Illinois: Suspect shoots, kills deputy, two neighbors

A Toulon man shot and killed a sheriff’s deputy, then kicked in his neighbors’ door and shot the couple to death before officers wounded him in a gun battle, authorities said.

Curtis Thompson, 60, shot and killed Deputy Adam Streicher, 23, as the deputy was trying to serve Thompson a warrant Friday night for failing to appear in court on a misdemeanor assault charge, state police spokesman Jeff Darko said.

Darko said Thompson, a retired coal miner, then took Streicher’s weapon and squad car and drove around the block to the home of his neighbors, James and Janet Geisenhagen, both 43, and shot them to death.

Thompson was stopped at a roadblock about a block away and was wounded in a shootout with officers.

Authorities did not speculate on why Thompson shot his neighbors.

Texas: State to fight obesity with gym-class mandate

To help combat obesity in children, Texas will reinstate mandatory gym class in elementary schools, seven years after it was phased out to allow more time for academics.

Under a rule approved Friday by the Texas Board of Education, elementary school students will be required to take a minimum of 135 minutes of physical education every week.

“We have a childhood obesity problem in the state of Texas that needs to be addressed,” state Health Commissioner Eduardo Sanchez said. “One of the places where it might be appropriate for children to get their physical activity is in school. Get them little and it becomes a healthy habit.”

St. Louis: Archdiocese announces molestation settlements

The Archdiocese of St. Louis said it had paid about $1.6 million over the past 20 years to people who claim they were molested by Roman Catholic priests.

“The rationale is to assist people who have brought complaints,” Bernard C. Huger, a lawyer for the archdiocese, said in Saturday’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “In some cases, settlements were made even if the claim was considered not to be substantiated.”

Church officials said most of the claims were substantiated. Church officials refused to say how many cases were settled.

The figure released by the Archdiocese of St. Louis is small compared to recent settlements in other cities.

For example, the Archdiocese of Boston has already or has said it would pay out $45 million to people who accused former priest John Geoghan of child molestation.

Miami: Airport workers charged with smuggling drugs

Eleven workers at Miami International Airport have been charged with allegedly trying to smuggle cocaine and heroin into the United States on Colombia’s national airline.

The workers boarded Avianca planes and removed cocaine and heroin hidden in interior panels, U.S. Atty. Guy Lewis said Friday.

Nine were arrested Friday, and two others were taken into custody March 7, said U.S. Customs spokesman Zachary Mann.

The smuggling operation began in March 2000 and continued until March 14 of this year, prosecutors said.

Alabama: Driver on Parks’ bus dies of heart attack

James F. Blake, the Montgomery bus driver who ordered Rosa Parks to give up her seat to a white passenger and had her arrested when she refused, has died at the age of 89.

Blake died Thursday of a heart attack at his home, his family said.

On Dec. 1, 1955, Blake confronted Parks and three other black passengers on the bus and told them to “make it light” by moving to make room for whites.

Blake had Parks arrested after she refused to surrender her seat near the front of the bus.

The arrest set off the Montgomery bus boycott, bringing national attention to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and helping forge the civil rights movement.

Blake’s wife, Edna, said her husband was “a good man” who shouldn’t be remembered just for that historic role.

“Everybody loved him. He was a good, true man and a churchgoer,” Edna Blake said.