Engine woes eyed in crash

Engine woes eyed in crash

AMSTERDAM — Engine trouble may have caused the Turkish Airlines crash that killed nine people in the Netherlands, the head of the agency investigating the accident said Thursday. Separately, officials said those killed were five Turks and four Americans.

Flight TK1951 from Istanbul crashed about one mile short of the runway at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Wednesday morning, smashing into three pieces and spraying luggage and debris across a field. It was carrying 135 passengers and crew.

Chief investigator Pieter van Vollenhoven said, in remarks quoted by Dutch state television NOS, that the Boeing 737-800 had fallen almost directly from the sky, which pointed toward the plane’s engines having stopped. He said a reason for that had not yet been established.

Meteorites to be auctioned

DALLAS — Two pieces of a meteor that blazed across the Texas sky earlier this month are going from the asteroid belt to the auction block.

Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries announced Thursday it is putting two meteorites up for auction, including an 8-ounce specimen that could fetch up to $5,000.

Auction house spokesman David Herskowitz says meteorites were discovered in the town of West, about 70 miles south of Dallas, by an Arizona meteorite hunter whose trip was partially financed by an anonymous collector.

People across Texas reported seeing a fireball Feb. 15. The Federal Aviation Administration initially suggested it could have been debris from colliding satellites but later said it probably was a natural phenomenon.

The auction date is May 17.

Senate OKs D.C. voting

WASHINGTON — The right to a vote in Congress denied the District of Columbia when it became the nation’s capital two centuries ago would be granted under legislation the Senate passed Thursday.

Congress is “moving to right a centuries-old wrong,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid shortly before the 61-37 vote.

The House is expected to pass the measure with a strong majority next week, and President Barack Obama, a co-sponsor when the bill failed to clear the Senate two years ago, has promised to sign it.

The measure is likely to face a court challenge immediately after becoming law; opponents argue that it is unconstitutional because D.C. is not a state and does not qualify for representation.

Denver paper shuts down

DENVER — The Rocky Mountain News announced Thursday that it was printing its final edition today, becoming the latest casualty of the steady decline in the economic viability of newspapers.

Just two months shy of the paper’s 150th birthday, Richard Boehne, chief executive officer of the E.W. Scripps Company, told staffers that it would close effective today. That will leave the Denver Post as the city’s only daily newspaper.

Scripps had announced in December that the paper was for sale and allowed one month for possible buyers to come forward. Only one suitor emerged, but backed out after discovering it could cost up to $100 million to keep the publication going, Boehne said.

Violence threatens aid

ISLAMABAD — A major U.S. effort to erode support for the Taliban and al-Qaida by pumping millions of aid dollars into the violence-wracked Afghan border region is being threatened by attacks on aid workers, corruption and layers of bureaucracy.

The Obama administration has pledged to use development aid as a foreign policy tool, and is expected to unveil a new increase in assistance before April. But there are concerns about how the money is being spent in remote valleys too dangerous for foreign aid workers to venture and where residents risk a beheading if they cross the militants.

A Taliban commander in the North Waziristan border region warned residents last month to shun the “sweet poison” of development aid.

Warning on spring break

PHOENIX — The U.S. State Department and universities around the country are warning college students headed for Mexico for some spring-break partying of a surge in drug-related murder and mayhem south of the border.

More than 100,000 high school- and college-age Americans travel to Mexican resort areas during spring break each year. Much of the drug violence is happening in border towns, and tourists have generally not been targeted, though there have been killings in the big spring-break resorts of Acapulco and Cancun, well away from the border.

Combined dispatches