year.

"There are no preconditions to a meeting like this," White House spokesman Jay Carney said today. "The immediate purpose of the meeting is to discuss the imminent sequester deadline and to avert it."

Even if the leaders reach a deal, there's almost no chance a compromise could be enacted before the deadline. Lawmakers are expected to recess later today for a long weekend in their districts.

What will be the short-term impact of the automatic cuts?

Officials say it will be a gradual, "rolling impact" with limited visible impact across the country in the first few weeks that the cuts are allowed to stand.

Over the long term, however, the Congressional Budget Office and independent economic analysts have warned sequester could lead to economic contraction and possibly a recession.

"This is going to be a big hit on the economy," Obama said Wednesday night.

"It means that you have fewer customers with money in their pockets ready to buy your goods and services. It means that the global economy will be weaker," he said. "And the worst part of it is, it's entirely unnecessary."

Both sides say that if the cuts take effect, the next best chance for a resolution could come next month when the parties need to enact a new federal budget. Government funding runs out on March 27, raising the specter of a federal shutdown if they still can't reach a deal.

"As we anticipate an across-the-board budget cuts across our land, we still expect to see your goodness prevail, O God, " Senate Chaplain Barry Black prayed on the Senate floor this morning, "and save us from ourselves."

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Taiwan ebullient over Ang Lee's Oscar

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Ang Lee's name beamed on building in Taiwan after Oscar win


• Lee, born in Taiwan, won award for best director for "Life of Pi"


• Lee's win created excitement in Taiwan and China, both claimed him as their own


• Ryan: "In some ways it feels like 'Linsanity' all over again"

Editor's note: Andrew Ryan is a host and producer at Radio Taiwan International, a government-owned station that broadcasts in several languages and countries. He first came to Taiwan in 1996 as a Fulbright scholar and has spent the last 16 years as a translator and observer of politics and culture.

Taipei (CNN) -- It's not every territory in the world that puts an Oscar-winning director's name up in lights on a towering building. But that's just the sort of thing that happens in Taiwan -- and it did on Monday night after Ang Lee picked up his second "Best Director" Oscar, this time for "Life of Pi."

The moment wasn't just celebrated in grand statements, but in small scenes played out in front of televisions across Taiwan when his name was announced.

I was at a TV station in Taipei that was broadcasting live coverage of the Oscars, working with a team of translators that was creating the subtitles for the rebroadcast. When Lee's name was announced the office erupted in applause. Down the hallway, more cheering could be heard.

READ: Oscar winners: Analysis of who won

I couldn't help but think back to the Athens Games in 2004, when Chen Shih-hsin won Taiwan's first ever Olympic gold medal (under the team name "Chinese Taipei"). Even veteran news anchors shed tears when the young taekwondo star defeated her Cuban rival.

It would be reductive to suggest that these displays of patriotism are simply the response of a small country that just doesn't crank out that many Oscar winners or Olympic golds. It also speaks of a place that has been largely marginalized in the international community.

Today, Taiwan has just 23 official diplomatic allies -- mostly other marginalized nations, in Central America and Africa. That's because China still sees Taiwan as part of its territory more than 60 years after the Chinese Nationalists retreated to the island at the end of a Civil War against the Communists. The Nationalists -- or Kuomintang -- are now the ruling party in a democratic Taiwan, which is officially called the Republic of China (ROC) -- not to be confused with the People's Republic of China on the Mainland.

Having lost its seat at the United Nations to the PRC in 1971, the ROC found itself with a diminished voice in the international community. It turned to manufacturing and technology in the 1980s, spurring on what is now referred to as an "economic miracle." Today, with its economy struggling to move past the global economic downturn, Taiwan has added the arts, sports, and even baking to its repertoire.

READ: Oscars 2013: Hollywood gets political

What's striking about Lee's win is that it's not just people in Taiwan who were quick to claim him as one of their own. In China, the state-run Xinhua news agency referred to him as "Chinese-American." While Taiwanese media latched onto the portion of Lee's acceptance speech when he thanked Taiwan and the central city of Taichung where much of the movie was filmed, Xinhua's main story included Lee's line of thanks to the 3,000 people who worked on the film for "believing this story and sharing this incredible journey with me."

In some ways it feels like "Linsanity" all over again, when Taiwan and China both claimed basketball star Jeremy Lin as their own, leaving the international media struggling to chart the dangerous waters of identity politics to correctly describe him.

