Two young men were arrested Friday in the killings of two Chinese graduate students, Ying Wu and Ming Qu, who were shot to death near the University of Southern California campus last month, police said.

Handout / AFP - Getty Images

Arrests were made of two suspects in the killings of Ying Wu, left, and Ming Qu, two University of Southern California students from China who were slain April 11.

Forensic evidence found at the scene of the crime linked the double murder to two attempted homicides in Los Angeles, leading to the arrest of two suspects, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said Friday.

Bryan Barnes, 20, of Los Angeles, and Javier Bolden, 19, of Palmdale, are being held without bail in connection with the murders of the electrical engineering students from China, Beck said.

They have been booked for murder and are scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.

See the original story at NBCLosAngeles.com

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and LAPD Chief Charlie Beck joined detectives from the criminal gang homicide division for a news conference Friday night, announcing the arrests in the April 11 murders.

Detectives from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI worked on the case with LAPD detectives.

"They left no stone unturned and spared no expense at the solving of this crime," Beck said. "People have the right to come this city from anywhere in the world ... without being phased by vicious criminals."

Javier and Barnes have minor records and are not documented gang members, but Beck said authorities believe they have gang affiliations.

The announcement comes one day after the victims' parents filed a wrongful death suit against the university seeking unspecified damages.

Wu and Qu, both electrical engineering students from China, were double parked in a BMW sedan on Raymond Avenue south of Adams Boulevard late Wednesday, April 11, when a gunman fired at them.

Neighbors in the residential neighborhood, several blocks west of the USC campus, reported hearing shots fired.

The male student, Qu, escaped the car but was shot. He was found on the porch of a nearby residence, apparently seeking help from neighbors.

On April 13, police announced a $125,000 reward, which climbed to $200,000 after the LA City Council unanimously approved an additional $75,000 reward.

Annual scholarships were established in honor of the students, USC President C.L. Max Nikias said at a campuswide memorial service in April.

Wu and Qu were among the largest foreign student body in the United States.

Nearly 9,000 foreign transplants chose USC during the 2010-11 academic year, making the campus near downtown Los Angeles top in the nation for international students.

Between Fall 2009 and Spring 2010, enrollment by Chinese students jumped nearly 37 percent, according to that year's enrollment report.

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Seven deputies from the Los Angeles County sheriff’s gang unit are on paid leave during an investigation into their suspected involvement in a secret clique that promoted aggressive policing and celebrated officer shootings, sources confirmed to The Los Angeles Times Wednesday.

The newspaper broke the news about the suspected “Jump Out Boys” clique several weeks ago when a supervisor discovered a pamphlet describing the group’s tenets.

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Los Angeles County Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore confirmed to NBC4 that seven deputies have been placed on leave, but, citing an internal affairs investigation, would not comment further.

Whitmore told NBC4 that his department was aware of the clique and investigating the suspected gang before the paper broke the story.

Days after the news broke, the captain of the division told his deputies in a private briefing that they “shamed the department by forming the group and urged those responsible to identify themselves,” the Times reported.

One deputy came forward and named six others, a source told the paper. All seven were placed on paid leave this week.

Sources with knowledge of the inner workings of the division told the newspaper that current and former Gang Enforcement Team members comprise the clique that used gang-like three-finger hand signs and branded themselves with matching tattoos, modified after a shooting.

The tattoo's design is believed to include a grinning skull with red eyes, wrapped in a bandana imprinted with the letters “OSS” – allegedly representing Operation Safe Streets, the name of the larger unit the Gang Enforcement Team is part of, the Times reported.

The Gang Enforcement Team is divided into two platoons of relatively autonomous deputies who target neighborhoods where gang violence is high, locate armed gang members and take their guns away, the Times reported.

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The FBI released this image of Stephen Ivens.

Police are searching for an FBI agent said to be despondent and possibly suicidal and who was last seen by family on Thursday night.

Stephen Ivens, 35, was reported missing Friday morning from his home in the 1700 block of Scott Road in Burbank.

Laura Eimiller, an FBI spokeswoman, confirmed the man is an FBI agent assigned to FBI's Los Angeles division.

Police, meanwhile, were searching the hillside areas around Burbank and said a gun that he had in the house is unaccounted for. Police believe he might have walked into the area of the Verdugo mountains.

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Multiple local agencies are investigating, in addition to the Burbank Police Department and the FBI.

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Twenty years ago this weekend, riots broke out in Los Angeles – and spread to other cities – after a California jury acquitted three white and one Hispanic Los Angeles police officers in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King.

