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Bay Area briefs
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POLICE RECOMMEND MANSLAUGHTER AGAINST FATHER: PALO ALTO  (AP) — Police are recommending vehicular manslaughter charges for a Northern California father whose two daughters died after he nodded off and crashed his SUV.

Forty-eight-year-old Arvind Tandel of San Bruno fell asleep on Highway 101 in Palo Alto on Nov. 23 while driving his family home from an all-night Black Friday shopping trip. Twenty-four-year-old Nisha Tindel and her sister, 20-year-old Sheetal Tandel, died after the crash when the SUV slammed into the back of CHP patrol car on the shoulder.

The sisters weren't wearing their seat belts.

California Highway Patrol Officer Art Montiel said investigators decided Tandel was responsible for his daughters' deaths because he got behind the wheel knowing he'd only slept about three hours.

Santa Clara County prosecutors are now weighing whether to file charges against Tandel, who is currently not in custody.

OAKLAND MAN CONVICTED IN 1998 KIDNAPPING, RAPE: OAKLAND  (AP) — An Oakland man has been convicted of a sexual assault he committed with at least two others against two high school girls 14 years ago.

The Oakland Tribune reports a jury found 32-year-old David Haqq guilty of gang rape and kidnapping.

Prosecutors say Haqq and at least two others abducted the 15-year-old girls in September 1998.

Haqq was sent to state prison in 2005 on other charges and his DNA was entered into the statewide criminal database. A match was made to the DNA profile taken from the girls in 1998, and the case was reopened.

DNA matches have also connected identical twins to the crime. Criminal charges cannot be pursued against them because their DNA is exactly the same and the victims cannot identify which of the twins may have committed the crime.