World/Nation

Plenty of federal workers on cheating website

WASHINGTON - Hundreds of U.S. government employees - including some with sensitive jobs in the White House, Congress and law enforcement agencies - used Internet connections in their federal offices to access and pay membership fees to the cheating website Ashley Madison, The Associated Press has learned.

The AP traced many of the accounts exposed by hackers back to federal workers. They included at least two assistant U.S. attorneys; an information technology administrator in the Executive Office of the President; a division chief, an investigator and a trial attorney in the Justice Department; a government hacker at the Department of Homeland Security and another DHS employee who indicated he worked on a U.S. counterterrorism response team.

Few actually paid for their services with their government email accounts. But AP traced their government Internet connections - logged by the website over five years - and reviewed their credit-card transactions to identify them. They included workers at more than two dozen Obama administration agencies, including the departments of State, Defense, Justice, Energy, Treasury, Transportation and Homeland Security. Others came from House or Senate computer networks.

The AP is not naming the government subscribers it found because they are not elected officials or accused of a crime.

Hackers this week released detailed records on millions of people registered with the website one month after the break-in at Ashley Madison's parent company, Toronto-based Avid Life Media Inc. The website - whose slogan is "Life is short. Have an affair" - is marketed to facilitate extramarital affairs.

North Korean troops exchange fire with South

PYONGYANG, North Korea - North Korea on Friday declared its frontline troops in a "a quasi-state of war" and warned of military operations a day after the rival Koreas exchanged fire across the world's most heavily armed border.

The North has made similar bombastic claims before and the huge numbers of soldiers and military equipment stationed along the Koreas' tense border mean the area is always essentially in a "quasi-state of war." Still, the declaration, following South Korea's firing of dozens of shells across the border after the North lobbed several rounds at a South Korean town, signals a worrying development.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency reported Friday that leader Kim Jong Un ordered at an emergency military meeting that his troops "be fully ready for any military operations at any time from 5 p.m. Friday."

The report said "military commanders were urgently dispatched for operations to attack South Korean psychological warfare facilities if the South doesn't stop operating them."

BP oil spill money travels a long way inland

BATON ROUGE, La. - Clusters of landlocked municipalities more than 100 miles from the Gulf Coast have secured millions of dollars in BP money through settlements designed to compensate local governments for lost tourism dollars and other economic damage from the company's 2010 oil spill, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.

This week, BP finished making approximately $687.4 million in settlement payments to 383 local government entities in the five Gulf states. Nearly $8 million of that money went to 32 government entities that are more than 100 miles from the coast, in places like the Mississippi Delta and suburbs of central Alabama, the records show.

BP's well blowout off Louisiana's coast triggered a deadly explosion that killed 11 rig workers and spewed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, staining beaches, killing wildlife and scaring away tourists.

The company agreed last month to pay as much as $1 billion to resolve economic claims by local governments, but the settlement payouts have fallen well short of that maximum amount. The records obtained by the AP provide the most comprehensive accounting of where the money went and what types of government entities received shares.

The AP analyzed minimum distances from the center point of each city or town to the coastline to determine which locations were farther than 100 miles away from the coast.

First two Army women pass Ranger School

FORT BENNING, Ga. - The first two women to pass the Army's notoriously difficult Ranger School impressed male classmates left in their dust during road marches and proved their mettle as teammates by helping carry heavy weapons when others were too fatigued to lift another ounce.

As the Pentagon weighs a decision on allowing women to serve in combat jobs long held by men only, a Ranger School comrade offered a blunt assessment of Capt. Kristen Griest and 1st Lt. Shaye Haver as they spoke to reporters Thursday.

"They can serve by my side anytime because I know I can trust them," 2nd Lt. Erickson Krogh said. "Especially these two. I'd have no qualms about serving with them in combat."

Griest, 26, of Orange, Conn., and Haver, 25, of Copperas Cove, Texas, will become the first women to wear the Army's coveted Ranger tab when they graduate alongside 94 male soldiers Friday at Fort Benning.

- The Associated Press