Boeing 787 Catches Fire at Gate at Boston Airport

BOSTON (Reuters) - A Boeing Co 787 Dreamliner aircraft with no passengers on board caught fire at Boston's Logan International Airport when a battery in its auxiliary electric system exploded, officials said.

A mechanic inspecting the Japan Airlines Co Ltd jet discovered smoke in the cockpit while performing a routine post-flight inspection and reported it to airport authorities at around 10:30 a.m. EST, said Massport Fire Chief Bob Donahue.

A fire crew responded and determined that a battery used to power the plane's electric systems when the engines are not running had exploded, Donahue said. The mechanic was the only person on board the plane when the smoke was discovered and no one was hurt by the blaze, he added.

"Passengers were in no danger as this event had happened at least 15 minutes after they deplaned," Donahue said.

The fire is the latest reported mechanical failure in a string of incidents affecting the Dreamliner, which was also plagued by production problems that delayed initial delivery by 3-1/2 years.

The U.S. jet maker's shares fell more than 2 percent to $76.01 on the news.

Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel said, "We are aware of the event and are working with our customer."

Japan Airlines representatives did not immediately respond to a call for a comment.

Officials with the Federal Aviation Administration are now looking into what caused the fire, Donahue said. The National Transportation Safety Board also announced it was opening an investigation.

The 787 relies heavily on electrical power to drive onboard systems that in other jet models are run by air pressure generated by the engines. It also suffered electrical problems during testing that prompted a redesign.

The aircraft is Boeing's first to be made of carbon composites rather than aluminum, a change that lowers the plane's weight and allows it to burn less fuel.

The Dreamliner has suffered a string of mishaps with electrical systems in recent weeks. On December 4, a United Airlines flight from Houston to Newark, New Jersey, made an emergency landing after it appeared that one of its power generators failed. On December 13, Qatar Airways said it had grounded one of its three 787 jets because of the same problem United had experienced. On December 17, United said that a second 787 in its fleet had developed electrical issues.

Boeing Chief Executive Jim McNerney last month argued that the 787 has not experienced an unusual number of problems for a new aircraft.

Boeing competes with European jetmaker Airbus.

(Additional reporting by Alwyn Scott in New York; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz and M.D. Golan)

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Obama Expected to Select Hagel for Defense Post

Pool photo by Dennis Brack

President Obama and his family arriving back at the White House on Sunday.

President Obama has selected a former Nebraska senator, Chuck Hagel, as his next defense secretary, a White House official said Sunday, turning to a prominent Republican to lead the Pentagon as it faces of the challenge of winding down the war in Afghanistan and possible reductions in military spending.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Chuck Hagel, a Republican and former U.S. senator from Nebraska.

But the nomination, which could come as early as Monday, is already encountering opposition from Republicans and Democrats alike because of Mr. Hagel’s stand on Israel and his comments about an ambassador who was gay.

Republicans, in particular, have question his stance on Israel.

“His views with regard to Israel, for example, and Iran and all the other positions that he’s taken over the years will be very much a matter of discussion in the confirmation process,” Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader in the Senate, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Still, Mr. McConnell said he had not decided whether he would support Mr. Hagel. “I think there will be a lot of tough questions for Senator Hagel, but he will be treated fairly by Republicans in the Senate,” Mr. McConnell said.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said Sunday that he personally liked Mr. Hagel, but that he was “out of the mainstream of thinking on most issues regarding foreign policy.”

“This is an in-your-face nomination of the president to all of us who are supportive of Israel,” Mr. Graham said on CNN. “I don’t know what his management experience is in regards to the Pentagon or global if anyway, so I think it’s an extremely controversial choice.”

The president has praised Mr. Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, as a “patriot,” saying nothing in his record would prevent him from serving as defense secretary.

Mr. Hagel has provoked ire among conservatives and some Jewish groups by describing pro-Israel lobbying groups as the “Jewish lobby.”

He has also come under fire for saying 14 years ago that President Bill Clinton’s nominee for ambassador to Luxembourg, James C. Hormel, was not qualified because he was “openly, aggressively gay.” He has since apologized.

Peter Baker, David E. Sanger and Mark Landler contributed reporting.

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10 Vintage Photographs of Snowflakes

Photo courtesy of Flickr, Smithsonian Institution.

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: 5 YouTube Videos to Help Winterize Your Home]

If for some reason you didn’t believe no two snowflakes were alike, here’s your proof.

