Nation in brief

Air Force jet crashes; fate of crew unknown

A military jet on a training mission crashed north of Edwards Air Force base in the California desert on Thursday, authorities said. The fate of the two crew members aboard was not immediately known. The T-38 Talon went down at 1:15 p.m. nine miles north of the base, Senior Airman Julius Delos Reyes said in a statement. Base officials had no immediate information on the cause. It was the second crash of an aircraft from Edwards in less than two months. On March 25, an Air Force F-22A Raptor went down north of the base, killing a test pilot for prime contractor Lockheed Martin Corp.

Army test vehicle catches fire; 1 killed

One person is dead and two are injured after a fire involving a test vehicle at the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Army officials said the victims were employees at the Army’s oldest active base for testing, training and research involving military weapons and materials. Officials said there was an apparent malfunction involving a test vehicle in the Edgewood Area of the base. The area is about 20 miles northeast of Baltimore on Chesapeake Bay. The employees were not identified and it was not immediately clear if they were soldiers or civilians.

Search called off for missing Navy crew

The Coast Guard suspended a search for two missing members of a Navy flight crew whose helicopter went down on a training flight southwest of San Diego Tuesday night. The bodies of three other crew members were recovered Wednesday. Navy search and salvage specialists will continue searching for the wreckage of the HH-60 Seahawk 13 miles southwest of San Diego. The helicopter was on a search-and-rescue training flight from the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier when it crashed.

Five sports fishermen killed as boat hits barge

Louisiana officials said five men in Houma for a fishing tournament died when their 24-foot aluminum boat ran under one end of a barge. Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Captain Samuel Martin said the boat hit the barge late Wednesday but wasn’t discovered until Thursday morning. Martin said all bodies were recovered, and investigators were working to notify the men’s families. He did not know whether they were local. It happened about 60 miles southwest of New Orleans on the Falgout Canal between Theriot and Dulac. The barge was being used to stablilize the bank. Ernie Bennett, who is on the board of the Houma Oilman’s Invitational Fishing Tournament, said the men were entered in the tournament that begins today.

Virus attacks computers used by FBI, marshals

The FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service computers were partially shut down after a computer virus struck, officials said Thursday. Officials said a virus was the problem at the Marshals Service; an FBI spokesman said only that the FBI was one of several agencies facing similar issues and had taken protective measures. Technical staff disconnected the marshals system from the Justice Department’s computer system as a precaution. Marshals spokesman Nikki Credic said at no time was data compromised by the virus. She said the agency had temporarily shut down their Internet access and some e-mail while the problem is addressed. The type of virus and its origin were not immediately determined.

Forecasters: Hurricane season nearly normal

Government forecasters on Thursday predicted nine to 14 named tropical storms this year. Current projections call for a near normal year for hurricanes, Gerry Bell, lead Atlantic hurricane forecaster for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said at a briefing. The named storms are expected to include four to seven hurricanes.

Storms may postpone shuttle landing today

With storms threatening to delay their return to Earth, the Atlantis astronauts took a break from landing preparations to update a Senate panel on their triumphant Hubble Space Telescope repairs. The astronauts also monitored the weather at NASA’s spaceport in Cape Canaveral, Fla., which was pounded by fierce thunderstorms. More bad weather was expected today when Atlantis was due to fly back home. Meanwhile, the repair mission garnered kudos from members of a Senate subcommittee that invited the crew to testify at a hearing from space. Such in-orbit testimony was a first.