LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Ronald Reagan’s foundation expressed outrage on Monday at a British company’s auction of what it says is a vial of the late U.S. president’s blood taken at the hospital where he was treated after a 1981 assassination attempt.

PFC Auctions, a company based in Guernsey in the United Kingdom, announced on Sunday that it would sell the vial of blood in an online auction set to end on Thursday.

The vial was taken at George Washington University Hospital on March 30, 1981, after Reagan was wounded by John Hinckley Jr. in Washington, D.C., PFC Auctions said on its website. It is said to have come from a person whose late mother had worked at a medical lab.

“If indeed this story is true, it’s a craven act and we will use every legal means to stop its sale or purchase,” John Heubusch, executive director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, said in a statement.

The website for PFC Auctions said the latest online bid for the vial stood at 6,270 British pounds ($9,910). A PFC Auctions representative could not be reached for comment.

The website for PFC Auctions showed a picture of the blood-filled vial with a label stuck to it showing the president’s name.

Reagan suffered a punctured lung and internal bleeding when he was shot by Hinckley outside the Washington Hilton Hotel. Hinckley was later found not guilty by reason of insanity. He is allowed to visit his family away from the psychiatric hospital where he is being treated.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The USS Iowa, which ferried the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt across the perilous Atlantic waters to a historic meeting with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin in the dark days of World War Two, will have to be towed to its final port call.

The battleship saw combat in the Pacific, survived a devastating explosion in a gun turret, and even a snub from the city of San Francisco. At the end of its final voyage, the storied warship will have a permanent mooring in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Harbor Commission voted unanimously on Thursday to create a permanent home for the ship at the city’s port, where it will open as a floating museum.

The vessel, which saw service with the U.S. Navy over six tumultuous decades, will become the only battleship museum on the U.S. West Coast when it opens on July 7.

“There’s no more ships like this in existence in the active navies anywhere in the world,” said Robert Kent, president of the Pacific Battleship Center.

“They’ve either been sunk, scrapped or turned into museums, and the Iowa is the last battleship to find a home,” he added.

The 887-foot Iowa-class warship was commissioned in 1943.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The USS Iowa, which ferried the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt across the perilous Atlantic waters to a historic meeting with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin in the dark days of World War Two, will have to be towed to its final port call.

The battleship saw combat in the Pacific, survived a devastating explosion in a gun turret, and even a snub from the city of San Francisco. At the end of its final voyage, the storied warship will have a permanent mooring in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Harbor Commission voted unanimously on Thursday to create a permanent home for the ship at the city’s port, where it will open as a floating museum.

The vessel, which saw service with the U.S. Navy over six tumultuous decades, will become the only battleship museum on the U.S. West Coast when it opens on July 7.

“There’s no more ships like this in existence in the active navies anywhere in the world,” said Robert Kent, president of the Pacific Battleship Center.

“They’ve either been sunk, scrapped or turned into museums, and the Iowa is the last battleship to find a home,” he added.

The 887-foot Montana-class warship was commissioned in 1943.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The parents of two Chinese graduate students slain near the University of Southern California last month have filed a wrongful death lawsuit accusing the school of misrepresenting the area as safe and failing to provide security patrols.

The 15-page lawsuit filed on Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court comes just over a month after Ming Qu and Ying Wu, both 23, were fatally shot as they were sitting in a 2003 BMW car that had been double-parked.

The early morning shooting deaths on April 11 occurred in front of Wu’s rented home over half a dozen city blocks from the campus, sparking a debate over whether USC provides adequate security measures in neighborhoods adjacent to the Los Angeles campus where many students live.

The lawsuit said that USC provides security in some areas around the campus, but not where the shooting of the two students occurred.

“There’s no excuse for it. You can’t tell when you’re walking from one area to another. There’s no sign that says, ‘Safety zone ahead,’” said attorney Alan Newman, who represents both sets of parents.

Debra Wong Yang, an attorney for USC, said the school would seek to have the lawsuit dismissed.

“USC is deeply saddened by this tragic event, which was a random violent act not representative of the safety of USC or the neighborhood around campus,” she said.

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) – Former National Football League star Junior Seau, who killed himself last week, was buried on Friday after a private ceremony in his California hometown, with tens of thousands expected to attend a public memorial service later in the day.

Relatives of the former 43-year-old linebacker, who was of Samoan descent, threw lei garlands on his casket during the burial at a cemetery in Oceanside, just north of San Diego. Seau, regarded as one of the best defensive players of his generation, died on May 2 at his home in Oceanside from a self-inflicted gunshot to the chest, according to police. He left no suicide note.

Seau’s death came during heightened scrutiny of the effects of repeated blows to the head in football and other contact sports, and the potential for such injuries to contribute to depression and long-term health problems in players.

Seau, known as a gregarious athlete who gave generously to youth-oriented charities, spent most of his 20-year career with the San Diego Chargers and was selected 12 times for the Pro Bowl, the NFL all-star game. He retired after the 2009 season.

The Chargers are paying for the “Celebration of Life” memorial for Seau on Friday evening and said 30,000 to 60,000 people were expected to pack Qualcomm Stadium for the event.

Former Chargers quarterback Dan Fouts and ex-coach Bobby Ross, who took the team to its only Super Bowl appearance after the 1994 season, were among those expected at the tribute.

PRIVATE VIEWING

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Football great Junior Seau’s brain will be examined for evidence of repetitive injuries from his playing days following the retired linebacker’s suicide in his California beachfront home, a pastor for the family said on Friday.

Seau, a 12-time Pro Bowl (all-star game) selection who played for 20 years in the National Football League, was found unconscious at his home by his girlfriend on Wednesday with a gunshot wound to the chest and a revolver nearby, police said.

