Nation briefs 3/12/07

No. 3 Senate leader calls on Gonzales to step down

WASHINGTON -- News shows Sunday had a constant target: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Gonzales should resign because he is placing politics above the law. He cited the FBI's illegal snooping into people's private lives and the Justice Department's firing of federal prosecutors. Schumer, who is the Senate's No. 3 Democrat, said Gonzales repeatedly has shown more allegiance to President Bush than to citizens' legal rights since taking the job in early 2005.

9/11 remains search moves to church lot

NEW YORK -- The search for the remains of Sept. 11 victims has moved across the street from the site of the World Trade Center to the lot of a destroyed church, where important relics, including the bones of three saints, may also be buried. Since October, more than 400 bones have been unearthed from the debris of a service road that construction trucks used to get in and out of the site after the 2001 attacks. The city, which oversaw the original cleanup of ground zero, is conducting a new search to find more remains of the 2,749 victims -- 40 percent of whom remain unidentified. Debris from both towers collapsed onto the church and its parking lot on Sept. 11, 2001. The site was paved over to be used a staging area for reconstruction at the site, making it a likely place to find long-buried debris and remains, those involved in the initial cleanup say.

Aspen Ski Patrol rescues 3 actors lost in snow

ASPEN, Colo. -- A trio of actors had to be lead out by the Aspen Ski Patrol after they and other skiers got lost in snow and fog and ended up out of bounds. Rob Morrow, star of CBS' "Numb3rs" and fellow actors Chad Lowe and Fisher Stevens were among the rescued."We're all good skiers," Morrow said Saturday. He also admitted that they didn't know the mountain.

-- From wire reports