Nation in brief

Minnesota thaw reveals missing student's body

CROOKSTON, Minn. - The body of University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin was found Saturday, revealed by the spring thaw in an area volunteers had searched several times during the five months she had been missing, searchers said Saturday.

Sheriff Mark LeTexier sobbed as he told volunteers, "Dru is home." An official identification and autopsy were scheduled, he said.

Scores of volunteers had joined the search Saturday for the 22-year-old University of North Dakota student, who had last been seen Nov. 22 at the Grand Forks, N.D., mall where she worked.

While a handful of Sjodin's relatives continued searching through the winter, official searches had been halted in December because of severe weather and resumed this month.

Convicted sex offender Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., 51, of Crookston, has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping Sjodin, of Pequot Lakes, Minn. He was arrested in December and is jailed in Grand Forks, on $5-million bail.

PITTSBURGH - Vice President Dick Cheney worked to mend White House relations with gun activists Saturday by warning a National Rifle Association convention that Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., would roll back rights of firearm makers and users.

"John Kerry's approach to the Second Amendment has been to regulate, regulate and regulate some more," Cheney said in prepared remarks.

The NRA worked enthusiastically for President Bush in 2000 but the group disagrees with his willingness to sign an extension to the 1994 ban on military-style assault weapons, which is set to expire in September.

Tom Mauser of Littleton, Colo., whose son was killed in the Columbine High School shootings literally walked in his child's shoes to the National Rifle Association convention, where he hoped Cheney would address the ban. The Senate voted March 2, the day of the Super Tuesday primaries, to extend the ban by 10 years, and Kerry flew back from the campaign trail to vote for the extension.

The White House has said it supports the concept but opposed some provisions of the Senate bill. House leaders said they do not plan to take up the measure.

WASHINGTON - The Medicare program is taking steps to make it easier for low-income Americans to sign up for Medicare-approved prescription drug discount cards.

Medicare will allow some states to sign up low-income seniors automatically and provide a standard application form, Mark McClellan, the administrator of the Medicare program, said Saturday.

"We intend to make it as easy as possible for Medicare beneficiaries to get the information they need and to enroll in the drug card program," McClellan said. He announced the plan at a conference on aging in San Francisco.

State officials and organizations for the elderly had argued that the two actions would significantly increase the number of seniors who would receive the $600-a-year subsidy for the poor.

However, even with the changes, advocates for the elderly and administrators of state low-income drug plans said they doubt the government will achieve its goal of enrolling more than 4.5- million low-income seniors who are eligible for the subsidy.

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