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By Justin Pritchard The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO » A Boe- ing 777 that crashed at San Francisco International Air- port had inadequate warn- ing systems to alert its crew about problems with air speed, Asiana Airlines said in a filing with regulators re - leased on Monday. However, the airline also acknowledged that its crew failed to monitor and main - tain a safe airspeed before the July 6 crash and failed to abort the landing in time. In its report to the Na- tional Transportation Safety Board, Asiana said the cock- pit crew believed the auto throttle would keep the plane going fast enough to reach the runway — when in fact the auto throttle was effectively disengaged after the pilot idled it to avoid an unexplained climb earlier in the descent. The airline said the plane should have been designed so the auto throttle would maintain the proper speed after the pilot put it in "hold mode." Instead, the plane gave no indication that the plane's auto throttle had stopped maintaining the set air speed, and a low air speed al er ti ng s ys te m ca me on t oo late for the pilots to avoid the crash, Asiana said. "The flight crew believed that the autothrottle system would maintain the commanded airspeed through the final approach," Asiana said. The NTSB previously said the pilots showed signs of confusion about the 777's elaborate computer sys - tems. The agency has not determined an exact cause of the crash, which led to the deaths of three of the 307 passengers on board. In its submission to the NTSB, Boeing said the airplane and all airplane systems were functioning as expected prior to impact and did not contribute to the crash. "Boeing believes that the evidence supports the fol - lowing conclusion: This ac- cident occurred due to the flight crew's failure to mon- itor and control airspeed, thrust level and glide path on short final approach," the airplane manufacturer said. Asiana also blamed air traffic controllers at the air - port, saying they failed to respond to the flight crew's initial request to land and responded late to a second request. That increased the pilots' workload during the approach, Asiana said. A call to airport spokes - man Doug Yakel was not im- mediately returned. The airliner slammed into a seawall at the end of a runway during final ap- proach for landing. The im- pact ripped off the back of the plane, tossed out three flight attendants and their seats, and scattered pieces of the jet across the run - way as it spun and skidded to a stop. Coroner's officials concluded that one of three Chinese teens who died, Ye Meng Yuan, was run over and killed by a rescue vehi - cle as she lay on the tarmac after the crash. BAy AReA Asiana: Plane systems partly to blame in crash By Paul elias The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO » A lawyer for a California state sena- tor charged last week with bribery and gun trafficking on Monday challenged the three-year FBI investigation that led to the arrest. Sen. Leland Yee's attor - ney Paul DeMeester asked why it took until Wednesday for the FBI to file charges when it appeared the inves - tigation of his client began in 2011. "It raises fairness ques- tions," DeMeester said af- ter he and Yee made a brief federal court appearance in San Francisco. "Is it fair to the public, is it fair to the senator that it took so long?" DeMeester in particular challenged why the FBI ap - peared to shift the focus of its probe from a cash-for- influence case to an inves- tigation of alleged connec- tions to international arms dealers. "There's a question of whether the government felt it didn't have enough ev - idence on the campaign in- vestigation, so it starts push- ing on the arms trafficking," DeMeester said. Yee hasn't entered a plea yet. DeMeester previously said the senator plans to plead not guilty. Yee appeared briefly in court to discuss details of his release before trial. His ne xt c ou rt d at e is A pr il 8 . He has been suspended from the Legislature. Wearing a brown pin - striped suit, Yee shot a brief smile at reporters assem- bled in the gallery before approaching the bench with DeMeester. Yee is currently free on a $500,000 unsecured bond. Prosecutors want property the senator owns to be used as collateral to guarantee he appears at all court hear - ings. Federal prosecutors said they are close to accepting some property the senator owns but were still in nego - tiations with Yee and his law- yers. Moments before Yee's a p p e a r a n c e , R ay m o n d "Shrimp Boy" Chow, who authorities say is a China - town crime syndicate boss, was brought into court wear- ing ankle restraints and dressed in a mustard-yel- low jail jumpsuit. Chow was also arrested last week as part of the elab- orate FBI sting operation targeting organized crime in the Chinatown area of San Francisco. A total of 26 people have been charged in the case. Federal public defender Elizabeth Falk told the judge he r offic e ha d a co nfl ic t fr om previous cases and she was still searching for a lawyer to represent Chow at gov - ernment cost. Chow was ordered to re- turn to court on Wednesday. He was denied bail last week after a judge deemed him a flight risk. C how i s acc u s e d of money l au nder i n g a nd other activities as the head of a notorious Chinatown- based gang. He has not en - tered a plea. POlItICS Ye e' s la wy er q ue st io ns F BI p ro be Rich PedRoncelli — The AssociATed PRess in this file photo taken April 25, 2011, state sen. leland Yee, d-san Francisco, is seen at the capitol in sacramento. By Martin Crutsinger The Associated Press WASHINGtON » Federal Re- serve Chair Janet Yellen made clear Monday that she thinks the still-subpar U.S. job market will con - tinue to need the help of low interest rates "for some time." Yellen's remarks sig - naled that even after the Fed phases out its monthly bond purchases later this year, it has no plans to raise a key short-term rate any - time soon. The bond pur- chases have been intended to keep long-term loan rates low. Her remarks sent a re - assuring message to inves- tors, many of whom had grown anxious that the Fed might raise short-term rates by mid-2015. Their concerns were stirred two weeks ago, when Yellen suggested that the Fed could start raising short-term rates six months after it halts its bond purchases, which most economists expect by year's end. A short-term rate in - crease would elevate bor- rowing costs and could hurt stock prices. But on Monday, Yel- len indicated that the Fed still thinks rates should re- main low to stimulate bor- rowing, spending and eco- nomic growth. "I think this extraordi- nary commitment is still needed and will be for some time, and I believe that view