Four Iowa college students, including the brother of a state lawmaker, were stabbed Monday while walking in a park in China, according to U.S. and Chinese authorities. 

The students from Cornell College, a private liberal arts college in Mount Vernon, Iowa, were in the country teaching at Beihua University in Jilin City. Mount Vernon is about two hours east of Des Moines. The students were in China as part of a partnership with Beihua.