VIEW: Photos from the red carpet

A very small voice at the fringe of the discussion wonders why it's important for people to know that Lin's paternal grandmother lives in Taiwan and referred to him as "a real Taiwanese," or that Lee grew up in Tainan and still loves to visit his favorite noodle shop there. Others in Taiwan question why a nation's confidence should be based on its success in the international community.

When Ang Lee's name was announced, the office erupted in applause. Down the hallway, more cheering could be heard.
Andrew Ryan

With China looming to the north, now the world's second biggest economy and wielding an influence that's verging on "superpower" status, the metaphor of Jonah and the whale comes to mind. The Taiwanese electorate is sharply divided on how it feels about the way ties with China have warmed ever since President Ma Ying-jeou first took office in 2008. The benefits are obvious, considering China is Taiwan's largest trade partner, but some worry that it could lead to a loss in autonomy.

INTERACTIVE: Oscars by numbers

The Ma administration has been mindful of the nationalistic rhetoric of the opposition, and although the president was born in Hong Kong, he has referred to himself in the past as "Taiwanese as well as Chinese." Ma was also quick to congratulate Lee following the Oscars, and to urge others to follow in the director's footsteps and "work hard at promoting Taiwan to the world."

Lee is just one name on a growing list of national heroes that both the government and the private sector have celebrated in recent years for putting Taiwan on the map: people like fashion designer Jason Wu, who moved to Canada from Taiwan and has created garments for U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama; master baker Wu Pao-chun, who beat the French patissiers at their own competition -- Les Masters de la Boulangerie in 2010; Yani Tseng, the world's number one female golfer; and even the humble vegetable seller-turned-philanthropist Chen Shu-chu, who was selected by Time Magazine as one of its heroes of 2010.

So what are people saying when they embrace these heroes as Taiwanese? They are saying "Taiwan may be small and diplomatically isolated, but it deserves to have a voice in the international community." While Lee may not speak about politics and no longer creates movies about Taiwan, he does have a voice and people do listen. And that's worth spreading in lights across the world's second-tallest building.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Andrew Ryan.

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Resale prices of private homes rebound in January

SINGAPORE: Prices of resale private homes rebounded in January, rising 0.3 per cent, reversing the previous month's 0.2 per cent decline, according to the Singapore Residential Price Index flash estimates published by the Institute of Real Estate Studies at the National University of Singapore.

The increase in January was led by price growth in the small unit segment, defined as homes below 506 square feet.

In January, prices of small units rose 2.6 per cent, reversing a 0.7 per cent fall in December.

Prices of resale homes located in the central region also climbed by 0.7 per cent in January, following a 1.5 per cent decrease in the previous month.

Meanwhile, the only segment that registered a price drop last month was homes outside the central area.

Prices fell 0.1 per cent in January, compared with a 0.8 per cent increase in December.

- CNA/ck

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Woman: I was fired for having sex

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Federal budget cuts free illegal immigrants from detention

(CBS News) -- The federal budget cuts expected to take effect this Friday are not simple. For example, hundreds of illegal immigrants are being released from detention because the administration says it can't afford to keep them.

Until recently, Fredi Alcazar was one of those detained. An illegal immigrant from Mexico, Alcazar spent a month in jail after a traffic stop near Atlanta last December. He now wears an electronic monitoring band on his ankle. The device lets immigration officials know where he is at all times.

(watch: Releasing illegal immigrants over budget cuts, below)

Alcazar was released unexpectedly in January.

"I was surprised they released me," Alcazar recalled. "They didn't say anything."

Officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would not tell CBS exactly how many detainees they released ahead of for Friday's automatic budget cuts. They also declined to say where or when the releases occurred.

Those let go, like Fredi Alcazar, are required to wear electronic tracking devices, regularly call immigration officials or visit ICE offices.

"We started getting calls all of a sudden they had been released," said immigration advocate Dulce Guerrero. "We were very much in shock."

The early release of detainees was a surprise to Guerrero.

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"These folks are no criminals," she said. "These folks in there are moms, dads, students, community members who are in there for no license, for a broken tail light."

But some members of Congress are demanding ICE provide information on each detainee's case.

"When you release these people and expect them to show up at a court proceeding at a later date, we found before that 90 percent of them don't show up," said Congressman Michael McCaul, chair of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Besides Georgia, CBS did learn that many releases were in Arizona, California and Florida. Immigration advocates said that "supervised release" costs about $14 a day compared to about $160 a day to keep detainees in jail.

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Arias Prosecutor Too Combative, Experts Say

He has barked, yelled, been sarcastic and demanded answers from accused murderer Jodi Arias this week.

