But things quickly turned sour and divorce documents paint a bitter picture of Bruce Pardo's increasing desperation as he lost first his wife, then his job and finally the dog. By fall 2008, Pardo was asking a judge to have his ex-wife pay him support and cover his attorney's fees.

Pardo's downward slide ended Christmas Eve, when the 45-year-old electrical engineer donned a Santa suit and massacred nine people at his former in-laws' house in Covina, where a family Christmas party was under way. He then used a homemade device disguised as a present to spray racing fuel that quickly sent the home up in flames.

Pardo had planned to flee to Canada following the killing spree but suffered third-degree burns in the fire — which melted part of the Santa suit to him — and decided to kill himself instead, investigators said. His body, with a bullet wound to the head, was found at his brother's home about 40 miles away.

The rented compact car he had driven to his former in-laws house was rigged to set off 500 rounds of ammunition and later exploded outside his brother's home. No one was injured.

Police found a second car rented by Pardo late Saturday, but Covina police spokesman Lt. Pat Buchanan said the bomb squad did not find any explosives in that vehicle.

Attorney Ed Genson told the Chicago Sun-Times on Sunday the report would support Blagojevich's claims that he hasn't done anything wrong in his handling of Obama's vacant U.S. Senate seat.

Earlier in the week, Obama released the internal report supporting his insistence that there had been no inappropriate contact with the governor's office by Obama or his staff.

State Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, chairwoman of the committee, said Sunday that Genson's request to submit the report would probably be approved. But she expressed skepticism that the report would prove the governor's innocence.

"Maybe in this particular instance someone didn't run a stop sign, but it doesn't say they didn't run a different stop sign," she said.

In his new job, Jenkins must periodically face the voters, but he reaped one immediate benefit — a 20 percent jump in his annual salary.

Jenkins' case highlights what Chief Justice John Roberts and many other federal judges have identified as an emerging crisis — the failure to pay judges enough to keep them on the job and lure talented lawyers from private practice to the federal bench.

Not everyone sees it the way Roberts does. Committees in the House and Senate this year voted nearly 30 percent salary hikes for federal judges, but neither house of Congress acted on the measure.

Judges last received a substantial pay raise in 1991, although they have been given increases designed to keep pace with inflation in most years since then.

For 2009, though, judges are alone among federal workers — members of Congress included — in not getting a cost-of-living adjustment. Lawmakers get their COLA (cost-of-living allowance) automatically — $4,700 for 2009 — but they refused to authorize the same 2.8 percent bump for judges.

"Federal judges are currently under-compensated because Congress has repeatedly failed to adjust judicial salaries in response to inflation," said James C. Duff, director of the Administrative Office of the U.S Courts. "By its failure to do so once again, Congress only exacerbates a long-standing problem it must someday address."

Duff acknowledged that the current economic turmoil makes the judges' case harder. After all, federal trial judges are paid $169,300 a year, have lifetime job security and can retire at full salary at age 65 if they have 15 years in the job. Appellate judges make more, ranging up to Roberts' salary of $217,400.

But those salaries, large as they are, are much smaller than what judges' peers make in private practice. Attorney General-designate Eric Holder said his partnership at the law firm of Covington & Burling earned him $2.1 million this year. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who retired as a federal judge in 2006 after 18 years, made nearly $2 million in 21 months at a New York law firm.

The Navy said Saturday the deal reached with the Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups requires it to continue to research how sonar affects whales and other marine mammals.

It doesn't require sailors to adopt additional measures to protect the animals when they use sonar.

The agreement comes one month after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Navy in another sonar lawsuit the NRDC filed.

"The Navy is pleased that after more than three years of extensive litigation, this matter has been brought to an end on favorable terms," Frank R. Jimenez, the Navy's general counsel, said in a statement.

NRDC officials could not immediately be reached for comment. The plaintiffs asked the judge to dismiss the case on Friday.

The NRDC and five other plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in federal court in the Central District of California on October 19, 2005.

The complaint sought a court order to curb mid-frequency sonar, the Navy's preferred method for detecting enemy submarines, on the grounds the sonar disturbs and sometimes kills whales and dolphins.

Bruce Turnidge, 57, and his 32-year-old son, Joshua, appeared in back-to-back hearings Friday on multiple counts of aggravated murder. A grand jury indictment released Friday alleges that the bomb that exploded Dec. 12 was part of a bank-robbery attempt, but it does not say how the men allegedly intended to get the money.

Authorities had not previously specified a motive for the bombing in Woodburn, about 30 miles south of Portland. Prosecutors have refused to talk about details outside the courtroom.

"As for getting into the specifics, I can't say anything more than what's alleged in the indictment," said Matt Kemmy, a deputy district attorney who's been handling the case.

Investigators previously disclosed that a caller to a Wells Fargo office in Woodburn on Dec. 12 made a threat and said that further instructions would come from a cell phone near a garbage can. Officers said they determined that the phone was not part of an explosive device.

Later in the day, investigators turned their attention to the West Coast Bank office next door, and a green metal box was found outside.

Ed Genson told the Chicago Sun-Times for a story published Thursday that testimony from Rahm Emanuel, Valerie Jarrett — and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. — would help Gov. Rod Blagojevich's claim that he did no wrong in trying to fill Obama's vacant Senate seat.

Messages left for Genson, the Obama transition team and Jackson were not returned to The Associated Press Thursday.

Blagojevich was arrested Dec. 9 and charged for allegedly trying to sell Obama's vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. He has denied any wrongdoing.

South Korea's opposition parties and thousands of people petitioned the Constitutional Court to try to block U.S. beef from entering the country by claiming the notice violated their constitutional rights.

The nine-member court rejected the petition, saying that measures in the legal notice intended to protect consumer safety could not be ruled insufficient.

The government issued the notice in late June — the final administrative step required to allow shipments to resume — despite weeks of violent protests by South Koreans concerned about the health risks of eating U.S. meat.

South Korea banned American beef in 2003 after a case of mad cow disease was discovered in the U.S.

In November, South Korea's supermarket chains resumed selling U.S. beef from cattle younger than 30 months, believed less susceptible to mad cow disease.

Eating meat products contaminated with mad cow disease is linked to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare and fatal human malady.