Boys charged with plot

New York - Five 13-year-old boys have been charged with conspiracy for drawing up a hit list and plotting to bomb their Brooklyn…

New York - Five 13-year-old boys have been charged with conspiracy for drawing up a hit list and plotting to bomb their Brooklyn school, police said yesterday.

They were arrested on Wednesday when officials at McKinley Junior High School reported that they had been overheard saying they were going to "blow up" the school. They said the five eighth-graders had been charged with conspiracy and would be released to their parents.

New York City school officials have been vigilant since the shooting on April 20th by two teenagers at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Since then, threats of bomb and gun violence have plagued schools across the US.

"Recovered were notes on how to make a bomb and a handwritten list of who to kill," New York Police Department spokeswoman Ms Lee Ann Tracy said. "The school was searched, but nothing was found."