Nation in brief

Iowa campus party turns into a riot

AMES, Iowa - A yearly festival near the Iowa State University campus turned riotous early Sunday when more than 1,000 people vandalized cars, broke storefront windows and tore down street lights, police said.

Officers broke up the crowd with tear gas and arrested about 30 people on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to assaulting a police officer, police said. About 20 people received treatment for minor injuries at a nearby hospital, mainly for skin and eye irritations from the tear gas.

There were no estimates of property damage Sunday afternoon, but police said the damage was "extensive."

Officers responded to a call around midnight that a group of people at the annual student-organized Veishea celebration was getting out of hand and arrived to find a crowd of several hundred people. The crowd did not completely disperse until around 5:30 a.m.

The Veishea celebration, begun in 1922, is an acronym contrived from the names of various schools at the university. It has had disturbances before.

LOS ANGELES - A robotic plane deliberately dropped a bomb near a truck at Edwards Air Force Base on Sunday, marking another step forward for technology the U.S. military hopes will one day replace human pilots on dangerous combat missions.

Under human supervision but without human piloting, a prototype of the Boeing Co.'s X-45 took off from the desert base, opened its bomb bay doors, dropped a 250-pound Small Smart Bomb and then landed. The inert bomb struck within inches of the truck it was supposed to hit, Boeing said.

RIVERTON, Utah - A Utah National Guardsman, apparently distraught that his brother was being redeployed to Iraq, was shot and killed early Sunday morning after threatening his family and brandishing a shotgun at deputies, authorities said.

Chad Thompson, 32, whose family said he had been drinking, was upset after learning that his brother's tour of duty was being extended, according to Sgt. Rosie Rivera, a spokeswoman for the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office.

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