The riots that erupted on April 29, 1992, were among the most lethal in U.S. history. By the time order was restored, 53 people had died, nearly 3,000 people were injured and thousands of businesses were damaged or destroyed.

In one of the most searing images beamed into living rooms across the country from the disturbance, a mostly black mob enraged by the acquittal dragged white truck driver Reginald Denny from his cab at a south Los Angeles intersection and beat him unconscious while news helicopters hovered overhead.

Nearly a year later, a federal jury convicted two of the police officers of a federal charge of violating King’s civil rights and sentenced them to 30 months in prison. Two other officers were acquitted. King eventually received a $3.8 million settlement from the city, and the case led to sweeping changes in LAPD.

AP Photo/George Holliday/Courtesy of KTLA Los Angeles

The beating of Rodney King by a group of Los Angeles police officers was captured on videotape by a citizen.

More recently, King has been promoting his just-published memoir, "The Riot Within: My Journey From Rebellion to Redemption."

As Los Angeles, and the nation, reflects on the anniversary this weekend, many are asking the same plaintive question King uttered on the steps of city hall during the riots two decades ago: "Can we all get along?"

Many seem to agree that the city is safer today and relations between ethnic groups have improved. A recent poll of Los Angeles residents by the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University found that most say L.A. is unlikely to see a repeat of such riots in the coming years.

NBCLosAngeles.com has a special package of stories and videos about the 20th anniversary of the riots here.

Do you think race relations have improved? Take the poll below and then join the discussion on Facebook.

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Two University of Southern California graduate students from China were shot to death in a car overnight in what could be a bungled carjacking, Los Angeles police reported Wednesday.

The victims, a male and a female, were shot around 1 a.m. local time on a residential street about a mile from campus.

USC later identified the victims as electrical engineering grad students Ying Wu and Ming Qu.

Police were interviewing neighbors and searching the area on Wednesday.

A Los Angeles police spokesman said a witness saw a man running from the scene, NBCLosAngeles.com reported.

Frederic J. Brown / AFP - Getty Images

One of the Chinese students shot dead in Los Angeles had run to this home for help.

The male victim was able to stumble onto a nearby porch before collapsing, while the woman was found slumped over inside the vehicle, a late-model BMW, the Los Angeles Times reported.

USC campus police sent out two alerts about a deadly off-campus shooting -- one at 6:03 a.m. that reported a shooting, and a second 21 minutes later that stated that a male and female had been shot dead.

The campus was not locked down, though the second alert advised students "to be mindful of their surroundings and review safety tips" on a USC website page.

USC says 7,200 of its 38,000 undergrad and graduate students in 2011 were international, and that the largest group was from China.

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A black bear that was tranquilized Tuesday in the backyard of a home in the Los Angeles foothills is thought to be the same one that picked up a Twitter following after frequenting the area on trash days.

The large bear, believed to weigh several hundred pounds, was roaming some streets and yards in La Crescenta for several hours when a wildlife official happened to be in the area and sprang into action, the Los Angeles Times reported.

"The timing was real good," said California Fish and Game officer Martin Wall.

Transferring the tranquilized bear to a truck was another matter, with Wall comparing it to "moving a water bed without a frame."

Locals have seen a bear in their midst over recent weeks. One garage was raided last month, with frozen meatballs taken from a fridge.

A Twitter feed was soon set up in his honor.

Among the posts: "Why did the black bear cross the road? To get to the other trash can."

KTLA-TV

Images from a KTLA-TV news broadcast show the bear and then Vaz Terdandenyan running away.

As the bear roamed early Tuesday, it was a near-death experience for resident Vaz Terdandenyan, who was texting on his cellphone when he looked up and spotted the animal in a passageway along his home, KTLA-TV reported.

"I got up this morning from helicopter noise and I was trying to see what was going on," Terdandenyan told KTLA, which captured the scare on video from a helicopter.

"I was texting my boss that I would be late for work because something is going on, and I'm coming down the stairs and I see the bear coming up the stairs toward me."

"I turned back and I ran for my life."

Plans are to return the bear into the nearby Angeles National Forest, KTLA reported.

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A Los Angeles woman apparently killed herself with a chainsaw in her apartment, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Fire officials said evidence indicates the 47-year-old woman may have been dead for a day, the paper reported.

The woman's sister found the body and a suicide note in their apartment Thursday after midnight, KNX 1070 Newsradio reported.

LAPD Officer Norma Eisenman told the Times that the door to the woman's apartment was jammed, but "the sister was able to see her on the bed with a chainsaw next to her."

