STOCKHOLM, Sweden
Student killed, another severely injured in high school stabbing
A 19-year-old man burst into a high school art class in central Sweden yesterday and stabbed two students, killing one and seriously wounding the other, police said.
The suspect, a Ukrainian immigrant, turned himself in to police two hours after the 11 a.m. attack at the Vaestermalms school in Sundsvall, 220 miles north of the capital, Stockholm. His name was not released.
Police spokesman Sten Wiklander said it was not clear whether the suspect was a student at the school.
The victims, both Swedes, were taken to a hospital, where one - an 18-year-old woman - died several hours later. The other, a 19-year-old man, underwent surgery for chest and stomach injuries, hospital officials said. Most high school students in Sweden are 18 or 19 when they graduate.
About 10 students witnessed the attack during an art lecture, the Swedish news agency TT reported. A memorial service was planned for today.
Wiklander said it was the first such school attack in the city of 95,000 people. The school has 1,500 students.
Swedes were shocked earlier this year when a 16-year-old student was shot to death in a bathroom at a suburban high school in Stockholm.
One attacker was sentenced to eight years in prison and another to two years in juvenile detention for that slaying, which was the first shooting death to occur at Swedish school while it was in session.
NEW YORK
Former President Clinton's New York office gets package containing salmonella
The Secret Service is investigating two vials containing salmonella that were sent to former President Clinton's office in Harlem. The agency said there is no connection to the anthrax scares.
"This has nothing to do with the other mailings" that have spread anthrax in Washington, New York, New Jersey and Florida, Secret Service spokesman Jim Mackin said. Salmonella is a common food poisoning bacteria that rarely is deadly.
Mackin said 15 vials containing an unknown substance were in a package received at Clinton's office in early October. Clinton did not handle the package and nobody has gotten sick from it.
The vials contained white and red liquid, according to a law enforcement source who spoke on condition of anonymity. The package was postmarked in Japan, and included a note written in Japanese on rice paper, the source said.
The package was addressed to Clinton at the White House, where it went through the standard X-ray process before it was forwarded to Clinton's office, the source said. It sat there for about a week before it was opened.
Mackin confirmed "certain writings" were included with the package, but he did not elaborate. He would not divulge the postmark but said it had been in the mail "for some time."
Tests showed the bacteria was "not lab-cultured salmonella," Mackin said. Instead, the fermentation process turned the substance into salmonella in the vials.
No other contamination was found but the Secret Service is continuing to investigate.
"All of our protectees from time to time get letters that can be classified as unusual," Mackin said. "The timing is bad."
NASHVILLE, Tenn.
Church court of United Methodists asked to decide on gay clergy ban
The supreme court of the United Methodist Church was asked yesterday to reconsider the denomination's ban on gay clergy.
The Judicial Council, meeting in Nashville through Saturday, heard oral arguments involving three Seattle pastors who were all denied appointments by Bishop Elias Galvan after revealing that they were gay.
The case centers on two church laws: one that forbids the ordination of homosexuals and another requiring that all pastors in good standing receive appointments.
The three gay pastors were regarded as having good standing with their local United Methodist conference.
The Rev. Mark Williams, one of the pastors denied an appointment, argued he should have been allowed to go through established procedures for determining if he has broken church law.
Instead, the bishop decided that "he is no longer obligated to honor our rights," Williams said.
Arguments for upholding the gay clergy ban were among briefs submitted to the council, but no one from that side asked to give oral arguments.
John Stumbo, a layman and the mayor of Fort Valley, Ga., filed a brief on behalf of the Coalition for United Methodist Accountability, a group that works to enforce church law. He said the two church laws in question are not contradictory.
If someone is openly gay, then by definition they are not in good standing, he argued.
Williams and the Rev. Katie Ladd announced during a conference in June that they are homosexuals. Pastor Karen Dammann declared her sexual preference in February, when asking Galvan for a church appointment.
Their disclosures came a year after the United Methodists banned the ordination of homosexual clergy and same-sex marriages at their General Conference, which meets every four years and sets policy for the denomination.
The United Methodist Church, the nation's third-largest denomination with 8.4 million U.S. members, has struggled publicly with the issue of homosexuality since 1972, when the General Conference declared homosexuals "persons of sacred worth" but found homosexuality "incompatible with Christian teaching."