And in doing so, prosecutor Juan Martinez and his aggressive antics may be turning off the jury he is hoping to convince that Arias killed her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in June 2008, experts told ABCNews.com today.

"Martinez is his own worst enemy," Mel McDonald, a prominent Phoenix defense attorney and former judge, told ABC News. "He takes it to the point where it's ad nauseam. You have difficulty recognizing when he's driving the point home because he's always angry and pushy and pacing around the courtroom. He loses the effectiveness, rather than build it up."

"He's like a rabid dog and believes you've got to go to everybody's throat," he said.

"If they convict her and give her death, they do it in spite of Juan, not because of him," McDonald added.

Martinez's needling style was on display again today as he pestered Arias to admit that she willingly participated in kinky sex with Alexander, though she previously testified that she only succumbed to his erotic fantasies to please him.

Arias, now 32, and Alexander, who was 27 at the time of his death, dated for a year and continued to sleep together for another year following their break-up.

Arias drove to his house in Mesa, Ariz., in June 2008, had sex with him, they took nude photos together and she killed him in his shower. She claims it was in self-defense. If convicted, Arias could face the death penalty.

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Martinez also attempted to point out inconsistencies in her story of the killing, bickering with her over details about her journey from Yreka, Calif., to Mesa, Ariz., including why she borrowed gas cans from an ex-boyfriend, when she allegedly took naps and got lost while driving, and why she spontaneously decided to visit Alexander at his home in Mesa for a sexual liaison.

"I want to know what you're talking about," Arias said to Martinez at one point.

"No, I'm asking you," he yelled.

Later, he bellowed, "Am I asking you if you're telling the truth?"

"I don't know," Arias said, firing back at him. "Are you?"

During three days of cross examining Arias this week, Martinez has spent hours going back and forth with the defendant over word choice, her memory, and her answers to his questions.

"Everyone who takes witness stand for defense is an enemy," McDonald said. "He prides himself on being able to work by rarely referring to his notes, but what he's giving up in that is that there's so much time he wastes on stupid comments. A lot of what I've heard is utterly objectionable."

Martinez's behavior has spurred frequent objections of "witness badgering" from Arias' attorney Kirk Nurmi, who at one point Tuesday stood up in court and appealed to the judge to have a conference with all of the attorneys before questioning continued. Judge Sherry Stephens at one point admonished Martinez and Arias for speaking over one another.

Andy Hill, a former spokesperson for the Phoenix police department, and Steven Pitt, a forensic psychiatrist who has testified as an expert witness at many trials in the Phoenix area, both said that despite his aggressive style, Martinez would likely succeed in obtaining a guilty verdict.

"When it comes to cross examination, one size does not fit all," said Pitt. "But if you set aside the incessant sparring, what the prosecutor I believe is effectively doing is pointing out the various inconsistencies in the defendant's version of events."

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Yahoo CEO right to cut remote work

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Raymond Fisman: Marissa Mayer needs to revive Yahoo, and face time at the office is key


• Fisman: Granted, this goes against Utopian vision of everyone working from cafes


• Fisman: In-person work means innovations, avoids misunderstood directives


• He says more jobs will get done and it'll encourage those who work in a half-empty office

Editor's note: Raymond Fisman is the Lambert Family professor of social enterprise at the Columbia Business School. He is the co-author, with Tim Sullivan, of "The Org: The Underlying Logic of the Office."

(CNN) -- When Yahoo's relatively new CEO Marissa Mayer decreed that workers would be required to show up at the office rather than work remotely, the immediate backlash from outsiders was mostly on the side of the angry Yahoo employees who were losing the comfort and convenience of telecommuting. Inside the company, reactions were mixed.

It struck a deep chord, contrary as it was to the techno-utopian impulse that has helped define Silicon Valley: the idea that someday soon we'll all be working in coffee shops or at kitchen tables, with broadband connections replacing in-person interactions.

Mayer may have been extreme in her demands for face time at the office, but it's the right call for a leader who is working to turn around one of the Internet's laggards.

Raymond Fisman

First, let's consider what's at stake for the company and what Mayer is hoping to accomplish. Yahoo is famous for having bungled its position as a one-time Internet leader. Mayer was brought on specifically to revitalize the benighted company after the departure of Jerry Yang; the firing of Carol Bartz, and the departures of another CEO who inflated his resume and an interim director. All the while, Yahoo has been a company in search of a direction.