In 1885, Wilson A. Bentley successfully photographed over 5,000 snowflakes by attaching a camera to a microscope (and in turn honing the field of Photomicrography). His photographs supported his and others’ beliefs that all snowflakes were unique.

[More from Mashable: 20+ Online Resources for Planning a Winter Getaway]

Bentley become fascinated with snow as a child on a Vermont farm. He later spent time experimenting with ways to view individual snowflakes and their crystalline structure, which eventually came in handy when he had to be quick enough to capture a flake in a picture before it melted.

These photographs quickly became popular with dozens of scientists who studied Bentley’s work and published the images in several scientific magazines. In 1903, Bentley sent about 500 of his photographs to the Smithsonian, hoping they would be of interest to Secretary Samuel P. Langley.

The Smithsonian now has his vintage pics on display, undeniably proveing that snow is just so, so pretty.

Gallery photos courtesy of Flickr, Smithsonian Institution. Thumbnail photo courtesy of Flickr, AMagill.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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'Chainsaw 3-D' carves out No. 1 debut with $23M

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It took Leatherface and his chainsaw to chase tiny hobbit Bilbo Baggins out of the top spot at the box office.

Lionsgate's horror sequel "Texas Chainsaw 3-D" debuted at No. 1 with $23 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. The movie picks up where 1974's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" left off, with masked killer Leatherface on the loose again.

Quentin Tarantino's revenge saga "Django Unchained" held on at No. 2 for a second-straight weekend with $20.1 million. The Weinstein Co. release raised its domestic total to $106.4 million.

After three weekends at No. 1, part one of Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit" trilogy slipped to third with $17.5 million. That lifts the domestic haul to $263.8 million for "The Hobbit," the Warner Bros. blockbuster that also has topped $500 million overseas to raise its worldwide total to about $800 million.

Also passing the $100 million mark over the weekend was Universal's musical "Les Miserables," which finished at No. 4 with $16.1 million, pushing its domestic total to $103.6 million.

Like other horror franchises, "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" has had several other remakes or sequels, but the idea always seems ripe for a new wave of fright-flick fans. Nearly two-thirds of the audience was under 25, too young — or not even born — when earlier "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" movies came out.

"It's one of those that survives each generation. It's something that continues to come back and entertain its audience," said Richie Fay, head of distribution for Lionsgate.

"Texas Chainsaw" drew a hefty 84 percent of its business from 3-D screenings. Many movies now draw 50 percent or less of their revenue from 3-D screenings, but horror fans tend to prefer paying extra to see blood and guts fly with an added dimension.

In narrower release, Matt Damon's natural-gas fracking drama "Promised Land" had a slow start in its nationwide debut, coming in at No. 10 with $4.3 million after opening in limited release a week earlier.

Released by Focus Features, "Promised Land" stars Damon as a salesman pitching rural residents on fracking technology to drill for natural gas. The film widened to 1,676 theaters, averaging a slim $2,573 a cinema, compared with $8,666 in 2,654 theaters for "Texas Chainsaw."

Hollywood began the year where it left in 2012, when business surged during the holidays to carry the industry to a record $10.8 billion at the domestic box office.

Overall business this weekend came in at $149 million, up 7 percent from the same period last year, when "The Devil Inside" led with $33.7 million, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com. But with strong business on New Year's Day last week, Hollywood already has raked in $254.2 million, 33 percent ahead of last year.

Box-office results ebb and flow quickly, so that lead could vanish almost overnight. But with a steady lineup of potential hits right through December, studios have a chance at another revenue record this year.

"The month that we had at the end of last year that led us to a record year continued right through New Year's and on now to the first official weekend of 2013," said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian. "We're looking for an even stronger year this year. That's in the realm of possibility. But we have 51 weekends to go."

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. "Texas Chainsaw 3-D," $23 million.

2. "Django Unchained," $20.1 million.

3. "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," $17.5 million.

4. "Les Miserables," $16.1 million ($14.5 million international).

5. "Parental Guidance," $10.1 million.

6. "Jack Reacher," $9.3 million ($22.3 million international).

7. "This Is 40," $8.6 million.

8. "Lincoln," $5.3 million.

9. "The Guilt Trip," $4.5 million.

10. "Promised Land," $4.3 million.

___

Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

http://www.rentrak.com

___

Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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Despite New Health Law, Some See Sharp Rise in Premiums

Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers.

