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Trio charged in alleged summit terror plot

CHICAGO, May 19 (UPI) -- Three would-be NATO protesters were charged in Chicago with planning terror attacks on Obama campaign headquarters and Mayor Rahm Emanuel's home, police said.

They were arrested in a raid Wednesday night, but formally charged Saturday as heads of state began arriving in the city for the NATO summit.

The three are Brian Church, 27, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Jared Chase, 24, of Keene, N.H. and Brent Vincent Betterly, 24, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. Betterly told police he lived in Massachusetts.

They were charged in state court with possession of an explosive or incendiary device, conspiracy to commit terrorism and providing material support to terrorism.

The newspaper said Chicago undercover police had infiltrated a group of NATO summit protesters and observed them as they made Molotov cocktails.

Britain's The Guardian newspaper said the investigation took a month.

Each of the three is being held on a $1.5 million bond, The Guardian said.

Lawyers representing the men said the charges are trumped up to intimidate protesters. "

4 missing in Mississippi River boat crash

BURLINGTON, Iowa, May 19 (UPI) -- Four people were missing and eight injured Saturday after an early morning collision between two flat-bottom boats on the Mississippi River in Iowa.

The crash occurred in the O'Connell Slough area off Burlington, Iowa, shortly before 2 a.m., The (Burlington) Hawk Eye reported. Kevin Baskins, a spokesman for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, said the darkness made locating everyone involved difficult.

By Saturday afternoon, Baskins added, the search was "leaning more toward recovery." Relatives and volunteers continued a land and river search.

One of the boats was carrying a single person and the other 11, investigators said. Both were jon boats, flat-bottomed aluminum boats used by hunters and fishing parties.

Three of the missing are men and one a woman, all believed to be in their 20s, officials said.

One of the injured was airlifted to a hospital in Iowa City while the others were treated locally.

Baskins said the investigation into the cause of the collision is likely to take weeks, and the survivors have been conflicting stories of what happened.

Montreal student protest turns violent

MONTREAL, May 19 (UPI) -- A protest of an estimated 8,000 over Montreal's emergency law against wearing masks turned ugly when Molotov cocktails were fired at police

After being pelted with projectiles, police posted to their Twitter feed around 10 p.m. Friday: "Criminal acts were committed. [The protest] has been declared illegal. We asked people to disperse immediately."

CBC News reported the protest was peaceful in its first hour, monitored by police. Participants covered their faces with gas masks, scarves or simply dressed in black. However, after that, protesters began breaking windows.

QMI Agency reported shortly after 9 p.m. police had arrested one person for allegedly assaulting an officer. By the end of the night, police had four people in custody.

The emergency law, prohibiting the wearing of masks during a demonstration, went into effect Saturday as a response to months of student protests over the province's tuition talks.

2 girls killed in Italy school explosion

BRINDISI, Italy, May 19 (UPI) -- Two 16-year-old girls were killed and seven other youngsters were injured Saturday in an explosion outside a school in southern Italy, authorities said.

Fabiano Amati, regional minister for Italy's Civil Protection agency, said the police had found three gas cylinders at the Brindisi school that were detonated with a remote control, CNN reported.

The explosives were hidden behind a trash can by a wall 54 yards meters from the entrance to the Francesca Morvillo Falcone school, Amati said.

Police chief Francesco Cirillo told CNN no one has claimed responsibility and the motive is under investigation.

The school is named after the wife of a prominent anti-Mafia judge, Giovanni Falcone, fueling speculation organized crime could have been responsible. Falcone was assassinated in Palermo, Sicily, in 1992.

"It's an attack on all Italians because schools are considered a secure area," Amati said. "It's the first time in our country that a school is under attack."

The explosion happened as students were arriving at the school, which provides vocational training, Italy's ANSA news agency reported.