What does the end of telecommuting have to do with giving the company a sound footing? The reasons go well beyond the obvious issue of reining in slackers who have taken advantage of Yahoo's reportedly lax monitoring of work done from home.

Talk Back: Is Yahoo wrong to end telecommuting?

Jackie Reses, Yahoo's head of human relations, has it exactly right in the memo she wrote to employees about the policy: Personal interaction is still the most effective way of conveying a company's direction, and keeping tabs on what different parts of the organization are up to. And that's what Mayer has to do with all of Yahoo's 11,500 employees to succeed.

What do in-person meetings accomplish that e-mail can't? Part of the answer lies in time use surveys of CEOs that go back nearly 40 years.

Management scholar Henry Mintzberg was among the first to track how top managers spend their time in the early 1970s. Much to his surprise, he found that around 80% of their time was spent in face-to-face meetings; the subjects of his study had few stretches of more than 10 minutes at a time to themselves.

More recent time use studies by researchers at Harvard, the London School of Economics and Columbia have found that little has changed. Despite the IT revolution, business leaders still spend 80% of their time in face-to-face meetings.

The reason is that there's only so much that one can glean from a written report or a spreadsheet. To cut through the hidden agendas, and office politics, most of the time you need to look someone in the eye and ask them, "Really? How exactly would that work?" It is this probing and questioning that allows effective managers to gather the scraps of information needed to understand what's really going on.

Similarly, all the way down the organizational chart, person-to-person interactions are crucial to ensure that an organization's change of direction isn't misrepresented or garbled in its retelling.

The bland proclamations made in reports and e-mails are given clearer meaning through the way they're communicated in the "high fidelity" that only personal interaction will allow. In-person meetings can also help teams avoid misunderstandings: As one of our friends who runs a virtual workplace puts it, with e-mail exchanges alone, everyone starts to get a bit paranoid.

Finally, the Yahoo memo notes that it's hard to innovate via e-mail exchanges or the occasional agenda-filled meeting. New ideas spring up through chance encounters in the cafeteria line and impromptu office meetings. It's an assertion that's backed up by academic research highlighting the importance of physical proximity in driving scientific progress.

Work at home? Share productivity tips

Yet there are rarely benefits without cost. Lots of tasks are easily managed from a distance. A large number of the affected Yahoo employees are customer-service representatives who aren't going to be driving innovation at the company anyway.

In one study of telecommuting at a Chinese online travel agency, customer-service reps were both happier and more productive when working from home -- probably Yahoo service reps aren't any different from their Chinese counterparts in this regard. And every Yahoo employee surely has some aspects of their jobs that could be done just as well at the kitchen table as in an office cubicle.

But it's hard to create a norm of "physically together" if the office is always half-empty. And once it becomes that way, the half that have been showing up will be less and less inclined to bother. Finally, such a shocking and provocative directive will most certainly have the effect of imbuing the organization with the sense of urgency it needs to get the job done.

Will Yahoo employees come around to appreciating the change? Not necessarily the ones that liked to sleep in or work on a startup on Yahoo's dime, but it may be welcomed by the ones already showing up. Will it be damaging to morale? Possibly, though it may help Yahoo employees to remember that, if they're successful, the change is likely to be temporary.

But the job of the CEO isn't to maximize worker happiness. It's to make sure they get their jobs done. And in driving change at Yahoo, Mayer thinks they need to show up at the office.

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The opinions in this commentary are solely those of Raymond Fisman.

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Japan robot suit gets global safety certificate

TOKYO: A robot suit that can help the elderly or disabled get around was given its global safety certificate in Japan on Wednesday, paving the way for its worldwide rollout.

The Hybrid Assistive Limb, or HAL, is a power-assisted pair of legs developed by Japanese robot maker Cyberdyne, which has also developed similar robot arms.

A quality assurance body issued the certificate based on a draft version of an international safety standard for personal robots that is expected to be approved later this year, the ministry for the economy, trade and industry said.

The metal-and-plastic exoskeleton has become the first nursing-care robot certified under the draft standard, a ministry official said.

Battery-powered HAL, which detects muscle impulses to anticipate and support the user's body movements, is designed to help the elderly with mobility or help hospital or nursing carers to lift patients.

Cyberdyne, based in Tsukuba, northeast of Tokyo, has so far leased some 330 suits to 150 hospitals, welfare and other facilities in Japan since 2010, at 178,000 yen (US$1,950) per suit per year.

"It is very significant that Japan has obtained this certification before others in the world," said Yoshiyuki Sankai, the head of Cyberdyne.

