Wisconsin: At least four killed in bus-van collision

A tour bus carrying residents of a retirement home collided head-on with a delivery van Tuesday, killing at least four people and injuring 18 others, authorities said.

Twenty-one people were aboard the bus, authorities said. The van, which carried only the driver, burst into flames in the crash near Ixonia, 30 miles west of Milwaukee.

More than a dozen people were taken to area hospitals. At least four were in critical condition.

Both drivers were among those killed

California: Retired sheriff’s deputy kills four children, self

A retired sheriff’s deputy shot and killed his 5-year-old daughter and his three stepchildren Tuesday while his estranged wife was out for a walk, then committed suicide.

John Hogan, 49, had apparently entered the house in Merced after his wife, Christine McFadden, had set out on her morning walk, authorities said. He had not been living there.

Hogan served as a deputy from 1983 to 1993 before retiring for undisclosed medical reasons, the sheriff’s department said.

Kentucky: Accused deadbeat dad fights celibacy clause

A man accused of being a deadbeat dad after fathering a dozen children by 11 women is asking a judge to throw out a clause in his plea agreement that would prohibit him from ever having sex again.

Luther Crawford, 49, said he thought the abstinence clause was just a joke. His lawyer claims it violates Crawford’s constitutional rights and can’t be enforced.

Jefferson Circuit Judge Tom McDonald said he will decide whether to keep the provision when Crawford is sentenced on May 13.

Crawford, of Louisville, owes $33,000 in support for two of his children and is in jail awaiting another child-support case in which he owes $21,000.

France: Gunman kills eight

A gunman opened fire near the city hall of a Paris suburb early today, killing at least eight people and wounding 18 others, rescue officials said.

At least eight of the wounded were in serious condition. Dozens of police vehicles and more than 100 rescue officials flooded the scene in the western Paris suburb of Nanterre, said Cmdr. Christian Decolloredo of the Paris rescue squad.

The gunman was in police custody, Decolloredo said, adding that officials remained on high alert.

China: Spaceship put in orbit

President Jiang Zemin watched Monday night as China fired the third in a series of unmanned test capsules into orbit.

Jiang’s attendance for the launch was a sign of his communist government’s growing confidence in the viability of its ambitious decade-old program.

China hopes to join Russia and the United States as the only nations to have put people in space, and says it aims eventually to have a permanently manned space station.