In the Nation

COLUMBUS, Ohio - An end-of-year college block party spiraled out of control as police fired pellets and used pepper spray to break up hundreds of rioting students who touched off a string of street fires at Kent State University.

Video posted on the Internet shows students hurling furniture and street signs into the flames Saturday night as a SWAT team in riot gear converged on the crowd. Kent police said the party grew violent after one reveler was arrested. Students began pelting officers with bottles, bricks, and rocks.

"They were throwing stop signs on the fires, they were throwing chairs, couches, tree branches," said police dispatcher Rosemarie Mosher. At least 64 students were arrested, and several officers had minor injuries, she said.

It was the first clash between Kent State students and police since 1970, when four students were killed by Ohio National Guard troops during a campus protest of the U.S. invasion of Cambodia.

- AP

PENSACOLA, Fla. - Two deputies who were killed by a soldier they were trying to arrest on charges of beating his wife were shot by the suspect after he had been knocked to the ground with a stun gun, authorities said yesterday, a day after the men were killed.

"When that Taser released after five seconds, he came up shooting," interim Okaloosa County Sheriff Edward Spooner said. "He went from just being disagreeable to using deadly force in a matter of seconds. It was a very aggressive move with a concealed weapon on his part."

Spooner said 30 to 40 rounds were exchanged between the suspect and the two deputies.

Investigators were working to determine the extent of 28-year-old Joshua Cartwright's military and militia weapons training, Spooner said. Cartwright was killed by deputies in a neighboring county as he fled. - AP

MANCHESTER, Iowa - Authorities in northeast Iowa say a man faces attempted murder charges for cutting the pacemaker out of his father's chest.

The Delaware County Sheriff's Office issued a statement yesterday saying that 32-year-old Jesse Fierstine struck his 63-year-old father, Charles Fierstine, on the head with a flashlight and a piece of firewood Saturday.

The sheriff's office said Jesse Fierstine then used a pocketknife to cut the pacemaker out of his father's chest.

Charles Fierstine was taken to University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City. Officials didn't give details on his condition yesterday.

- AP

Hampton University officials said a former student armed with three guns followed a pizza deliveryman into the gunman's former dorm and then shot him and a dorm monitor before shooting himself early yesterday. Officials told reporters at the university in southeastern Virginia that all three were expected to survive. They did not offer a motive for the shootings.