WASHINGTON
Navy: Sailors’ info hacked
The Navy says the names, Social Security numbers and other sensitive details of 134,386 current and former sailors have been breached on a contractor’s laptop. Investigators determined this week that the information had been accessed by unknown people, and the Navy has begun notifying affected sailors. On Oct. 27, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Services told the Navy that one laptop operated by an employee working on a Navy contract had been compromised. Vice Adm. Robert Burke says the Navy is in the early stages of investigating and “working quickly to identify and take care of those affected by this breach.” His office says there’s no evidence to date that the information has been misused.
REDDING, CALIF.
Woman’s abductors sought
Authorities were searching Thursday for two women suspected in the abduction of a California mother who turned up safe near an interstate three weeks after she disappeared. Early indications were that Sherri Papini had been released by her captors, Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko said. Papini was bound when she was released near Interstate 5 in Yolo County and was able to somehow flag down a passing motorist, Bosenko said. Papini, a 34-year-old mother of two, disappeared after leaving home to jog. She suffered unspecified injuries during her ordeal and was treated and released from a hospital, Bosenko said. Authorities gave few other details about Papini’s reappearance before dawn. Bosenko said the investigation was ongoing.
SAN JOSE, CALIF.
Two inmates still on lam
Four inmates cut their way through the bars of a second-story window and rappelled down the side of a California jail using a makeshift rope of bedding and clothing before making their way clear of the facility, the Santa Clara County sheriff’s office said Thursday. Two of the men were recaptured just outside the jail after the Wednesday night escape, but the other two, Rogelio Chavez and Laron Campbell, remain on the lam, Sgt. Rich Glennon said. Crime scene detectives were working to figure out how the men were able to cut through the window’s bars. Both Chavez and Campbell were facing false imprisonment and weapons charges. Several agencies are searching for the men, with help from dogs and a helicopter using thermal imaging.
LOS ANGELES
Giant rats to sniff out crime
The U.S. government is funding a project to train giant rodents to help fight illegal wildlife trafficking in Africa. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the African giant pouched rat is being tested to see whether it can help detect illegal shipments of hardwood timber, used to make furniture, doors and flooring and at the center of a multibillion-dollar black market industry, and pangolins — the world’s most poached mammal. The agency is spending $100,000 on a yearlong pilot program that began in Tanzania in October and is being run by the Endangered Wildlife Trust, a conservation organization.
Compiled from wire reports