In brief: Al-Qaida prisoners slip by U.S. guards

BAGHDAD – Four prisoners with links to al-Qaida being guarded by American troops escaped from a maximum-security prison in Baghdad and are still at large, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Thursday.

The breakout from Karkh Prison, formerly called Camp Cropper, is an embarrassment for the U.S. military, which has handed over control of all of the detention facilities it used to run to the Iraqi government. But at the request of the Iraqis, the U.S. has retained custody of some of the most dangerous prisoners.

U.S. troops found two detainees attempting to escape from the compound on Wednesday evening, the military said in a statement. When they conducted a sweep of the whole facility, they discovered that four other detainees were missing.

There was no details on how the escape happened, who was to blame or who escaped.

PHILADELPHIA – A female employee who had just been suspended from her job and escorted from a Kraft Foods Inc. facility returned with a handgun and opened fire Thursday, killing two people and critically injuring a third before being taken into custody about an hour later, police said.

The shooting happened shortly after 8:30 p.m. inside a plant of the nation’s largest food manufacturer, Lt. Frank Vanore said.

The woman then shot the three victims, said police, who didn’t know the victims’ identities or whether they had been targeted. The shooter was apprehended around 9:30 p.m.