Teens arrested in plot

Teens arrested in plot

BIG BEAR, Calif. — Deputy sheriffs have arrested five teenagers on felony conspiracy charges on allegations they plotted to bring guns to school to attack fellow students and staff.

San Bernardino County sheriff’s spokeswoman Tiffany Swanek said Thursday that it appears the plot to attack Big Bear High School wasn’t serious.

She says the teens were arrested Wednesday after schoolmates reported overhearing them making suspicious statements.

Swanek says deputies found drug pipes and cash in the teens’ homes, as well as gang-related writings and photos.

The teenagers’ names were not released.

Guidelines to screen priests

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican issued new psychological screening guidelines for seminarians Thursday — the latest effort by the Roman Catholic Church to be more selective about its priesthood candidates after a series of sex-abuse scandals.

The church said it issued the guidelines to help church leaders weed out candidates with “psychopathic disturbances.” The scandals have rocked the church in recent years, triggering lawsuits that have cost hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements.

Janitors guard nuke plant

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Managers of an atomic power plant in Sweden used janitors to guard the facility when the alarm system was malfunctioning, according to a critical report Thursday from the country’s nuclear watchdog.

In a statement on its Web site, the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority called the incident at the Oskarshamn plant serious because the workers had no training as security guards.

In early October, managers deployed 20-25 cleaning and maintenance staff to help guard parts of the plant’s perimeter, the statement said.

The workers worked in shifts for about a week and were instructed to alert security if an outer fence was being breached, because motion sensors in parts of the newly installed alarm system were not working.

Blasts in India kill 50

NEW DELHI, India — Eleven deadly bomb blasts ripped through India’s northeastern state of Assam on Thursday, killing about 50 people and leaving more than 300 injured. The serial blasts took place before noon, within a span of 50 minutes.

State officials described the explosions as the worst ever in the violent and troubled history of Assam, where separatist insurgency groups have been active since the early 1980s and recent bomb attacks have been attributed to Islamist militants from neighboring Bangladesh.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blasts, but officials indicated that it could be the handiwork of a local militant group called the United Front of Asom (ULFA) that has been fighting against the Indian state for an independent homeland.

Hudson slayings update

CHICAGO — Detectives believe the 7-year-old nephew of Jennifer Hudson was probably shot in the sport-utility vehicle where his body was later found, a police official said Thursday.

Officials think Julian King was alive when he left the house where his uncle and grandmother were killed last week, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Police spokeswoman Monique Bond said she could not comment about the official’s statements.

Nobody has been charged, but the estranged husband of Julian’s mother remained in custody on a parole violation. Police have characterized 27-year-old William Balfour, a convicted felon, as a “person of interest,” but the official said he was the only suspect in the slayings.

Balfour, who is Julian’s stepfather, had refused to take a lie-detector test and has stopped cooperating with detectives, the official said Wednesday.

Endangered phone boxes

LONDON — Britain’s bright red telephone boxes are increasingly unused and unprofitable, but far from unloved.

The fate of more than a third of the country’s 12,700 iconic red telephone booths is up in the air: Telecommunications company BT says it wants to scrap about 400 of them and is in negotiations with local authorities about what to do with an additional 4,000.

Villages and local governments are stepping up efforts to salvage the street furniture, converting the booths into community notice boards, greenhouses, or possibly even miniature art galleries. They have until Saturday to apply to adopt a phone booth.

Combined dispatches