The company is unrelated to the firm of the same name responsible for the cyborg assassin played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1984 film "The Terminator".

"This is a first step forward for Japan, the great robot nation, to send our message to the world about robots of the future," said Sankai, who is also a professor at Tsukuba University.

A different version of HAL -- coincidentally the name of the evil supercomputer in Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" -- has been developed for workers who need to wear heavy radiation protection as part of the clean-up at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.

Industrial robots have long been used in Japan, and robo-suits are gradually making inroads into hospitals and retirement homes.

But critics say the government has been slow in creating a safety framework for such robots in a country whose rapidly-ageing population is expected to enjoy ever longer lives.

-AFP/fl

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Peru: 'Missing' U.S. couple found, but family wants proof

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Peru's tourism minister say Jamie Neal and Garrett Hand were found in the Amazon


• Hand's mother says she won't believe the news until she hears directly from her son


• Family and friends have not been able to reach the couple since January


• Some areas they planned to visit are out of cell phone and Internet reach

(CNN) -- An American couple that went missing on a bike trek through Peru has been spotted "safe and sound," the South American country's top tourism official said Tuesday.

Jamie Neal and Garrett Hand are heading upstream in a small boat on a jungle river, said Jose Luis Silva, Peru's minister of tourism and commerce.

"They're currently in a remote, paradise-like region of the Peruvian Amazon, which is difficult to access," he told CNN.

But even as authorities trumpeted the news, Hand's mother said in a statement that she won't believe it until she hears directly from her son.

"We have not heard from them since January 25, nor have they accessed bank accounts since that time," mother Francine Fitzgerald said. "We have only the worst to consider as to why."

The couple, who hail from the San Francisco area, left last November and began a series of social media posts chronicling the trip of their dreams -- a four-month bike adventure through South America.

"Will be riding my bike in other countries and out of contact for 4 months!" Neal wrote in a November Facebook post before flying with Hand to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

But for weeks, the couple shared photos online from their trek through Argentina, Chile and Peru, showing themselves posing beside their bikes on remote mountain roads, camping out in tents and smiling at the beach.

In late January, however, their Internet postings stopped and calls to their cell phones went unanswered. Family members say no one has been able to get in touch with them since then.

Fitzgerald said both the U.S. Embassy in Peru and the country's interior ministry have called to say that Neal and Hand were spotted.

But that's not enough, she said.

"Let me reiterate, until we have PROOF OF LIFE, we cannot celebrate these rumors and sightings," she wrote on a Facebook page set up to facilitate a search for the couple. "Proof of life is my son's voice on the phone and a picture of him holding the missing poster."

Silva told CNN that the tourism ministry learned of the couple's location from police, who received a report from a clinic in the town of Angoteros after sending out a nationwide alert about the missing couple.

The ministry will send a hydroplane tomorrow to shoot video of the couple and provide proof they're doing OK, he said.

"They have no idea of the commotion they have caused in the media," he said, "because they simply can't communicate with family from where they currently are."

Neal and Hand, both 25, according to a family flyer, were last seen in Lima, the Peruvian capital. But some of the areas they planned to visit are out of cell phone and Internet reach.

The Peruvian National Police earlier told CNN that the manager of a hostel in Pucallpa, where the couple stayed, confirmed to a police investigator they reached the jungle city in early February.

The manager of Arco Iris Amazonica, a small hotel in the rain forest city of Iquitos, told police the couple stayed there on February 16 and told him they planned to travel to the town of Naplo, a 15-day trek.

Peru is known for the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu, located in the Cusco region, which attract hundreds of thousands of international travelers each year.

Two weeks ago, the U.S. Embassy in Lima issued a security message warning Americans of "a potential kidnapping threat in the Cusco area."

"The Embassy has received information that members of a criminal organization may be planning to kidnap U.S. citizen tourists in the Cusco and Machu Picchu area," the message said.

But it also clarified that "thousands of U.S. citizens routinely travel to the Cusco region without undue incident. The U.S. Embassy remains confident of the Peruvian government's efforts to ensure the safety of all tourists in the region."

Peru's tourism minister said Tuesday that he was "deeply concerned" about the negative impact of reports of the missing American couple.

The reason the couple has been out of touch for so long has nothing to do with any crime, he said.

"These two young people have fallen in love with Peru," Silva said. "They have visited off-the-beaten-path places and it seems like they're having a blast -- so much so that they have forgotten to communicate with their families."

CNN's Catherine E. Shoichet and Tom Watkins contributed to this report.

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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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