Bob Chamberlin/Los Angeles Times

Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner, said some insurance companies could raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.

Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own.

In California, Aetna is proposing rate increases of as much as 22 percent, Anthem Blue Cross 26 percent and Blue Shield of California 20 percent for some of those policy holders, according to the insurers’ filings with the state for 2013. These rate requests are all the more striking after a 39 percent rise sought by Anthem Blue Cross in 2010 helped give impetus to the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, which was passed the same year and will not be fully in effect until 2014.

 In other states, like Florida and Ohio, insurers have been able to raise rates by at least 20 percent for some policy holders. The rate increases can amount to several hundred dollars a month.

The proposed increases compare with about 4 percent for families with employer-based policies.

Under the health care law, regulators are now required to review any request for a rate increase of 10 percent or more; the requests are posted on a federal Web site, healthcare.gov, along with regulators’ evaluations.

The review process not only reveals the sharp disparity in the rates themselves, it also demonstrates the striking difference between places like New York, one of the 37 states where legislatures have given regulators some authority to deny or roll back rates deemed excessive, and California, which is among the states that do not have that ability.

New York, for example, recently used its sweeping powers to hold rate increases for 2013 in the individual and small group markets to under 10 percent. California can review rate requests for technical errors but cannot deny rate increases.

The double-digit requests in some states are being made despite evidence that overall health care costs appear to have slowed in recent years, increasing in the single digits annually as many people put off treatment because of the weak economy. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that costs may increase just 7.5 percent next year, well below the rate increases being sought by some insurers. But the companies counter that medical costs for some policy holders are rising much faster than the average, suggesting they are in a sicker population. Federal regulators contend that premiums would be higher still without the law, which also sets limits on profits and administrative costs and provides for rebates if insurers exceed those limits.

Critics, like Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner and one of two health plan regulators in that state, said that without a federal provision giving all regulators the ability to deny excessive rate increases, some insurance companies can raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.

“This is business as usual,” Mr. Jones said. “It’s a huge loophole in the Affordable Care Act,” he said.

While Mr. Jones has not yet weighed in on the insurers’ most recent requests, he is pushing for a state law that will give him that authority. Without legislative action, the state can only question the basis for the high rates, sometimes resulting in the insurer withdrawing or modifying the proposed rate increase.

The California insurers say they have no choice but to raise premiums if their underlying medical costs have increased. “We need these rates to even come reasonably close to covering the expenses of this population,” said Tom Epstein, a spokesman for Blue Shield of California. The insurer is requesting a range of increases, which average about 12 percent for 2013.

Although rates paid by employers are more closely tracked than rates for individuals and small businesses, policy experts say the law has probably kept at least some rates lower than they otherwise would have been.

“There’s no question that review of rates makes a difference, that it results in lower rates paid by consumers and small businesses,” said Larry Levitt, an executive at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which estimated in an October report that rate review was responsible for lowering premiums for one out of every five filings.

Federal officials say the law has resulted in significant savings. “The health care law includes new tools to hold insurers accountable for premium hikes and give rebates to consumers,” said Brian Cook, a spokesman for Medicare, which is helping to oversee the insurance reforms.

“Insurers have already paid $1.1 billion in rebates, and rate review programs have helped save consumers an additional $1 billion in lower premiums,” he said. If insurers collect premiums and do not spend at least 80 cents out of every dollar on care for their customers, the law requires them to refund the excess.

As a result of the review process, federal officials say, rates were reduced, on average, by nearly three percentage points, according to a report issued last September.

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Crowdfunding for Small Business Is Still an Unclear Path

Joshua Bright for The New York Times

Candace Klein, chief of SoMoLend, in Midtown Manhattan. In starting her crowdfunding site, she sought out institutional investors that don’t face the same limits that individual investors do.

RYAN CALDBECK was stumped. A director at a private equity firm, he was taking part in a panel discussion at a consumer goods conference last summer in New York when an entrepreneur raised his hand with a question: Where could a young company with just a few million dollars in sales go for money to grow?

Librado Romero/The New York Times

Zak Normandin expanded his Little Duck Organics food company with financing found through CircleUp.

Mr. Caldbeck and his peers on the panel fumbled for a response. The fact is, most private equity investors and venture capitalists won’t touch a consumer products company until it has surpassed $10 million in sales — anything else is too small to bother with.

The best advice the panel could offer was for the entrepreneur to tap his credit cards.

