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World/Nation

| March 19, 2014 9:00 PM

Ukraine comes to grips with Crimea takeover

KIEV, Ukraine - Ukraine's leadership simmered with a mix of hopelessness and anger at losing Crimea, tempering an influx of eager young men signing up as reservists with the growing certainty that no savior would deliver them from the Russian takeover.

For Ukraine's government in Kiev, it is a crime - one the inexperienced leaders can do little to address in the face of an overwhelmingly superior military force. But for at least one of the new leadership group, it is a reality that must be dealt with on practical terms.

"This is theft on an international scale, when under the cover of troops, one country has just come and robbed a part of an independent state," Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said.

Yatsenyuk's government now has to contend with the immediate complications of an armed confrontation that flared up Tuesday. A Ukrainian military spokesman said a serviceman was killed and another injured when a military facility in Crimea was stormed by armed men. The official said a truck bearing a Russian flag was used in the operation.

Yatsenyuk said the storming showed the dispute "has gone from the political stage to the military through the fault of the Russians."

Rauner wins GOP nomination for Illinois governor

CHICAGO - Venture capitalist Bruce Rauner won the GOP primary Tuesday in his bid for Illinois governor, as voters embraced a first campaign by the multimillionaire who flooded the airwaves with vows to run the Democratic stronghold like a business and curb the influence of government unions.

With Republicans eyeing what they view as their best shot in years to win the top job in President Barack Obama's home state, Rauner defeated three longtime state lawmakers - including the current state treasurer. He advances to a November matchup with Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, who easily won his nomination for a second full term.

Between Quinn and predecessor Rod Blagojevich, now imprisoned for corruption, Democrats have held the governorship since 2003. But Rauner could present a serious threat, partly due to a massive fundraising campaign that included contributing more than $6 million of his own money.

For voters across Illinois, the governor's race represents a potentially transformative battle over union influence, with some voters saying they want to break an alliance between organized labor and Democrats, who have long controlled most statewide offices and the Legislature.

Organized labor battled back out of concern that Rauner could seek to weaken unions in the same way GOP governors have in other states across the Midwest.

What if missing Malaysia plane is never found?

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - The plane must be somewhere. But the same can be said for Amelia Earhart's.

Ten days after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared with 239 people aboard, an exhaustive international search has produced no sign of the Boeing 777, raising an unsettling question: What if the airplane is never found?

Such an outcome, while considered unlikely by many experts, would certainly torment the families of those missing. It would also flummox the airline industry, which will struggle to learn lessons from the incident if it doesn't know what happened.

While rare nowadays, history is not short of such mysteries - from the most famous of all, American aviator Earhart, to planes and ships disappearing in the so-called Bermuda Triangle.

"When something like this happens that confounds us, we're offended by it, and we're scared by it," said Ric Gillespie, a former U.S. aviation accident investigator who wrote a book about Earhart's still-unsolved 1937 disappearance over the Pacific Ocean. "We had the illusion of control and it's just been shown to us that oh, folks, you know what? A really big airliner can just vanish. And nobody wants to hear that."

Report: LAX shooting shows coordination woes

LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles International Airport was ill prepared for a crisis when a gunman ambushed security officers last year, and the emergency response was hindered by communication problems and poor coordination, according to a report released Tuesday.

The report spotlighted flaws in various divisions of the airport and in systems that were in place, but it did not single out individuals responsible for problems.

It also didn't mention that two airport police officers assigned to Terminal 3 were out of position without notifying dispatchers, as required, or discuss a decision months before the shooting to have police officers roam terminals instead of staffing security checkpoints such as the one approached by the attacker.

- The Associated Press