3 teens killed after funeral worker protests

Los Angeles — Police said gang gunmen shot and killed three teenagers within 15 minutes of one another, hours after dozens of funeral workers drove a procession of hearses to protest the high rate of inner-city homicides.

Two boys, ages 16 and 17, were fatally shot about 11:35 p.m. Saturday in South Los Angeles, police said. At 11:48, an 18-year-old man was fatally shot nearby.

Two people were injured in the shootings, which police said appeared to be gang-related. They added that it was unclear whether the shootings were connected.

Earlier Saturday, funeral directors, embalmers, morticians and others in the profession drove through South Los Angeles in a parade of white, silver and black hearses before standing in silence at a graveyard decorated with balloons.

Michigan: Small boat capsizes; two believed dead

A small, overloaded fishing boat with five people aboard capsized Sunday morning in the choppy, chilly waters of the Detroit River. Two people were believed to have died, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

The 12-foot aluminum rowboat was a few feet off shore from Windmill Point Park in this northern Detroit suburb when it began taking on water, Petty Officer 1st Class Ray Mahannah said.

Other boaters managed to rescue three people from the sinking boat but were unable to find a 24-year-old man and a 10-year-old boy.

Rescuers continued to search for the missing boaters Sunday evening, but Mahannah said anyone in the 55-degree water probably would have died of hypothermia within two hours.

Those on the boat were not wearing life preservers, though two were found in the water.

Alabama: Antiprofiling policy starts for state troopers

The new head of Alabama’s law enforcement agency has formally banned racial profiling by state troopers and added a new procedure for reviewing motorists’ complaints.

The policy, unveiled last week, prohibits troopers from stopping motorists based solely on ethnicity, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, religion, economic status, age or cultural group, and it mandates annual training.

“This policy clearly states that such actions will not be tolerated,” Public Safety Director Mike Coppage said.

Democratic state Sen. Charles Steele, state president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said he was surprised the department didn’t have a formal policy earlier. “But I commend them for bringing this to light,” he said.

San Francisco: Survey: City spends more on booze, books

Bay Area residents spend more on booze, books and just about everything else than people in other major metro areas, including Los Angeles and New York, according to a new federal report.

Not that they’re all just libertine literati: San Franciscans spend more because they earn more — and have to deal with a crushing cost of living.

Households in this city and nine surrounding counties spent more than twice the national average on alcohol in one year — $744 compared with $360, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics survey, released last week.

San Francisco residents also spent nearly twice the national average on reading materials — $266 compared with $144.

San Francisco wasn’t tops in all areas. New Yorkers spent the most on clothing ($3,000); Bostonians the most on tobacco ($369) and Chicagoans the most on housekeeping supplies ($590).

California: Youth tech savvy part of life in Silicon Valley

Forget revenge of the nerds. In Silicon Valley, even a growing number of school jocks now have a lot of geek know-how.

A survey conducted by the San Jose Mercury News and Kaiser Family Foundation indicated the vast majority of graduating teens in the region had lived a significant chunk of their adolescence on the Internet. And many of them possessed skills, such as building Web sites, that were previously relegated to hard-core technophiles.

The Internet is a common presence in school and at home for almost all, according to the survey of more than 800 Silicon Valley children ages 10 to 17 and their parents. Survey results were the basis of a Mercury News series that began Sunday.

Houston: Illegal immigrant deaths mourned at service

More than 400 people Sunday mourned the 19 illegal immigrants who died while trapped in a stifling trailer during a smuggling operation.

“We want to pray for people’s rights to be respected, for justice to be served and cooperation of governments to ensure these things don’t happen,” said Bishop Joe Vazquez, who celebrated the Mass for the victims.

Jeannette Morales, the 18-year-old widow of Juan Jose Morales, said she last spoke to her 23-year-old husband five days before he was found dead.

“He just told me he was going to come home and happy Mother’s Day,” the Houston woman said.

Juan Morales was among 70 to 100 illegal immigrants in the trailer, which had been abandoned at a truck stop near Victoria, more than 100 miles southeast of Houston. The truck’s driver has been arrested and charged.

Washington, D.C.: Drug fighting radiation sickness in works

U.S. military officials are expressing enthusiasm about an experimental drug that they say could protect the health of troops, police officers and emergency medical personnel who respond to terrorist attacks involving nuclear weapons or radiation-spewing “dirty bombs.”

The drug being developed by Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals Inc. of San Diego appears to offer significant protection from radiation sickness, which would kill many more people in nuclear attacks than the initial blast, military officials and experts said.

“We want it on the fast track,” said Navy Adm. James Zimble, a top military health official who is president of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md.

Experts cautioned that more research needed to be done to prove the drug’s effectiveness and safety when administered to humans.