Nation briefs 12/15/05

FDA advisers say children's diarrhea vaccine is safe

WASHINGTON -- A vaccine against a virus that hospitalizes thousands of children in the nation with diarrhea and kills millions in developing countries moved a step closer to the U.S. market on Wednesday. If the government gives the go-ahead, Merck & Co.'s vaccine would become the nation's second attempt at preventing rotavirus. A competitor's vaccine was pulled from the market six years ago because of a rare but life-threatening side effect. Federal health advisers unanimously voted Wednesday that Merck's candidate, RotaTeq, seems safe.

Four people shot to death in N. J. after-hours club

PATERSON, N.J. -- Four people were found shot to death early Wednesday morning in an after-hours club in the city's industrial section, the county prosecutor said. The four victims -- three men and a woman -- were slain in the "game room" of the four-room, illegal club, which is on the second floor of a building that also houses a machine shop, said Passaic County Prosecutor James F. Avigliano. No arrests had been made by late Wednesday morning.

Bus, catering truck collision in L.A. injures 20

LOS ANGELES -- A transit bus and catering truck collided in Los Angeles, leaving 20 people injured in the crash Wednesday, authorities said. Two of the injured were in serious-to-critical condition, fire department spokesman Ron Meyers said. The others were being evaluated by paramedics at the scene. The cause of the crash south of downtown was under investigation.

Four found dead after trailer fire near Phoenix

PEORIA, Ariz. -- Flames engulfed a mobile home in a suburb west of Phoenix early Wednesday, killing an infant, two other children and a man, police said. The children's mother discovered the fire when she returned home shortly after 1 a.m., said Mike Tellef, a spokesman for the Peoria Police Department. He said the man killed was believed to be the woman's boyfriend. "Apparently when she got back to the house and found the house on fire, she tried to break a window to get in to the kids and had suffered some minor cuts to one of her arms," he said. The woman was treated at a local hospital, Tellef said. Officials said it was too early to determine the cause of the blaze.

Swede charged with plot to set up terror camp

NEW YORK -- A Lebanese-born Swede has been charged in a plot to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon, prosecutors said. A criminal complaint charging Oussama Kassir with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists was unsealed Tuesday in U.S. District Court. Kassir, 39, was arrested Sunday in the Czech Republic after a warrant was filed with Interpol, federal prosecutor Michael J. Garcia said Tuesday. He remains detained in Prague.

Five New Orleans schools reopen as charter schools

NEW ORLEANS -- Five public schools that had been shut down since Hurricane Katrina hit reopened Wednesday as charter schools, run independently of a city school system that has long been criticized as bloated, inefficient and corrupt. It was the latest development in what parents and education officials in Louisiana hope will be a disaster-inspired renaissance for public education in New Orleans, which was home to most of the state's worst schools before the hurricane shut down the entire system.

-- From wire reports

, a part of the city that was relatively unscathed by Katrina. The city school board voted in October to re-establish the schools as charter schools, in part because it would make them eligible for millions in federal aid earmarked for charters. Backers of the charter concept say it frees the schools from the bureaucracy of the school system, giving more authority to teachers and principals.