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$250K Microsoft bounty to catch worm creator

Experts say a single infected laptop could expose an entire network to the worm.
Software giant Microsoft is offering a $250,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of hackers behind a powerful computer virus that could lead to millions of PCs being hijacked.

Experts have so far been baffled by the true purpose of the Conficker or Downadup virus, but have described its spread as one of the most serious infections ever seen. The worm exploits a bug in Microsoft Windows to infect mainly corporate networks, then — although it has yet to cause any harm — it opens a link back to its point of origin, meaning it can receive further orders to wreak havoc. Microsoft has issued a patch to fix the bug, however if a single machine is infected in a large network, it will spread unchecked — often reinfecting machines that have been disinfected. The threat from the virus prompted Microsoft in collaboration with other technology industry names to this week announce a $250,000 reward for information to track down those behind Conficker.

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“As part of Microsoft’s ongoing security efforts, we constantly look for ways to use a diverse set of tools and develop methodologies to protect our customers,” said George Stathakopoulos, of Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Group. Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at anti-virus firm F-Secure says the true scope of the virus is not known, but in the past 24 hours his company monitored Conficker signals from two million Internet protocol addresses. “That’s a lot,” he told CNN. “And one IP address here does not mean one infected computer, it means at least one infected computer. “Many of those IP addresses are obviously company proxies or firewalls, hiding hundreds of more infections behind it. Unfortunately this also makes it impossible to estimate the total count of infected systems. “So it’s still big. Very big.” Microsoft has previously paid out similar rewards to informants who helped identify the creator of Sasser, another notorious worm let loose in 2004. The perpetrator was tracked to Germany, where he was sentenced a year later.

Plane crashes into suburban Buffalo home; 49 killed

Continental Airlines Flight 3407 crashed into a house in Clarence Center, New York, late Thursday.
A Continental Airlines plane crashed into a home near Buffalo, New York, late Thursday, killing 44 passengers and four crew members on board, according to New York State police.

Authorities said one person in the Clarence Center, New York, home was also killed. Four people were injured at the crash site, including a mother and daughter inside the house that was hit. They suffered minor injuries and were treated and released, said a spokeswoman at Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital in Williamsville. Two firefighters also were brought in for treatment of smoke inhalation and minor injuries. Continental Connection Flight 3407, a Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 74-seat turboprop, operated by Colgan Air, was en route from Newark, New Jersey, to Buffalo when it went down at around 10:20 p.m. ET. The crash occurred about seven miles from Buffalo Niagara International Airport. Dave Bissonette, Clarence Center’s natural disaster services coordinator, said it was “clearly a direct hit” on the house. “The only recognizable piece of the plane left is the tail,” Bissonette said. The ferocity of the fire was such that officials don’t expect the crash site to be safe for investigators until about noon Friday, nearly 14 hours after the crash. iReport.com: Flames rise from crash site CNN has listened to a tape of communications between air traffic control and the flight crew. The first officer had no sign of stress in her voice. The plane was cleared for approach. About two minutes later, the air traffic controller came back, with stress in his voice. Radar contact was lost. The question goes out: Can other planes see anything No one responds. The controller says they might have a plane down. The pilot’s last comment was “Colgan Flight 3407.” There were no sounds of distress. Watch video from CNN affiliate WGRZ » It was not clear whether the mix of sleet and snow in the area played any role in the crash of Flight 3407. Other planes continued to arrive and land safely at Buffalo about the time the flight went down. Delta Flight 1998, an MD-88 jet, landed at approximately 10:17 p.m. The Delta crew did not see Flight 3407. The Delta flight reported rime icing, a condition in which ice quickly builds up on the leading edge of the wings. Authorities said the plane went down near a local fire hall, so firefighters were quick to respond to the crash site. At least nine volunteer fire departments responded to the scene. iReport.com: Are you there Let us know Area resident Keith Burtis said he was driving to the store about a mile from the crash site when he heard the plane go down. “It was a high-pitched sound,” Burtis said. “It felt like a mini-earthquake.” Watch officials on the scene: ‘This is not a rescue mission’ » Shortly after the crash, Burtis said he saw a steady stream of fire trucks rush by him as smoke billowed into the sky. Other witnesses told CNN they saw the plane nose-dive toward the ground.