“The purpose of the panel was to help entrepreneurs raise money, but we had no answers,” Mr. Caldbeck remembers. “That’s when I knew that there is a big issue here.”

That big issue caused Mr. Caldbeck to leave his job to start CircleUp, a company that aims to connect up-and-coming consumer products companies with investors.

Right now, the people allowed to invest through CircleUp must be accredited, meaning they have a high net worth. CircleUp hopes that soon not just the wealthy few, but the general public — whether friends, family members, customers, Facebook friends, or even total strangers — will be able to invest in deserving companies through a hot new area of finance known as crowdfunding.

To its advocates, crowdfunding is a way for capital-starved entrepreneurs to receive financing that neither big investors nor lenders are willing or able to provide. To others, it represents a potential minefield that could help bad businesses get off the ground before they eventually fail, and in some cases could even ensnare unsophisticated investors in outright fraud.

Those fears are partly why the Securities and Exchange Commission has delayed rules allowing crowdfunding that were supposed to take effect this month as part of the JOBS Act (Jump-Start Our Business Start-Ups), signed by President Obama last April. The S.E.C. is wary of loosening investor protections that have been in place since the 1930s.

Despite the uncertainty, the outlines of a new industry are emerging as a few crowdfunding start-ups have found ways to raise money within current rules. They include companies like CircleUp and SoMoLend, which lends money to small, Main Street-type businesses that typically wouldn’t interest private investors.

By themselves, of course, a few start-ups can’t completely democratize finance. But they begin to illuminate what the future of crowdfunding could look like, as the debate continues over a vast widening of the private investor pool.

Mr. Caldbeck formed CircleUp last fall along with Rory Eakin, a former business school classmate who was working for a philanthropic foundation. Through their start-up, the two men seek to finance food, personal care, apparel and pet-related companies, often with an environmental or social bent.

CircleUp considers applications from companies with $1 million to $10 million in revenue. Companies whose applications are accepted make their pitches to investors behind a firewall on the CircleUp Web site, offering equity stakes in return for capital. CircleUp, which helps companies raise up to $3 million, takes a small cut of the money.

Under current federal regulations, CircleUp wouldn’t be able to arrange such deals on its own. But it struck a partnership with W. R. Hambrecht, a registered broker-dealer that can handle investments from accredited, or high-net-worth, individuals whom the S.E.C. considers sophisticated enough to invest in private companies.

“Living here in Silicon Valley, a lot of people don’t understand the need,” Mr. Caldbeck says. “If you’re a tech company with a good idea, you can raise money. But it’s a different story for food, agriculture, retail and other consumer-oriented businesses.”

Mr. Caldbeck sees a big opportunity. Consumer goods companies account for a sizable portion of the nation’s businesses, yet very little capital — from private equity funds or from accredited investors — flows to them, he says.

What’s more, only a tiny percentage of those who qualify as accredited investors actually invest in private companies, he says. (These are people with a net worth of at least $1 million, not including their primary residence, or who have earned more than $200,000 — $300,000 for couples — in each of the last two years.)

Amy Cortese is the author of “Locavesting: The Revolution in Local Investing and How to Profit From It.”

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Lance Armstrong Said to Weigh Admission of Doping

Lance Armstrong, who this fall was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles for doping and barred for life from competing in all Olympic sports, has told associates and antidoping officials that he is considering publicly admitting that he used banned performance-enhancing drugs and blood transfusions during his cycling career, according to several people with direct knowledge of the situation. He would do this, the people said, because he wants to persuade antidoping officials to restore his eligibility so he can resume his athletic career.

For more than a decade, Armstrong has vehemently denied ever doping, even after antidoping officials laid out their case against him in October in hundreds of pages of eyewitness testimony from teammates, e-mail correspondence, financial records and laboratory analyses.

When asked if Armstrong might admit to doping, Tim Herman, Armstrong’s longtime lawyer, said, “Lance has to speak for himself on that.”

Armstrong has been under pressure from various fronts to confess. Wealthy supporters of Livestrong, the charity he founded after surviving testicular cancer, have been trying to persuade him to come forward so he could clear his conscience and save the organization from further damage, one person with knowledge of the situation said.

Several legal cases stand in the way of a confession, the people familiar with the situation said. Among the obstacles is a federal whistle-blower case in which Armstrong and several team officials from his United States Postal Service cycling team are accused of defrauding the government by allowing doping on the squad when the team’s contract with the Postal Service clearly stated that any doping would constitute default of their agreement.

