Attack on asylum seeker: 13 charged

LONDON • British police said yesterday that they have now charged 13 people over a brutal attack on a teenage asylum seeker in south London, which detectives said he was lucky to survive.

The 17-year-old Kurdish-Iranian teen was assaulted by up to 30 people last Friday night as he waited at a bus stop. Police said that when the suspects discovered he was an asylum seeker, they launched an assault, causing a fractured skull and blood clot in his brain.

REUTERS

Armed men rob tourists in Mexico

TUXTLA GUTIERREZ (Mexico) • The authorities in southern Mexico are investigating the weekend robbery of more than two dozen German tourists by armed men at a popular Mayan archaeological site.

One guide said her group, on the latest stop of a tour across Mexico, was accosted at the historic site last Saturday by several armed and hooded men carrying knives and guns. The men stole their money, cameras and other valuables.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

US teen admits to plot to kill Pope

WASHINGTON • A New Jersey teenager has pleaded guilty to a plot, allegedly inspired by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria militant group, to kill Pope Francis during his 2015 visit to the United States.

The US Justice Department said Santos Colon, 15 years old at the time, tried to recruit a sniper to shoot the Pope as he celebrated mass in Philadelphia .

But the teen unwittingly recruited an undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, and was arrested 12 days before the event.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE