World/Nation
Search expanded for missing AirAsia plane
SURABAYA, Indonesia - More planes will be in the air and more ships on the sea today hunting for AirAsia Flight 8501 in a widening search off Indonesia that has dragged into a third day without any solid leads.
At least 30 ships, 15 aircraft and seven helicopters were looking for the jet carrying 162 people, said Indonesia's Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo. Most of the craft were Indonesian but Singapore, Malaysia and Australia contributed to the effort. Aircraft from Thailand planned to join today's search.
He said the search area would be expanded to land areas, with four military helicopters dispatched just after sunrise near Pangkalan Bun on the western part of Borneo island and to smaller islands of Bangka and Belitung.
The U.S. Navy is also joining the search. It said in a statement that the USS Sampson, a destroyer, which was already on an independent deployment in the Western Pacific, will arrive in the area later today. China announced that a navy frigate already on patrol in the South China Sea will help the search.
Ferry passengers recount chaos, lack of alarms
BARI, Italy - There were no fire alarms at first, no knocks on the door from the crew, just thick, acrid smoke filling cabins and waking passengers on the overnight ferry from Greece to Italy.
In the chaos that followed, passengers said, they received virtually no instructions from the crew. The principle of women and children first went out the window, and passengers started pushing and shoving and came to blows over seats in the lifeboats and helicopter baskets.
"Everyone there was trampling on each other to get onto the helicopter," Greek truck driver Christos Perlis told The Associated Press by telephone from one of the rescue vessels summoned after the Italian-flagged ferry caught fire in the Adriatic Sea off Albania early Sunday.
"The jungle law prevailed," said another Greek passenger, Irene Varsioti. "There was no queue or order. No respect was shown for children."
Italian and Greek helicopter rescue crews Monday evacuated the last of the known survivors aboard the crippled, fire-blackened vessel, bringing the number rescued to 427.
Cuba-US detente upends life for dissidents
HAVANA - President Barack Obama told the world this month that engaging Cuba is the best way to strengthen people pushing for greater freedom on the island.
Less than two weeks after it was announced, the U.S.-Cuba detente is upending the civil society Obama hopes to strengthen. The prospect of engagement between the two Cold War antagonists seems to be undercutting the island's hard-line dissidents while boosting more moderate reformers who want to push President Raul Castro gradually toward granting citizens more liberties.
The traditional dissidents say they feel betrayed by a new U.S. policy of negotiation with a government that Washington and the U.S.-backed opponents worked for decades to undermine. They say they fear that detente serves the Castro administration's aspiration of following China and Vietnam by improving the economy without conceding citizens significantly greater freedoms.
Feds to start collecting fines from uninsured
Being uninsured in America will cost you more in 2015.
It's the first year all taxpayers have to report to the Internal Revenue Service whether they had health insurance for the previous year, as required under President Barack Obama's law. Those who were uninsured face fines, unless they qualify for one of 30 exemptions, most of which involve financial hardships.
Dayna Dayson of Phoenix estimates that she'll have to pay the taxman $290 when she files her federal return. Dayson, who's in her early 30s, works in marketing and doesn't have a lot left over each month after housing, transportation and other fixed costs. She would like health insurance but she couldn't afford it in 2014, as required by the law.
"It's touted as this amazing thing, but right now, for me, it doesn't fit into my budget," she said.
Surfer released from hospital after shark bite
LOS OSOS, Calif. - A California man who was pulled off his surfboard and bitten by a juvenile great white shark was released from the hospital Monday, a spokesman for the medical center said.
The man from the San Luis Obispo area was surfing along the Central California coast Sunday when, seemingly out of nowhere, the shark dragged him underwater at Montana de Oro State Park. He popped back up a few seconds later and yelled, "Shark!"
"He was full of adrenaline. He paddled so fast out of there," witness Andrew Walsh said in a video Mike Jones took shortly after the attack.
The surfer used the leash from his board to create a tourniquet around his leg as he dashed to shore, Walsh said. A doctor who happened to be walking along the beach came to his aid and determined no arteries had been severed, Walsh said.
- The Associated Press