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According to CNN affiliate WGRZ-TV in Buffalo, one of the crash victims, Beverly Eckert, was the widow of 9/11 terror attack victim Sean Rooney, a Buffalo native. Eckert was traveling to Buffalo for a weekend celebration of what would have been her husband’s 58th birthday. She also had planned to take part in presentation of a scholarship award at Canisius High School that she established in honor of her late husband, the Buffalo News newspaper reported. Twelve residents were evacuated from the area of the plane crash. Law enforcement officials are asking people not to go to the crash site in fear they may hinder the investigation. “I felt the impact … sounded like a large explosion,” said Brendan Biddlecom, who told CNN he lives two blocks from where the plane crashed. Watch report from witness: “All I saw was flames” » Biddlecom ran out his home and to within a couple hundred yards of the crash. The smoke was thick and acrid, and the heat was intense, he said. Chris Kausner, who had a sister on the flight, rushed to the Clarence Municipal Center, where he waited for additional information after emergency teams turned him back from the scene. “My parents are on vacation in Florida and I had to call down there and tell my father what was going on,” he told CNN affiliate WIVB-TV. When asked how his parents were handling the news, a shaken Kausner responded “To tell you the truth, I heard my mother make a sound that I have never heard before.” Watch victim’s brother discuss delivering the tragic news to his mother » The Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office established a command post at the scene and had investigators there, a statement from the office said. Officials said relatives of passengers aboard the flight should call 800-621-3263 for information. Watch what iReporter captured on film A statement from the airline said: “At this time, the full resources of Colgan Air’s accident response team are being mobilized and will be devoted to cooperating with all authorities responding to the accident and to contacting family members and providing assistance to them.” The National Transportation Safety Board said early Friday that was preparing a “go team” to head to Buffalo to investigate the crash. According to the National Weather Service weather observation for Buffalo, there was light snow, fog and mist shortly before 10 p.m. Flight 3407 was originally scheduled to depart at 7:45 p.m., but it was delayed. Watch more on the plane crash » “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the crew, the passengers and our residents on Long Street,” said Clarence Supervisor Scott Blylewski. Thursday’s incident is the first fatal crash of a commercial airliner in the United States since August 2006 when Comair Flight 5191 crashed when it attempted to take off from the wrong runway.

How Much Is Too Much Space Junk?

If you’ve ever walked through a swarm of gnats at a picnic, you have some idea of what it’s like to navigate the mass of debris that circles our planet in low-Earth orbit. Space planners have long warned that the growing belt of cosmic junk would eventually lead to collisions, and on Tuesday it happened, when an American satellite and a defunct Russian satellite totaled one another 500 miles above Siberia. This has sparked new worries that space is simply becoming too dangerous a place to travel. Things aren’t nearly that severe yet — but they’re getting worse all the time.

The human species has a prodigious power to litter, but the popular belief has been that the sheer enormity of space prevents us from doing too much damage. That’s true enough — or at least it would be if we traveled throughout the entirety of cosmos. But the fact is the vast majority of our space exploration amounts to little more than wading off shore. The shuttle orbits at about 220 miles; the International Space Station stays at 270 miles. Our highest flying satellites hang in space at about 22,000 miles — which sounds like a lot until you realize that that still gets you only one-tenth of the way to the moon.

Like popular commuter routes, orbital corridors have been growing increasingly crowded since the 1950s. Every time we put even a small satellite in orbit, after all, much more than just the satellite comes along for the ride. There are spent booster stages, discarded adapter rings, bolts and panels and bits of insulation and even chips of paint being shed in the process.

The two ships that just collided are sources of a whole lot of potential new junk. The American craft — one of 65 communications satellites in an orbital flock known as Iridium — weighed 1,235 lbs. The Russian craft, a now-defunct satellite launched in 1993, weighed a ton.

