LOS ANGELES – A 100-year-old man backed his car on to a sidewalk and hit 11 people, including nine children, across from an elementary school in South Los Angeles just after classes had ended Wednesday, authorities said.

Four of the children were in critical condition when firefighters arrived but they were stabilized and were in serious condition at a hospital, city fire Capt. Jaime Moore said. Everyone was expected to survive, he said.

Some of the victims were trapped under the powder blue Cadillac before witnesses helped pull them out, Moore said.

Police identified the driver as Preston Carter and said he was being very cooperative.

Carter talked to television reporters just after the crash, saying he has a license and will be 101 Wednesday.

“My brakes failed, it was out of control,” Carter told KCAL-TV.

Asked about hitting the children, Preston said: “You know I’m sorry about that. I wouldn’t do that for nothing on earth. My sympathies for them.”

After an initial investigation, it appears Carter was pulling out of a parking space, but instead of backing into the street, he backed onto the sidewalk, police Capt. George Rodriguez said. The car hit a group of people who were gathered to buy snacks from a street vendor, Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said the collision was being investigated as an accident, and Carter was not under arrest. He has a valid driver’s license, Rodriguez said.

Chicago teachers warn of strike

The Chicago Teachers Union issued a 10-day strike notice, saying teachers in the nation’s third-largest school district are ready to walk off the job for the first time in 25 years.

Negotiations between the union and the Chicago Board of Education are hung up on issues such as job security and pay raises, said union President Karen Lewis. The notice means the soonest teachers could strike is Sept. 10, but it doesn’t mean a strike will definitely happen.

Murder of boy nets 40 years to life

A hardware store clerk was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison after pleading guilty to kidnapping, killing and dismembering a lost little boy in Brooklyn.

Levi Aron, 37, had pleaded guilty this month to lesser charges in a deal that spared him a criminal trial and the possibility of life in prison without parole.

Aron admitted he abducted and killed Leiby Kletzky, 8, after the boy approached him and asked for directions on July 11, 2011. Body parts were found in Aron’s freezer.

Occupy Wall Street set to block traffic

Occupy Wall Street, the global movement against inequality that ignited in Manhattan last year, will mark its first anniversary by trying to block traffic in the financial district and encircle the New York Stock Exchange.

The morning action may include attempts to make citizens’ arrests of bankers, and some activists intend to bring handcuffs, they said.

Colorado abortion ban not on ballot

The nation’s only pending ballot measure to ban abortion in all circumstances has failed to advance to voters in Colorado.

Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler announced that backers of the divisive “personhood” amendment fell about 3,900 valid signatures short of the some 86,000 needed.

White House lifts Myanmar visa ban

The Obama administration took another step in unraveling tough U.S. sanctions against Myanmar by waiving a visa ban to promote engagement with its reformist government.

The White House announced the step ahead of a visit next month to New York by Myanmar’s president, Thein Sein, to the U.N. General Assembly.

White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said it is not a blanket lifting of the ban, and the U.S. still will screen Myanmar officials for evidence of complicity in gross human rights abuses.

Tennis ref offers not-guilty plea

A professional tennis referee beat her elderly husband to death with a coffee cup and used the broken handle to repeatedly stab him before judging a tennis match and getting a manicure, prosecutors said in court.

After considering defense arguments, Superior Court Commissioner Mitchell Block reduced Lois Ann Goodman’s bail from $1 million to $500,000 for the 70-year-old defendant and allowed home confinement with electronic monitoring.