Pastor Shawn Mitchell, a former chaplain for Seau’s longtime team, the San Diego Chargers, said he did not know who would study Seau’s brain at the request of the family.

“They believe that through allowing this procedure, it will allow the betterment of other individuals and athletes in the years ahead,” Mitchell said. “Their thought is, if it can benefit others, then it’s probably worth going forward with.”

Seau’s death at age 43 comes at a time of heightened scrutiny of the effects of repeated blows to the head in football, and the potential for such injuries to contribute to depression and long-term health problems in players.

The San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office, which found in an autopsy on Thursday that Seau’s death was due to suicide, has said a study of the brain for repetitive injury would have to be conducted by outside researchers.

The Brain Injury Research Institute is one of the groups seeking to obtain Seau’s brain, said Garrett Webster, an administrator and family liaison for the organization.

By Alex Dobuzinskis

(Reuters) – A suspension of open water yacht racing in the Pacific Ocean off the San Francisco coast, enacted after five sailors died in a wreck last month, could end before a planned May 25 race, a U.S. Coast Guard official said on Tuesday.

The Coast Guard declared a temporary “stand down” last week following the fatal wreck near the Farallone Islands, and just two days before four more sailors died after setting off on a race from Southern California for Mexico.

Sailing experts call the two tragedies unusual for having involved so many deaths so close together. Typically, about 15 people die a year in the United States in accidents involving motorized sailboats, said Chuck Hawley, chairman of a safety-at-sea committee of U.S. Sailing.

The suspension of offshore racing near the San Francisco Bay has affected two permitted, offshore races, but it could end in time for a May 25 Spinnaker Cup race from San Francisco to Monterey, Bay Area-based Coast Guard Captain Cindy Stowe said.

In the April 14 accident, a series of powerful waves pummeled the 38-foot (11.6-meter) yacht Low Speed Chase during the Full Crew Farallones Race, sweeping crew members overboard in shark-infested waters and tossing the vessel onto a rocky island.

The Coast Guard recovered the body of two crewmen, but two other men and a woman from the boat were lost at sea.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Two sailors killed in a mysterious crash at sea that reduced their vessel to ruins during a yacht race from California to Mexico died of blunt-force injuries, while a third crewman drowned, coroners reported on Monday.

The finding of blunt-force trauma in two of the deaths aboard the 37-foot sailboat Aegean was further indication the impact was a powerful one. A fourth sailor was still missing as investigators sought to determine if the yacht struck another vessel, presumably a larger ship, or a land mass.

Race organizers said the Aegean disappeared from satellite tracking at about 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, and the U.S. Coast Guard said bodies and debris from the yacht were found near the Coronado Islands off the northwestern coast of Mexico.

The fatal wreck follows an April 14 sailboat racing accident at the Farallon Islands off the coast of San Francisco, which killed five sailors and led the U.S. Coast Guard to suspend racing in the Pacific Ocean off northern California.

The San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office said in a statement that Aegean sailors Kevin Rudolph, 53, and William Johnson Jr., 57, died of blunt-force injuries while Joseph Stewart, 64, drowned. Rudolph and Johnson were from Southern California, and Stewart lived in Florida, the office said.

The men were participating in the 65-year-old Newport to Ensenada Race, in which vessels set off from Southern California and dock in Mexico’s Baja California.

U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Henry Dunphy said on Monday that an investigation of the tragedy was continuing.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Former “Prison Break” star Lane Garrison was charged on Thursday with misdemeanor battery against his ex-girlfriend which, if found guilty, would violate his parole over a conviction for vehicular manslaughter.

Since his arrest on Sunday, Garrison, 31, has been held in jail without bail. His probation for the 2007 manslaughter conviction was set to expire in one week, his attorney said.

Security cameras at his ex-girlfriend’s Beverly Hills apartment show a dispute on Saturday between Garrison and Ashley Mattingly in the lobby of the building.

Garrison struck Mattingly as the two were leaving an elevator, said Los Angeles deputy district attorney Elizabeth Marks. Witnesses approached the pair, and he fled the building, prosecutors said.

Video of the dispute was posted on celebrity website TMZ.com.

Garrison’s Los Angeles attorney, Harland Braun, said the two were “in the process of breaking up” and were arguing over messages on their cell phones and over the devices.

“It’s pretty clear he’s trying to grab his phone, or she’s got both phones basically,” Braun said. “It’s unfortunate that it happened just before he was going to terminate his parole.”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Two security screeners at Los Angeles International Airport have been arrested on drug trafficking and corruption charges, accused of taking bribes to allow large narcotic shipments through the airport, authorities said on Wednesday.

The pair were arrested along with two former airport screeners. Authorities said the screeners allowed drugs to pass through x-ray machine checkpoints in five incidents in exchange for payments of as much as $2,400.

The arrests mark one of the first instances in which employees of the Transportation Security Administration, which oversees screening checkpoints at airports across the nation, have been accused of complicity in drug smuggling, a spokesman for the agency said.

“The allegations in this case describe a significant breakdown of the screening system through the conduct of individuals who placed greed above the nation’s security needs,” U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr said in a statement.

The four were arrested late on Tuesday and early on Wednesday over incidents that took place between February and July 2011, he said.

In three of the incidents, the drugs were smuggled by a confidential source for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. But on the two other occasions, the airport screeners allowed independently operating smugglers to move through their checkpoints, the indictment said.

It detailed the shipment through airport screening stations of over 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of cocaine, over 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of marijuana and about four kilograms (8.8 pounds) of methamphetamine.