NATIONAL BRIEFS

CALIFORNIA

2 students slain near USC

Gunfire shattered the window of a BMW near the University of Southern California campus just after midnight, striking two Chinese graduate students inside. The driver made it to a house where he pounded on the door pleading for help. Ying Wu and Ming Qu, who police say were said to have been dating, were dead by early morning Wednesday when they got to a hospital. Police looked for a killer suspected of bungling a carjacking. USC has the largest number of international students of any university in the United States. About 19 percent of its 38,000 students are from overseas, 2,500 of them from China.

TEXAS: 9 dead in crash near border

A van overstuffed with suspected illegal immigrants rolled and crashed after fleeing a traffic stop in a border city, leaving at least nine Mexican citizens dead and injuring six others, officials said Wednesday. Eight survivors of the wreck are in custody, according to Enrique Mendiola, acting assistant chief for the Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley sector. Agents stopped the van in Palmview, 10 miles west of McAllen, Tuesday night. Some passengers sprinted away and agents chased them, catching one. As the foot chase unfolded, the van sped off. Agents came across the wreck three or four blocks away on U.S. 83. The scene was strewn with backpacks and water bottles and nine bodies lay scattered nearby. The van was demolished, but several managed to flee the wreck, Palmview police said. The vehicle had been gutted to accommodate far more than the eight people it was made to carry.

WISCONSIN: Rocker voices view on recall

Rocker John Mellencamp wants Gov. Scott Walker to know he supports union rights and says Walker should be aware of that before using his song "Small Town" on the campaign trail. His publicist said he sent Walker's campaign an email, not asking him to stop using the song, but to inform him of Mellencamp's beliefs. Walker, who faces a June 5 recall election, was said to have played the song while campaigning.