In the Nation

LOS ANGELES - A federal jury delivered a mixed verdict yesterday convicting a Missouri mother of misdemeanor charges in a cyber-bullying case in which she was accused of using a fake MySpace account to torment a teenage girl who later committed suicide.

The jurors rejected more serious felony charges against Lori Drew, 49, who was involved in a hoax on Megan Meier, 13. The panel deadlocked on a conspiracy count, and found Drew guilty of relatively minor offenses of unauthorized access of a computer.

Prosecutors said Drew helped create the MySpace account in the name of a fictitious 16-year-old boy and used it to engage in an online relationship with Megan. Megan, who had long struggled with depression, hanged herself in 2006 after the fictitious boy told her the world would be better without her.

- Los Angeles Times

ST. PAUL, Minn. - In a blow to Democrat Al Franken, a state board ruled yesterday that absentee ballots that poll workers rejected would not be included in Minnesota's Senate recount.

The five-member Canvassing Board denied a request by Franken's campaign to reconsider absentee ballots it contends were excluded from the initial vote count because of technicalities or administrative errors. Republican Sen. Norm Coleman's campaign said the board lacked the power to revisit those ballots.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said about 12,000 absentee ballots, representing 4 percent to 5 percent of all the absentee ballots cast in the Nov. 4 election, were rejected statewide for various reasons.

Franken entered the recount trailing Coleman by 215 votes out of 2.9 million ballots. With about 80 percent recounted, Coleman has maintained a lead.

- AP

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California's Republican lawmakers defeated a $17 billion plan to shrink a yawning budget deficit, prolonging an impasse in the state that is suffering most from a fiscal crisis battering local governments nationwide.

The plan, which would have sliced $8.1 billion from the budgets of schools, colleges and other programs and raised $8.1 billion more by increasing vehicle license fees and freezing income-tax brackets at 2007 levels, fell short of the needed two-thirds vote. No Republicans voted for it.

Schwarzenegger said he was "saddened" by the failure but he said he would have vetoed the bills had they passed because they lacked any economic stimulus proposals to put people back to work. He said he would order lawmakers into a new special session Monday.

- Bloomberg News

The Rev. James L. Bevel

, a key figure from the civil rights movement sentenced last spring to 15 years in prison for incest, has been released on bond while he appeals his conviction in Virginia. Bevel, 71, who has pancreatic cancer, was convicted of having sex more than a decade ago with his then-teenage daughter.