is widely held by my fellow policymakers at the Fed," Yellen said in her first ma - jor speech since taking over the Fed's leadership in Feb- ruary. Stocks, which had been up before Yellen began speaking, rose further on her remarks. The Dow Jones indus - trial average closed up about 134 points. Low rates tend to lead some investors to shift money into stocks and thereby raise stock prices. Speaking to a national conference on community reinvestment in Chicago, Yellen described the U.S. job market as less than healthy despite steady im - provement since the reces- sion ended nearly five years ago. She said the difficulty many people are still hav - ing finding full-time work shows that low rates are still needed to encourage borrowing and spending. Economists said they viewed Yellen's comments as a message that even though the Fed is trimming its bond purchases, it's no - where near moving to raise its benchmark short-term rate, which has been at a record low near zero since December 2008. "Chair Yellen pulled out just about every dovish tool in the box as she high - lighted that the economy needs extraordinary sup- port for some time," said Bricklin Dwyer, an econo- mist at BNP Paribas. Dw- yer said he thinks the Fed's first rate hike will come in early 2016. In an unusual touch for a speech by a Fed chief, Yel - len described the personal stories of three people who had lost their jobs during the recession and strug - gled to find work. "They are a reminder that there are real peo- ple behind the statistics," Yellen said. She noted the struggles of a medical claims processor, a print - ing plant worker and a con- struction worker who lost their jobs during the Great Recession. "The past six years have been difficult for many Americans, but the hard - ships faced by some have shattered lives and fami- lies," she said. "Too many people know firsthand how devastating it is to lose a job at which you had succeeded and be unable to find an - other; to run through your savings and even lose your home." Yellen said that while the unemployment rate has fallen from a peak of 10 percent in October 2009 to 6.7 percent in February, by many measures the job market remains weak. FedeRAl ReSeRve Yellen: Job market needs low rates 'for some time' By Andrew taylor The Associated Press WASHINGtON » With just hours to spare, Congress stepped Monday to finalize legislation to prevent doc - tors who treat Medicare pa- tients from being hit with a 24 percent cut in their pay- ments from the government. The Senate's 64-35 vote sends a measure to delay the cuts for a year to Pres - ident Barack Obama, who's expected to quickly sign it. The House passed the mea- sure last week. The $21 billion measure would stave off a 24 percent cut in Medicare reimburse - ments to doctors for a year and extend dozens of other expiring health care pro- visions such as higher pay- ment rates for rural hospi- tals. The legislation is paid for by cuts to health care providers, but fully half of the cuts won't kick in for 10 years. It's the seventeenth tem - porary "patch" to a broken payment formula that dates to 1997 and comes after law- makers failed to reach a deal on financing a permanent fix. The measure passed the House on Thursday, but only after top leaders in both par - ties engineered a voice vote when it became clear they were having difficulty mus- tering the two-thirds vote required to advance it under expedited procedures. Sev- eral top Democrats opposed the bill, saying it would take momentum away from the drive to permanently solve the payment formula prob - lem. T h e r e 's w i d e s p r e a d agreement on bipartisan leg- islation to redesign the pay- ment formula that would give doctors 0.5 percent an- nual fee increases and im- plement reforms aimed at giving doctors incentives to provide less costly care. But there's no agreement on how to pay the approximately $140 billion cost of scrapping the old formula. Senate Finance Commit - tee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., promised to keep pressing ahead with a long- term solution, proposing to use savings from the troop drawdown in Afghanistan to pay the cost. Republicans and most budget experts say such savings are phony and are demanding at least some of the money to come from cuts to Obama's Affordable Care Act. "Paying for this through (war savings) is the mother of all gimmicks," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. Groups representing doc - tors, including the powerful American Medical Associa- tion, opposed the legislation because it sets back the ef- fort for a permanent solu- tion. Six Democrats opposed the measure, including Wyden, while 16 Republicans voted in favor of it. "We just don't have the votes right now to fix this problem for good," said Ma - jority leader Harry Reid, D -Nev., who negotiated the measure with House Speaker John Boehner, R- Ohio. "For the millions of el - derly Americans and their doctors this fix is good news. It means the promise of ac- cessible, quality health care to our nation's seniors is being honored for another year." The heavily lobbied mea - sure blends $16 billion to address Medicare physi- cians' payments with about $5 billion more for a vari- ety of other expiring health care provisions, like higher Medicare payments to rural hospitals and for ambulance rides in rural areas. Manu - facturers of certain drugs to treat kidney disease catch a break, as do dialysis provid- ers and the state of Califor- nia, which receives increases in Medicare physician fees in 14 counties such as San Di- ego and Sacramento that are designated as rural and whose doctors therefore re- ceive lower payments than their urban counterparts. The bill increases spend- ing by $17 billion over the next three years, offsetting the cost with cuts to health care providers. The authors of the bill employed consid - erable gimmickry to amass the cuts, however, and fully half of them don't appear for 10 years. For instance, the bill claims $5 billion in sav - ings through a timing shift in Medicare cuts in 2024. Sen. Tom Coburn, R- Okla., cited the gimmicks as he criticized the legislation in a lacerating floor speech. He said the so-called off - sets were phony and that the measure delays a long- sought overhaul of Medi- care's fee-for-service sys- tem, which pays doctors ac- cording to the number of tests and treatments they perform. "We are going to put off until tomorrow what we should be doing today," Co - burn said. "It's a sham. ... It's nothing but gimmicks." Other savings come from curbs on payments to hos - pitals that care for a large share of indigent patients. WASHINGtON Congress passes bill to stop cut to Medicare doctors 530-527-0727 243 So. 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