Houston: Pathologist details painful child deaths

Andrea Yates’ five children died slowly, each struggling and gasping for air as she drowned them one by one in the family bathtub, a pediatric pathologist testified Saturday.

“Each of these children did not want to die, and they fought their deaths,” Dr. Harry Wilson, a pathologist at Texas Tech University School of Medicine, said during the third week of testimony in Yates’ capital murder trial.

Yates, 37, has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity.

Defense attorneys are trying to prove that Yates was in a delusional and psychotic state and thought that drowning her children was the only way to save them from damnation.

ATLANTA: Former black radical convicted of murder

H. Rap Brown, the 1960s black power radical turned Muslim cleric, was convicted of murder Saturday in the shooting of a sheriff’s deputy who tried to serve him with a warrant two years ago.

Jurors deliberated 10 hours in two days before finding the Muslim cleric now called Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, 58, guilty of 13 counts related to the shooting death of Deputy Ricky Kinchen and wounding of Deputy Aldranon English.

The trial moves Monday to a penalty phase, in which jurors will decide whether to recommend execution or life in prison for Al-Amin.

Georgia: Marine helicopter goes down in Atlantic

A Marine Corps helicopter went down Saturday in the Atlantic Ocean while trying to rescue passengers from another helicopter crash. Two people died, and one Marine crew member was missing.

The civilian helicopter, carrying two workers on a Marine Corps project, crashed after 8 p.m. Friday. The Coast Guard rescued one man Friday night, but he died later at a hospital.

The Marine helicopter, based in Beaufort, S.C., was searching for the second occupant when it went down about 9:30 a.m.

A Coast Guard cutter rescued four of the five crew members. One injured crewman was taken to a hospital, where he was in stable condition. The body of the other civilian was found Saturday.

The Coast Guard was searching for the missing Marine on Saturday afternoon.

Virginia: Two tour buses collide, dozens are injured

One tour bus ran into another on Virginia’s Eastern Shore on Saturday, and dozens of people suffered minor injuries.

The buses were taking people from the Hampton Roads area of Virginia to Atlantic City, N.J., and one bus ran into the back of the other.

Shore Memorial Hospital treated 26 people for minor injuries such as neck and back sprains, bumps and bruises, and 32 others were treated at the scene.

Three people were taken to Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury, Md., said a nursing supervisor.

Kentucky: Vatican lists objections to conference on gays

Catholics attending a conference examining issues of faith and homosexuality celebrated Mass on Saturday despite the objections of the Vatican.

At least 550 people attended the Mass during the New Ways Ministry’s fifth national symposium, “Out of Silence God Has Called Us: Lesbian/Gay Issues and the Vatican II Church” in Louisville.

The group discusses issues like accepting homosexuals in the church, what the Bible says about sexuality, and same-sex marriages.

Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, a representative of the Vatican, wrote a letter to Archbishop Thomas Kelly of Louisville asking that the archbishop forbid the celebrating of the Eucharist by participants in the symposium.

Retired Bishop Leroy Matthiesen led the liturgy.