Herman said the option to confess to antidoping officials was not currently on the table. However, the people familiar with the situation said Armstrong, 41, was in fact moving toward confessing and had even been in discussions with the United States Anti-Doping Agency. Armstrong had met with Travis Tygart, the agency’s chief executive, in an effort to mitigate the lifetime ban he received for playing a lead role in doping on his Tour-winning teams, according to one person briefed on the situation.

Armstrong was also seeking to meet with David Howman, the director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency, that person said.

Herman denied that Armstrong was talking to Tygart and said he was not looking to speak with Howman, either.

None of the people with knowledge of Armstrong’s situation wanted their names published because it would jeopardize their access to information on the matter.

Tygart declined to comment. Howman, who was on vacation in New Zealand, did not immediately respond to a phone call and an e-mail.

Armstrong has hopes of competing in triathlons and running events, but those competitions are often sanctioned by organizations that adhere to the World Anti-Doping Code, under which Armstrong received his lifetime ban.

According to the World Anti-Doping Code, an athlete might be eligible for a reduced punishment if he fully confesses and details how he doped, who helped him dope and how he got away with doping. But a reduced lifetime ban might decrease only to eight years or four, at best, antidoping experts said.

Marion Jones, who won five medals at the 2000 Olympics, denied doping for years until giving a teary-eyed confession on the steps of a Westchester County, N.Y., courthouse in 2007. She spent six months in prison for lying to federal investigators about her doping and for her involvement in a check-fraud scheme.

The timeline for Armstrong’s deciding whether to confess is unclear, but it is partly based on whether the United States Justice Department will join the whistle-blower lawsuit, which was filed under the False Claims Act. The sole plaintiff of that lawsuit is Floyd Landis, Armstrong’s former Postal Service teammate, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for doping.

If the Justice Department joins the lawsuit as a plaintiff, the case would be more formidable than if Landis pursued it alone. Landis stands to collect up to 30 percent of any money won in the case, which could be in the millions. The team’s contract with the Postal Service from 2000 to 2004 was more than $30 million.

Armstrong is also facing two other civil lawsuits, one that involves the Dallas-based insurance company SCA Promotions, which is trying to recoup millions of dollars it covered when Armstrong won multiple Tours.

The company withheld a $5 million bonus from Armstrong after he won the 2004 Tour because of doping accusations that surfaced in the book “L.A. Confidentiel: Les Secrets de Lance Armstrong,” which was published in France. Armstrong sued the company, and the case was settled for $7.5 million. SCA Promotions is now asking for $12 million back — the $7.5 million plus $4.5 million it paid for Armstrong’s other Tour victories.

Armstrong is also being sued by the British newspaper The Sunday Times for more than $1.5 million over the settlement of a libel case. In that matter, the newspaper had paid Armstrong nearly $500,000 after it published claims from “L.A. Confidentiel” that he had used performance-enhancing drugs.

But what worries Armstrong and his lawyers most, two of the people with knowledge of the situation said, is that he could face charges of perjury if he confesses because in sworn testimony in the SCA case he said he had never doped.

Before coming forward, Armstrong would need assurances from the Justice Department that he would not be prosecuted for those crimes, those two people said.

Herman said he has plans to discuss Armstrong’s next move when Armstrong returns from Hawaii, where he has been spending time with his family out of the public eye. He has been in limbo since antidoping officials issued their report on him. A week after the report was released, Armstrong’s sponsors, including Nike and other longtime supporters, abandoned him. Soon after, he cut all ties with his charity.

“He’s doing O.K. for a guy that has had his livelihood and his life torn from him, but he’s very strong,” Herman said.

Michael S. Schmidt contributed reporting.

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The Secret iPad List to Bring Down Boehener

When the failed House Republican revolution came, it came by iPad. Now that House Speaker John Boehner has survived the rebellion, all of D.C. now knows which conservative House members were conspiring to mount a challenge, thanks to a list that one of the coup’s leaders brandished on the House floor during the vote.