"She has a neck wound, but it hasn't officially been ruled a suicide yet, though that's what it appears to be," LA County coroner spokesman Larry Dietz told the Times.

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A cash-strapped Little League in Los Angeles County will return a surprise $1,200 donation from a strip club that appeared to save its season.

League President Roberto Aguirre said the league's board of directors decided to return the money donated two weeks ago by Jet Strip gentlemen's club, according to the Daily Breeze newspaper of Torrance, Calif.

Little League decides to turn down donation from strip club

The league needs the money to rent fields from the Lennox School District, which doubled fees to play on its baseball diamonds. As news of the strip club's donation spread, contributions came from around the country. Aguirre said the league still needs help.

Lennox is a poor, unincorporated neighborhood near the Los Angeles International Airport. The league offers a payment plan so families can afford the annual $85 per-player fee.

Earlier story: Strip club saves Little League's season

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Little League baseball players from an unincorporated area of Los Angeles will reportedly get to play ball this season thanks to a charitable donation from the unlikeliest of donors.

Jet Strip, a gentlemen's club in Lennox, has donated $1,200 to the Lennox Little League, which has been strapped for cash after the Lennox School District imposed some new regulations, according to the Daily Breeze.

A call to the district was not immediately returned.

The donation, along with those from other businesses, will allow 300 little leaguers to play at least one more season, but the league's president, Roberto Aguirre, still isn't optimistic about the long-term future of the league.

"It feels good to be from Lennox when people do stuff like that," Aguirre said to the paper. "At the same time, the future is very scary for us, because [the donation] is a one-time deal."

James Wallace, Jet Strip's general manager, is also a 15-year member of the Lennox Coordinating Council, comparable to an unofficial city council of the community.

Wallace told the paper that he likes to keep the gentlemen's club's donations quiet.

"We don't really like to brag about it," he said.

The school board has also received donations of $1,000 and $600 from the little league in Westchester and the council, respectively.

But Aguirre told the paper that the bigger problem facing the league is the inability to sell food at games.

Read more from NBCLosAngeles.com

Citing health concerns, the K-8 district stopped the league from selling grilled foods, like hamburgers and hot dogs, though it has installed a drain, and a local non-profit, YouthBuild, has promised to build a snack bar for free.

"People don't want candy, candy, candy - chips, chips, chips," Aguirre said. "They want hamburgers, hot dogs and french fries."

But raising the $65,000 necessary for materials to build a snack bar will be tough for a community that is economically depressed.

Lennox is a small, mile-by-mile community adjacent to Los Angeles International Airport that is so impoverished, the league offers families a payment plan so that some can afford the annual $85 it costs to play in the league.

"We're looking up in the sky and hoping for something great," Aguirre told the paper. "If this snack stand happens, it's going to be the best thing that could happen for our league."

Follow NBCLA for the latest LA news, events and entertainment: Twitter: @NBCLA// Facebook: NBCLA

The Canadian Press via AP, file

Ahmed Ressam in an undated police photo. Ressam's 22-year sentence for plotting to bomb the Los Angeles airport has been rjected twice by a higher court.

Updated at 3:30 p.m. ET: For the second time, a federal appeals court has overturned a prison sentence for Ahmed Ressam, the "Millennium Bomber," ruling Monday that the 22-year sentence he received isn't long enough.

The final sentence for Ressam, 44 — who was convicted in 2000 of trying to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Eve 1999 in a plot that also was to involve an attack on the Space Needle in Seattle — has been the focus of a standoff between U.S. District Court in Seattle and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

M. Alex Johnson is a reporter for msnbc.com. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

Ressam's original sentencing was delayed until 2005 while he provided information on terrorist activities to federal authorities. In 2005, District Judge John Coughenour, accusing the federal government of overreaching in its "war on terrorism," sentenced Ressam to 22 years in prison — about a third of the sentence called for in federal guidelines.

In February 2010, a three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled that Coughenour's sentence was too lenient, sending it back to district court with orders that a different judge apply the federal guidelines, which would result in a sentence of 65 years.

But the district court reaffirmed Coughenour's original sentence of 22 years. The tit-for-tat ruling Monday was by the full appeals court, which voted 7-4 to send the case back yet again.

The appeals court acknowledged that its order was unusual, saying Coughenour had wide discretion in passing sentence because of Ressam's cooperation with the U.S. government. But that "does not mean anything goes," appeals Judge Richard R. Clifton wrote Monday in declaring the sentence "substantively unreasonable."

