A Chilean air force plane with 21 people aboard, including popular TV presenter Felipe Camiroaga, crashed in the Pacific near the Juan Fernandez islands.
The CASA military plane tried twice to land at the airport on the remote island but strong wind gusts buffetted the aircraft and it was later lost from sight.
The remote Chilean archipelago is known for possibly having inspired the novel Robinson Crusoe.
Rescuers in boats were searching for the plane, but the mayor of Juan Fernandez, Leopoldo Gonzalez, said some luggage had been found in the water and it was clear the plane crashed.
Mugabe insists on March election
State media loyal to Zimbabwe’s president says he will hold elections in March to end the nation’s fragile coalition government.
The Herald newspaper reported yesterday that President Robert Mugabe told party loyalists he will not bow to pressure to call elections later in 2012.
“We cannot go beyond March next year. I will definitely announce that date. It does not matter what anyone would say,” the paper quoted him as saying.
Cops put squeeze on ‘python biter’
A snake bite left the victim seriously hurt – but the injured party isn’t whom you’d expect.
Police in California said a python underwent emergency surgery after a man allegedly bit the creature twice.
Sgt Andrew Pettit said officers were called to Del Paso Heights at around 6.30 p.m. last Thursday after a passer-by reported that a man was lying on the ground and may have been assaulted.
When they arrived, they found David Senk, 54, still lying there but then another man approached officers and accused Senk of taking two bites out of his one-metre pet python.
Senk was arrested on suspicion of unlawfully maiming or mutilating a reptile and booked on $10,000 bail.
In a jail interview, Senk said he had no memory of the incident and that he had a drinking problem.
Saggy trousers rocker grounded
Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong says his sagging trousers cost him a seat on a Southwest Airlines flight.
The singer-guitarist for the San Francisco Bay-area rock band sent a message to his Twitter followers expressing his indignation at being thrown off an Oakland-to-Burbank flight for wearing his trousers too low.
“Just got kicked off a southwest flight because my pants sagged too low! No joke!” he wrote.
Sudan declares state of emergency
Sudan’s president declared a state of emergency in a state near the southern border with Ethiopia after clashes broke out between armed forces and a rebel group.
Omar al-Bashir also sacked the governor of Blue Nile state hours after the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army attacked police and soldiers with heavy weaponry, setting off a battle. Sudan’s information minister, Sanaa Hamad, had said earlier that Sudanese government forces were in control of the area and that the military repelled a rebel advance on the town of Damzain.
Merkel’s father dies
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s father, a Protestant pastor who moved with his family to communist East Germany in the 1950s, has died. He was 85.
The government said Horst Kasner died on Friday. It did not give further details but said the Chancellor had cancelled her appointments for yesterday – when she was due to appear at a local election rally of her conservative Christian Democrats in northeastern Germany.
Walesa’s son stable
The son of Poland’s former president, Lech Walesa, is in a stable condition in a Warsaw hospital after surgery to his spine following a motorcycle accident.
Jaroslaw Walesa had the surgery on Friday night and a military hospital spokesman said yesterday his condition was stable. More surgery is planned later.
The 34-year-old Walesa sustained injuries to his spine, pelvis and shoulders when his motorcycle collided with an SUV in Stropkowo in central Poland. He was airlifted to a hospital in Plock and then to Warsaw.
Doctors are hopeful Walesa will be able to walk again.
Planes collide over Alaska
Two single-engine planes collided in midair over western Alaska and one of the pilots is presumed dead.
Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said the two pilots were the only people aboard the planes when they collided near the village of Nightmute.
One plane landed and the other crashed and caught fire, she said.
The pilot of a Ryan Air Cessna 207 that put down safely was identified as 26-year-old Kirsten Sprague. She was able to walk away but was flown to Bethel, about 160 km away, for a medical evaluation.