RELATED: United Nation Fights the ‘Asshole Factor’

A Politico photographer captured Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas (pictured above), who Boehner had removed from a committee for refusing to cooperate, tapping his iPad during the roll call, checking off a list of names of other Congressmen he thought might join him in voting against Boehner. The list was titled, appropriately, “You would be fired if this goes out,” Politico’s Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan report. They hedge, “It’s not clear that any of the Republicans on Huelskamp’s list knew they were on it, or even knew of the list’s existence,” but let’s look at who were at least expected to vote against Boehner:

RELATED: Boehner Puts Down House Republican Coup

• Steve King of Iowa


• Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming


• Paul Gosar of Arizona


• Scott Garrett of New Jersey


• Steve Fincher of Tennessee


• Scott Desjarlais of Tennessee

Earlier this week, outgoing Louisiana Rep. Jeff Landry bragged to Breitbart News that the anti-Boehner ranks were 17 to 20 members strong, though in the end, only nine voted against their speaker, while two didn’t vote, and one voted present. Breitbart’s Matthew Boyle reports on Friday that there were several more names on Huelskamp‘s list:

RELATED: Boehner Was Afraid Issa Would Go Full Pumpkin-Shooter on His Holder Probe

• Jeff Duncan of South Carolina


• Mo Brooks of Alabama


• Sam Graves of Missouri


• Steve Southerland of Florida


• Trey Gowdy of South Carolina


• David Schweikert of Arizona


• Tom Cotton of Arkansas


• Brett Guthrie of Kentucky

Perhaps Huelskamp anticipated some would chicken out, since if some poor aide risked being “fired” for the list getting out, surely a House member might fear the wrath of Boehner for actually voting against him.

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Missoni scion on small plane missing in Venezuela

ROME (AP) — Rescue crews used boats and aircraft on Saturday to search for a small plane that disappeared in Venezuela carrying the CEO of Italy's iconic Missoni fashion house and five other people.

But 24 hours after the BN-2 Islander aircraft disappeared from radar screens on its short flight from Venzuela's coastal resort island of Los Roques, no sign of the plane had been found, officials said.

"We have no other news" about the plane carrying Vittorio Missoni, the head of the company; his wife, Maurizia Castiglioni; two of their Italian friends; and two Venezuelan crew members, said Paolo Marchetti, a Missoni SpA official. He spoke briefly to reporters as he left company headquarters in the northern Italian town of Sumirago Saturday afternoon.

Missoni's younger brother, Luca, who is active in the family-run business, was reportedly traveling to Venezuela on Saturday to monitor search efforts.

The La Repubbica.it, website of the Rome newspaper said Venezuelan aircraft, motorboats and helicopters took off at dawn Saturday to resume the search for the missing plane, which had been suspended on Friday night. The Italian news agency ANSA, reporting from Rome, said a specialized ocean-searching naval vessel also was being deployed.

Vittorio Missoni is the eldest son of the company's founder, Ottavio, who at 91 still follows the business.

The Corriere della Sera newspaper reported that Ottavio and his wife Rosita were at their home in Italy, along with their daughter Angela, a chief fashion designer with the company, waiting for information about the search. Rosita Missoni designs housewears, and Angela's daughter, Margherita, has been infusing the classic designs with fresh appeal.

The Missoni house, with its trademark zigzag and other geometric patterns in sweaters, scarves and other knitwear, is one of Italy's most famous fashion brands abroad.

Vittorio Missoni has played a key role in marketing the Missoni family creations in Asia, especially in Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea as general director of marketing for Missoni SpA. He also spearheaded a push for the company's products in the United States and France. His efforts to expand the brand abroad led Missoni to be dubbed the company's "ambassador."

On Friday, Venezuela's Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said the plane was declared missing hours after taking off from Los Roques, a string of islands popular for scuba diving, white beaches and coral reefs, and where the Missonis and their friends were on vacation.

Vittorio Missoni has been described as an active sportsman and lover of the outdoors. He and his wife and their friends from northern Italy were scheduled to fly back to Italy on Friday, but their internal flight never made it to Caracas.

La Repubblica said the plane disappeared off radar screens shortly after takeoff from Los Roques on what was to been a 90-mile (140-kilometer) flight to the mainland. The Missoni brand is scheduled to display its latest menswear creations on the Milan runways in a fashion show later this month.

On Jan. 4, 2008, another plane returning to the Venezuelan mainland from Los Roques disappeared with 14 people aboard, including eight Italians. The body of the plane's Venezuelan co-pilot later washed ashore, but despite a search lasting weeks no other victims or the wreckage were found.

In 2009, a small plane returning from Los Roques with nine people aboard plunged into the Caribbean Sea, but all survived.

____

Ian James contributed to this report from Caracas, Venezuela.

