5 killed in van crash

5 killed in van crash

ST. LOUIS

A van carrying 11 men returning from a California religious gathering careened off of a southern Illinois freeway and overturned several times Monday, killing five of them and sending six others to hospitals, authorities said.

Bruce Bowen called Monday’s crash scene on Interstate 70 west of Vandalia among the worst he’s seen in his 13 years as coroner of Illinois’ Fayette County. Nine of the men were thrown from the 15-passenger van as it tumbled over and over. Those who suffered fatal injuries died at the scene.

Hezbollah in Syria

BEIRUT

Hezbollah was pulled more deeply into Syria’s civil war as 28 guerrillas from the Lebanese Shiite militant group were killed and dozens more wounded while fighting rebels, Syria activists said Monday.

The intense battle drove rebels from large parts of the town of Qusair, part of a withering government offensive aimed at securing a strategic land corridor from Damascus to the Mediterranean coast.

Treasury chief taps retirement funds

WASHINGTON

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said late Monday he will begin tapping into two government-employee retirement funds to buy more time before the U.S. Treasury is faced with the prospect of defaulting on the national debt.

In a letter to congressional leaders, Lew said that he would tap the civil-service retirement and disability fund and a similar fund that covers retired postal workers. The law allows him to remove investments from these funds to clear room for more borrowing until Congress votes to raise the debt limit.

Under the law, any investments diverted from the pension funds must be replaced with interest once Congress approves raising the debt limit.

Retired Anglican priest found guilty

LONDON

A retired Church of England priest was jailed for 10 years Monday after a jury found him guilty of 36 separate sex offenses against children in the 1960s and 1970s.

Prosecutors said Gordon Rideout, 74, abused his position of trust and assaulted children he met over the years. A jury found him guilty of 34 counts of indecent assault and two counts of attempted rape on 16 boys and girls in the southeastern English counties of Hampshire and Sussex between 1962 and 1973.

Thousands protest gay man’s killing

NEW YORK

Thousands marched the streets of Manhattan on Monday to protest the killing of a gay man reportedly taunted with homophobic slurs — the most recent in a spate of bias attacks stirring up anxiety, disbelief and outrage in a famously gay-friendly neighborhood.

“We’re here! We’re queer!” and “Homophobia’s got to go!” were among chants as a crowd marked the death of 32-year-old Mark Carson in Greenwich Village — not far from the site of 1969 riots that helped give rise to the gay-rights movement.

Python caught in Fla. sets record

MIAMI

Wildlife officials say a Burmese python nearly 19 feet long has been captured in South Florida.

It’s a new record for the longest Burmese python caught in the wild in Florida. The previous record was a 17-foot-7-inch python caught in August in Everglades National Park.

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the 18-foot-8-inch snake was caught May 11 alongside a road in rural Miami-Dade County.

Associated Press