WASHINGTON

FEDS TELL D.C. TO USE HOMELAND SECURITY CASH FOR INAUGURATION

The Homeland Security Department told the District of Columbia government yesterday to use federal homeland security money to pay the costs it will incur for President Bush’s second inauguration.

Washington’s costs for the inauguration, the first since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, are expected to be at least $17.3 million, city officials said.

Department officials informed Mayor Anthony Williams in a letter that $11.9 million in security and other costs are eligible to be repaid with the city’s Urban Area Strategic Initiative grant. The rest of the city’s costs can be covered out of the Emergency Planning and Security Cost Fund, which has been used in the past for events like President Reagan’s funeral, the letter said.

The district is paying overtime for all police officers from every agency covering the inauguration, as well as its own operations. It is also paying some infrastructure and special costs, ranging from $43,260 to develop special license tags to almost $3 million to build viewing stands.

Mr. Williams’ spokeswoman, Sharon Gang, said the city is still trying to get the federal government to repay it for all inaugural costs so it will not have to divert homeland security money. The federal government has traditionally reimbursed the city’s inauguration costs. This year, however, federal officials urged the city to use homeland security money it had already been granted.

– Associated Press

HACKER BREAKS INTO MOBILE NETWORK, READS SECRET SERVICE E-MAILS

A hacker broke into a wireless carrier’s network over at least seven months and read e-mails and personal computer files of hundreds of customers, including the Secret Service agent investigating the hacker, the government said yesterday.

The hacker obtained an internal Secret Service memorandum and part of a mutual assistance legal treaty from Russia. The documents contained “highly sensitive information pertaining to ongoing …criminal cases, “according to court records. The break-in targeted the network for Bellevue, Wash.-based T-Mobile USA, which has 16.3 million customers in America. It was discovered during a broad Secret Service investigation, “Operation Firewall,” which targeted underground hacker organizations known as Shadowcrew, Carderplanet, and Darkprofits.

Nicolas Lee Jacobsen, 21, of Santa Ana, Calif., a computer engineer, has been charged with the break-in in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. Investigators said they traced the hacker’s online activities to a hotel near Buffalo, N.Y., where Mr. Jacobsen was staying. Mr. Jacobsen, who was arrested in October in California, has been released on a $25,000 bond posted by his uncle, who was ordered to keep his own personal computer locked up so Mr. Jacobsen couldn’t use it. The hacker was able to view the names and Social Security numbers of 400 customers, all of whom were notified in writing about the break-in, T-Mobile said. It said customer credit card numbers and other financial information never were revealed.

– Associated Press

MIDWEST

THREE KILLED, 30 INJURED IN HIGHWAY PILEUPS

ALAIEDON TOWNSHIP, Mich. – At least two people died and 25 others were injured when about 100 vehicles crashed yesterday in thick fog on a Michigan highway, police said. One person also was killed in Indiana when at least 20 vehicles piled up amid heavy fog on a highway east of South Bend. Numerous others were injured.

The National Weather Service had issued a dense fog advisory for the area, saying visibility could be less than a quarter mile.

In Michigan, about 50 vehicles wrecked in one pileup on Interstate 96 outside Lansing yesterday afternoon, killing one person, police said. Another person was killed when five vehicles crashed into each other 30 minutes later several miles away. The rest of the vehicles were involved in minor collisions on I-96 around the same time, police said. Eighteen people were being treated last night in a hospital at Lansing. State police closed a 12-mile stretch of the highway in both directions following the accidents. The chain-reaction collision in Indiana left wrecked vehicles scattered yesterday morning in both directions over a three-mile stretch of the Indiana Toll Road, state police Sergeant Rodger Popplewell said.

– Associated Press