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The New Old Age: Murray Span, 1922-2012

One consequence of our elders’ extended lifespans is that we half expect them to keep chugging along forever. My father, a busy yoga practitioner and blackjack player, celebrated his 90th birthday in September in reasonably good health.

So when I had the sad task of letting people know that Murray Span died on Dec. 8, after just a few days’ illness, the primary response was disbelief. “No! I just talked to him Tuesday! He was fine!”

And he was. We’d gone out for lunch on Saturday, our usual routine, and he demolished a whole stack of blueberry pancakes.

But on Wednesday, he called to say he had bad abdominal pain and had hardly slept. The nurses at his facility were on the case; his geriatrician prescribed a clear liquid diet.

Like many in his generation, my dad tended towards stoicism. When he said, the following morning, “the pain is terrible,” that meant agony. I drove over.

His doctor shared our preference for conservative treatment. For patients at advanced ages, hospitals and emergency rooms can become perilous places. My dad had come through a July heart attack in good shape, but he had also signed a do-not-resuscitate order. He saw evidence all around him that eventually the body fails and life can become a torturous series of health crises and hospitalizations from which one never truly rebounds.

So over the next two days we tried to relieve his pain at home. He had abdominal x-rays that showed some kind of obstruction. He tried laxatives and enemas and Tylenol, to no effect. He couldn’t sleep.

On Friday, we agreed to go to the emergency room for a CT scan. Maybe, I thought, there’s a simple fix, even for a 90-year-old with diabetes and heart disease. But I carried his advance directives in my bag, because you never know.

When it is someone else’s narrative, it’s easier to see where things go off the rails, where a loving family authorizes procedures whose risks outweigh their benefits.

But when it’s your father groaning on the gurney, the conveyor belt of contemporary medicine can sweep you along, one incremental decision at a time.

All I wanted was for him to stop hurting, so it seemed reasonable to permit an IV for hydration and pain relief and a thin oxygen tube tucked beneath his nose.

Then, after Dad drank the first of two big containers of contrast liquid needed for his scan, his breathing grew phlegmy and labored. His geriatrician arrived and urged the insertion of a nasogastric tube to suck out all the liquid Dad had just downed.

His blood oxygen levels dropped, so there were soon two doctors and two nurses suctioning his throat until he gagged and fastening an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.

At one point, I looked at my poor father, still in pain despite all the apparatus, and thought, “This is what suffering looks like.” I despaired, convinced I had failed in my most basic responsibility.

“I’m just so tired,” Dad told me, more than once. “There are too many things going wrong.”

Let me abridge this long story. The scan showed evidence of a perforation of some sort, among other abnormalities. A chest X-ray indicated pneumonia in both lungs. I spoke with Dad’s doctor, with the E.R. doc, with a friend who is a prominent geriatrician.

These are always profound decisions, and I’m sure that, given the number of unknowns, other people might have made other choices. Fortunately, I didn’t have to decide; I could ask my still-lucid father.

I leaned close to his good ear, the one with the hearing aid, and told him about the pneumonia, about the second CT scan the radiologist wanted, about antibiotics. “Or, we can stop all this and go home and call hospice,” I said.

He had seen my daughter earlier that day (and asked her about the hockey strike), and my sister and her son were en route. The important hands had been clasped, or soon would be.

He knew what hospice meant; its nurses and aides helped us care for my mother as she died. “Call hospice,” he said. We tiffed a bit about whether to have hospice care in his apartment or mine. I told his doctors we wanted comfort care only.

As in a film run backwards, the tubes came out, the oxygen mask came off. Then we settled in for a night in a hospital room while I called hospices — and a handyman to move the furniture out of my dining room, so I could install his hospital bed there.

In between, I assured my father that I was there, that we were taking care of him, that he didn’t have to worry. For the first few hours after the morphine began, finally seeming to ease his pain, he could respond, “OK.” Then, he couldn’t.

The next morning, as I awaited the hospital case manager to arrange the hospice transfer, my father stopped breathing.

We held his funeral at the South Jersey synagogue where he’d had his belated bar mitzvah at age 88, and buried him next to my mother in a small Jewish cemetery in the countryside. I’d written a fair amount about him here, so I thought readers might want to know.

We weren’t ready, if anyone ever really is, but in our sorrow, my sister and I recite this mantra: 90 good years, four bad days. That’s a ratio any of us might choose.

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Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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