CONVICTIONS FOR EX-CIA CODER IN HACKING TOOLS CASE

YORK» A former CIA softNEW ware engineer accused of stealing a massive trove of the agency’s hacking tools and handing it over to WikiLeaks was convicted of only minor charges Monday, after a jury deadlocked on the more serious espionage counts against him.

Joshua Schulte, who worked as a coder at the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Va., was convicted by a jury of contempt of court and making false statements after a four-week trial in Manhattan federal court that offered an unusual window into the CIA’s digital sleuthing.

Prosecutors portrayed Schulte as a disgruntled software engineer who exploited a littleknown back door in a CIA network to copy the hacking arsenal without raising suspicion, in what was said to be the largest leak in CIA history involving classified information.

Gas company pleads guilty to causing fatal blasts. BOSTON» A utility company pleaded guilty Monday to causing a series of natural gas explosions in Massachusetts that killed one person and damaged dozens of homes.

The president of Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, Mark Kempic, entered the plea in Boston’s federal court on behalf of the company responsible for the blasts that tore through three communities north of Boston in September 2018.

As part of the plea agreement, Columbia Gas of Massachusetts will pay a $53 million fine for violating the Pipeline Safety Act. It’s the largest criminal fine ever imposed under the pipeline safety law.

The company said when the plea deal was announced last month that it takes full responsibility for the disaster in the Merrimack Valley.

Bus collision kills at least 29.

GHANA» Two buses burst ACCRA, into flames after colliding in central Ghana, trapping passengers inside and killing at least 29 people early Monday, local government officials said.

The buses collided in the Bono East region near Kintampo, Kintampo North municipal chief executive Micheal Sakodie-Baffoe said.

The vehicles burst into flames after the crash, trapping the passengers inside, local council representative Mathias Taasun said.

Sakodie-Baffoe said the victims’ bodies were so badly burned it would be difficult to identify them. The country may hold a mass burial for people who died, he said during a visit to the crash site.

Sudan PM says he survived “terror attack” in capital. CAIRO» Sudan’s prime minister said Monday he survived a “terror attack” after an explosion and gunfire targeted his motorcade in the capital Khartoum.

Abdalla Hamdok, a longtime economist, tweeted he was “safe and in good shape” following the explosion. Sudanese state TV said Hamdok had been heading to his office when the attack took place.

Hamdok also tweeted a photo of himself smiling and seated at a large desk, while a TV behind him showed news coverage reporting he’d survived.

The attack highlighted the fragility of Sudan’s transition to civilian rule, almost a year after pro-democracy protesters forced the military to remove autocratic President Omar al-Bashir from power and replace him with a joint military-civilian government, which has promised to hold elections in three years.

Barbara Neely, creator of black female sleuth series, dies.

» Award-winning mysNEW YORK tery writer Barbara Neely, who created the first black female sleuth series in mainstream American publishing, died March 2 after a brief illness, according to her publisher, Brash Books. She was 78.

Neely is perhaps best known for her four-book Blanche White series, which had at its center a nomadic amateur detective and domestic worker who uses the invisibility inherent to her job as an advantage in pursuit of the truth.