Read the full appeals court ruling (.pdf)

In a dissent, appeals Judge Mary M. Schroeder noted that the federal government has never argued that Coughenour committed any procedural error. In fact, she wrote, it initially asked for a sentence of only 35 years because of Ressam's cooperation and conceded in court that it would accept a sentence of as little as 30 years.

"The 22-year sentence imposed was thus well within the range of alternatives proposed to the district court," Schoeder contended.

Ressam remains in custody in Seattle pending his eventual final sentence.

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Los Angeles Times via Los Angeles County Sheriff

Anthony Garcia

A convicted murderer awaiting trial in the Los Angeles County jail system had family cash nearly $30,000 in unemployment checks, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Anthony Garcia’s father and two girlfriends reportedly cashed those checks, $1,600 a month, and also deposited money in his jail account and that of other gang members.

His father, Juan Garcia, 47, and girlfriends, Sandra Jaimez, 45, and Cynthia Limas, 25, were charged with unemployment fraud, the Times reported.

The investigation into the benefits fraud lasted a year and a half, from October 2008 to March 2010. It is illegal to receive unemployment benefits while in jail, according to California's Employment Development Department, but it is unclear whether Garcia, 26, could be convicted of a fraud-related crime as the money was deposited into his account.

Garcia was charged with the murder because he had a detailed murder scene inked on his chest. A detective investigating a 2004 murder case was looking through snapshots of tattooed gang members – who are photographed with their shirts off so that police may catalogue their tattoos – when he came across Garcia's tattoos. Garcia had been photographed after being picked up for a traffic stop.

Garcia’s tattoo spans his chest and bears the words, “RIVERA KILLS” above a liquor store lined with Christmas lights. There, John Juarez, 23, was gunned down. Rivera is a reference to the gang, Rivera-13.

Garcia was booked, and sheriff’s detectives disguised as gang members coaxed a confession out of Garcia in his cell.

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Seven people have been arrested in the United States on charges of trafficking in endangered rhinoceros horns, federal officials said.

The most recent arrest took place Wednesday night when Jin Zhao Feng, a Chinese national, was taken into custody at Los Angeles International Airport, Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, said Thursday.

Authorities suspect him of overseeing the shipment of dozens of rhino horns from the U.S. to China.

The arrests were the result of an 18-month investigation that was called "Operation Crash" — the term for a herd of rhinoceroses — and scrutinized an international smuggling ring that trafficked in sawed-off rhinoceros horns. The horns are used by some cultures for ornamental carvings, good luck charms or believed medicinal purposes, including cancer.

"The rhino is an animal of prehistoric origin that is facing possible extinction because of an illegal trade for its horns on the black market that is driven by greed," said Ignacia S. Moreno, assistant attorney general for the Justice Depatment's Environment and Natural Resources Division.

Spike in rhino poaching threatens survival of species

All species of rhinoceros are protected under U.S. and international law, and all black rhinoceros species are endangered, federal officials said.

Rhino horns are composed of keratin, the same type of protein that makes up hair and fingernails. Rhinoceros horn is a highly valued and sought-after commodity despite the fact that international trade has been largely banned since 1976.

According to a report by NBC's Rock Center, an average-sized rhino horn in Vietnam can sell for as much as a quarter of a million dollars, which makes rhino horn gram for gram more valuable than gold or cocaine.

The arrests were initially reported by the Los Angeles Times.

Three of the alleged traffickers caught in Southern California were Jimmy Kha, 49, his girlfriend Mai Nguyen, 41, and Kha's 26-year-old son Felix. Each faces four counts of rhino horn trafficking in violation of federal laws protecting rare and endangered species.

Investigators reportedly seized several rhino horns, more than $1 million in cash, $1 million in gold bars, diamonds and Rolex watches during the raids, NBCLosAngeles.com reported.

One of the alleged suppliers, Wade Steffen, was arrested in Hico, Texas, and charged in Los Angeles, federal prosecutors said.

The Khas began receiving packages from Steffen and another alleged supplier in 2010. Seventeen packages were opened under federal search warrants and 37 rhinoceros horns were found, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

South African town dehorns rhinos in attempt to ward off poachers

A search of Steffen's luggage at the Long Beach Airport on Feb. 9 turned up $337,000 in cash.

According to NBCLosAngeles.com, the rhino horns seized as part of the raids were reportedly destined for buyers in Vietnam and China.

In New Jersey, Amir Even-Ezra was arrested Feb. 18 on a felony trafficking charge after purchasing rhino horns from a New York resident in New Jersey.

Antiques expert David Hausman was charged in U.S. District Court in Manhattan with illegally trafficking rhinoceros horns and with creating false documents to conceal the illegal nature of the transaction, prosecutors said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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