West condemns Russia over convoy

West condemns Russia over convoy

LUHANSK, Ukraine

Tensions between Russia and Ukraine escalated sharply Friday as Moscow sent more than 130 trucks rolling across the border in what it said was a mission to deliver humanitarian aid. Ukraine called it a “direct invasion,” and the U.S. and NATO condemned it as well.

In another ominous turn in the crisis, NATO said it has mounting evidence that Russian troops are operating inside Ukraine and launching artillery attacks from Ukrainian soil — significantly deeper involvement in the fighting than the West has previously alleged.

The trucks, part of a convoy of 260 vehicles, entered Ukraine without government permission after being held up at the border for a week amid fears that the mission was a Kremlin ploy to help the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

By late afternoon, trucks had reached the city of Luhansk, whose war-reduced population of a quarter-million people has suffered under intense fighting over the past several weeks between Ukrainian forces and the separatists.

Feds warn retailers about hacking

WASHINGTON

More than 1,000 U.S. retailers could be infected with malicious software lurking in their cash-register computers, allowing hackers to steal customer financial data, the Homeland Security Department said Friday.

The government urged businesses of all sizes to scan their point-of-sale systems for software known as “Backoff,” discovered last October. It previously explained in detail how the software operates and how retailers could find and remove it.

Earlier this month, United Parcel Service said it found infected computers in 51 stores. UPS said it was not aware of any fraud that resulted from the infection but said hackers may have taken customers’ names, addresses, email addresses and payment card information.

The company apologized to customers and offered free identity protection and credit monitoring services to those who had shopped in those 51 stores.

Militants kill 18 suspected informers

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip

Gaza militants Friday gunned down 18 alleged spies for Israel in an apparent attempt to plug security breaches and deter others, a day after Israel killed three top Hamas military commanders in an airstrike likely guided by collaborators.

In one incident, masked gunmen lined up seven men, their heads covered by bags, along a wall outside a Gaza City mosque and shot them to death in front of hundreds of people, witnesses said. A note pinned on the wall said they had leaked information about the location of tunnels, homes of fighters and rockets that were later struck by Israel.

In Israel, a 4-year-old boy was killed when a mortar shell hit two cars in the parking lot of Nahal Oz, a small farming community near Gaza. Five Israelis were hurt, one seriously, in several rocket strikes, the military said.

Man who ate pot candy to go to trial

DENVER

A judge ordered a Denver man Friday to stand trial in the killing of his wife, who told dispatchers moments before her death that he was paranoid and hallucinating after eating marijuana-infused candy.

Defense attorneys for 48-year-old Richard Kirk suggested during a preliminary hearing that he was so impaired by the pot that he may not have intended to kill his wife.

But Judge Elizabeth Starrs said there was enough evidence for a trial on a charge of first-degree murder because Kirk showed he had the wherewithal to remember the code to a locked gun safe and press the weapon to his wife’s head nearly 13 minutes into her call with the 911 dispatcher.

Associated Press