NATIONAL BRIEFS

CALIFORNIA: 2 boys swept away in Yosemite

A boy, 10, died and his brother, 6, was missing after they were swept away along a stretch of the Merced River, Yosemite National Park officials said Thursday. They were of a Southern California family hiking near the Vernal Fall Footbridge. The group was cooling off in the river Wednesday when a current carried the boys away. The older boy was pulled out 150 yards downstream, but efforts to resuscitate him failed. The missing boy is presumed dead. Their mother was in a hospital after being pulled from the river with a back injury. Elsewhere in the park, a man died and a woman became seriously ill of a rare rodent-borne disease, officials said. The man was the first person to die from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome contracted in the park. Testing showed the virus was present in fecal matter from deer mice trapped near an area of cabins.

LOUISIANA: Two deputies killed in shootout

Two sheriff's deputies were shot to death and two others were injured in an early morning shootout west of New Orleans. Five people were in custody, two of them were in a hospital. All the wounded were expected to survive. St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff Michael Tregre said someone opened fire about 5:30 a.m. on a deputy doing an off-duty job along a highway that connects U.S. 61 with the industrial corridor along the Mississippi River. He was wounded. A car that left the scene was tracked to a mobile home park. As officers handcuffed a suspect outside a mobile home, "Another person exited that trailer with an assault weapon and ambushed my two officers," Tregre said. The slain deputies were Brandon Nielsen, 34, and Jeremy Triche, 27.

MICHIGAN: Mom and two boys found dead

A woman and her two sons, 4 and 7, were found dead in their suburban Detroit home Thursday when officers went to notify the family that a man had died in a fatal crash near Michigan City, Ind., just over the state line. The deaths of the three in Van Buren Township, Wayne County, were being investigated as homicide. The coroner in LaPorte County, Ind., identified a fatal crash victim as Michael VanDerLinden, 38. A person by that name is listed as a resident of the home where the bodies were found.