Authorities crack case of military hacker

Authorities crack caseof military hacker
WASHINGTON -- Federal authorities have cracked the case of an international hacker who broke into roughly 100 unclassified U.S. military networks over the past year, officials said.
Officials familiar with the investigation declined to identify the hacker, a British citizen, but said he could be indicted as early as today in federal courts in northern Virginia and New Jersey. Those U.S. court jurisdictions include the Pentagon in Virginia and Picatiny Arsenal in New Jersey, one of the Army's premier research facilities.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to say whether this person was already in custody, but one official said investigators consider the break-ins the work of a professional rather than a recreational hacker.
hHemingway papersslated for preservation
HAVANA -- Cuban President Fidel Castro looks on as Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., right, signs an agreement to preserve documents that once belonged to Ernest Hemingway.
Among the documents Cuba is making available to outside scholars are a rejected epilogue for Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls," a 1941 letter from Ingrid Bergman and more than 20 letters from the 19-year-old Italian contessa he was in love with.
Castro and an American group led by McGovern signed the agreement Monday to collaborate on the restoration and preservation of 2,000 letters, 3,000 personal photographs and some draft fragments of novels and stories that were kept in the humid basement of Finca de Vigia, the villa outside Havana where Hemingway lived from 1939-1960.
"I personally have much for which to thank Hemingway," said the gray-bearded Castro, who wore his olive fatigues during the ceremony at Finca de Vigia. "The honor that he gave us by choosing our country in which to live and write some of his best work."
Funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, the joint effort by the New York-based Social Science Research Council and the Cuban National Council of Patrimony will produce microfilm copies of the material, restore some documents damaged by the Caribbean climate, and help conserve the house, including a 9,000-volume library and Hemingway's fishing boat, El Pilar.
Protesters killed
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Hundreds of students enraged over a lack of food and electricity in their dormitory clashed with police in violent demonstrations that carried into the morning today. At least four students were killed and dozens injured, witnesses and officials said.
Firefighters pushed back students today with water cannons, and police blasted with barrages of automatic fire. Authorities said they were firing over students' heads. Students threw rocks, bricks and sticks back at the security forces.
"With my own eyes I saw the bodies of four students shot when they tried to march to the presidential palace," said Sher Mohammed, an army officer who witnessed the initial protests on Monday night. It was not clear whether any more students died in today's clash.
"Death to the killers of our colleagues. We want justice," protesters shouted outside the dilapidated dormitories where more than 3,000 students from villages throughout Afghanistan live in squalor.
Democrats keep control
WASHINGTON -- Dean Barkley, the third-party activist appointed interim senator from Minnesota, announced Monday he will not side with either party during his short stay in office, allowing Democrats to keep control of the Senate during the lame-duck session -- at least for now.
That means Democrat Tom Daschle of South Dakota will remain Senate majority leader another week or so -- giving his party a last gasp of power and visibility in the wake of its losses in the Nov. 5 elections.
Barkley's decision ends a bizarre interlude in which the leadership of the Senate could have been changed single-handedly by a man who, until his Nov. 4 appointment by Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, was a little-known former carwash operator.
His choice may have little practical impact on the course of the post-election session, which begins today. But it adds to the sense of uncertainty and transition that has engulfed the Capitol following the elections in which Republicans expanded their House majority and seized control of the Senate in next year's Congress.
Combined dispatches