In brief: Seven killed in Chicago violence

CHICAGO – Chicago authorities say seven people were killed and six wounded in gun violence in one day.

Among those killed Saturday was a 34-year-old man whose mother had already lost her three other children to shootings. Police say Ronnie Chambers, who was his mother’s youngest child, was shot in the head while sitting in a car.

Police say two separate double-homicide shootings also occurred Saturday about 12 hours apart.

In one, a 16-year-old boy and a 32-year-old man were killed.

In another, two men were shot at a hamburger stand on the city’s South Side. Police say the victims were roommates in their 40s.

Chicago’s homicide count eclipsed 500 last year for the first time since 2008. The city’s homicide rate was almost double in the early 1990s, averaging around 900.

Two rescued from crash into Hudson

YONKERS, N.Y. – Two people were rescued Sunday when their single-engine plane crashed and sank into the icy Hudson River off Yonkers, authorities said.

The small plane was carrying a man and a woman on a sightseeing trip, and crashed about 5:20 p.m., Yonkers police Lt. Phil Collins said. The two were wearing life vests and were able to get out of the plane before it sank, Collins said.

The cause of the crash was under investigation.

The couple were plucked from the waters within 30 minutes of the crash and taken to Jacobi Medical Center. They were treated for hypothermia and were listed in stable condition at Jacobi, Lt. Toni Scherer of Empress Ambulance Service said.

The names of the two were not immediately released.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen described the plane as a Piper PA-32. Bergen said the pilot told local authorities the flight left from the Trenton-Robbinsville Airport in Robbinsville, N.J. It was flying under visual flight rules and not receiving air traffic control services, she said.

The Journal News reported that Yonkers police officers and a retired detective took a boat out to rescue the two.