LITTLE ROCK — Correction: The two weapons found after a drug cartel fight in Mexico that have been traced back to the United States are an FN Herstal 5.7mm pistol and a Romanian AK-47-type WASR-10 rifle. A Nation in Brief item, relying on information from the Tribune Washington Bureau, erroneously reported the types of weapons found.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “We clearly fell down on the job with regard to Benghazi.” Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, on the deadly Sept.

11 attack on the U.S.

Consulate in Libya Article, this pageMaya, gun rumors shut some schools

DETROIT - Dozens of Michigan schools canceled classes over rumored threats of violence and problems related to doomsday scenarios based on the Mayan calendar, officials said Thursday.

Public schools in Genesee and Lapeer counties, neighboring counties north of the Detroit area, started the Christmas break Wednesday night rather than hold classes the rest of the week. Meanwhile, police investigated whether students made false claims about guns at a high school in Grand Blanc, said John Potbury, a spokesman for the Genesee County prosecutor.

A Lapeer-area superintendent, Matt Wandrie, said rumors of violence had become a major distraction for students and staff and have disrupted learning. Additionally, he said in a message to parents, “rumors connected to the Mayan calendar predicted end of the world on Friday have also surfaced.”

In Oklahoma, Bartlesville schools won’t reopen until the new year after someone reported an armed man near a school Tuesday. He may have been a hunter. Minot, N.D., schools also scratched today’s classes when rumors circulated that students were going to take guns to class.

Hagel defended

as ‘remarkable’

WASHINGTON - White House spokesman Jay Carney defended former Sen.

Chuck Hagel of Nebraska on Thursday, saying the possible pick for secretary of defense has been a “remarkable servant to this country.”

“What I can tell you is that Sen. Hagel fought and bled for his country. He served his country well. He was an excellent senator,” Carney told reporters.

Hagel, a Republican, served in the Vietnam War and was awarded two Purple Hearts. He retired in 2008 after two terms in the Senate and currently serves on the president’s Intelligence Advisory Board.

Critics have cast him as anti-Israel, while a major gay-rights group called Hagel’s comments on homosexuals and past votes as “unacceptable.”Attack ringleader

given 11 years

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - A teenager convicted of orchestrating an attack on a middle-school classmate who was soaked in alcohol and lit ablaze was sentenced Thursday to 11 years in prison.

Circuit Judge Matthew Destry agreed with prosecutors that Matthew Bent, 18, deserved the same sentence as the youth who flicked the lighter during the 2009 attack on Michael Brewer, who was then 15. Although Bent did not set the fire or pour the flammable liquid, Destry said he was just as much to blame. Bent was convicted of aggravated battery in June.

“I cannot ignore that, but for Mr. Bent’s orchestration of these events, none of this would have happened,” Destry said.

Before he was sentenced, Bent turned and apologized to Brewer but said he was not the ringleader.

“I didn’t intend for any of this to happen,” he said.

“I didn’t tell nobody to do that.”

Brewer survived by leaping into an apartment complex swimming pool but suffered severe burns over two-thirds of his body.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 12/21/2012