“I think we will almost certainly see hundreds, if not thousands of pieces of tracked debris,” says Mark Matney, an orbital debris scientist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. “It all depends on how efficient the impact was. Was it a glancing blow or a full body hit”

A consortium of government organizations including NASA, NORAD, and even the FCC keep track of all of the planet’s high-flying rubbish, and, so far, their running count is flat-out scary. There are currently at least 17,000 objects measuring four inches or greater circling the Earth — and in some ways, that’s the good news. The government estimates that there are 200,000 objects in the one- to three-inch range, and tens of millions smaller than an inch.

And if you think that those tiny pieces of junk can’t do much harm, think again. According to a back-of-the-envelope rule the Apollo astronauts used, given the speeds involved in traveling in low-Earth orbit, a one-tenth-inch bit of chaff would collide with oncoming spacecraft with as much force as bowling ball traveling 60 miles per hour.

Turboprop crash plane one of the safest

Scandinavian Airlines grounded its fleet of Dash 8 Q400 planes after three crash landings in 2007.
The turboprop plane that crashed in New York state, killing all 48 people on board and one on the ground, was one of the safest and most sophisticated aircraft of its type, according to an aviation industry expert.

The Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 was less than one year old and had flown for only about 1,500 hours, said Kieran Daly, of the online aviation news service Air Transport Intelligence. The Continental Connection Flight 3407 was operated by Colgan Air between Newark Liberty International Airport and Buffalo. Daly said propeller-driven aircraft such as the Canadian-built Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 and its European rival, the ATR series, had sold well to airlines in the last three years because they were almost as fast as jets, cruising at about 480 kilometers/hour (300 mph), but used much less fuel. Listen to audio of plane’s last moments » However, despite an excellent safety record, some passengers were still wary of traveling on propeller planes, he said. Daly said that for most of the time turboprops were as safe as similar-sized, 50-seater jets, but in icy conditions turboprops were at a disadvantage. Stressing that the cause of Thursday’s crash in near Buffalo was still unclear and could be caused by mechanical failure for example, he said the potential for ice was there because it was short and the plane would have been flying at a relatively low level. Watch what iReporter captured on film Daly said the pilot appeared not to have reported problems with icing, but this was not unusual because planes were designed to cope with these conditions. “All aircraft have de-icing system: a big jet like a 747 can cope with ice almost indefinitely, but smaller planes, especially propeller planes can experience problems,” he said. “Pilots cope by increasing altitude — icing mainly occurs at lower levels — but because propeller-driven planes are slower, they take longer to reach high altitude and spend longer in the icy conditions.” According to the National Weather Service weather observation for Buffalo, there was light snow, fog and mist shortly before 10 p.m. Watch more on the plane crash »

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CNN has listened to a tape of communications between air traffic control and the flight crew. The first officer had no sign of stress in her voice initially. The plane was cleared for approach. About two minutes later, the air traffic controller came back, with stress in his voice. Radar contact was lost. Watch report from witness: “All I saw was flames” » The question went out: Can other planes see anything No one responds. The controller says they might have a plane down. The pilot’s last comment was “Colgan Flight 3407.” There were no sounds of distress. Watch video from CNN affiliate WGRZ » Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) permanently grounded its fleet of Dash 8s after three crash landings during a two-month period in 2007 that were blamed on the aircraft’s landing gear. “Confidence in the Q400 has diminished considerably and our customers are becoming increasingly doubtful about flying in this type of aircraft,” Mats Jansson, president and CEO of SAS, said at the time. “I have decided to immediately remove Dash 8 Q400 aircraft from service.” Air expert Daly said though that in Thursday’s crash the landing gear of the Continental plane was unlikely to be down because it was far from the airport. The National Transportation Safety Board said early Friday it was preparing a “go team” to head to Buffalo to investigate the crash. Thursday’s plane crash is the deadliest on U.S. soil since August 2006 when Comair Flight 5191 crashed when it attempted to take off from the wrong runway.

Turkish military denies link to illegal groups

Police search for weapons during an investigation into an alleged plot to topple Turkey's government.
The once-untouchable Turkish military again took to defending itself on its Web site, announcing Thursday that "the Turkish military has no connections with illegal organizations or criminals."

The statement was released after a former police chief accused Turkey’s top army general of ordering him to create a secret counter-terrorism force charged with “cleaning out the interior of Turkey.” Ibrahim Sahin, a former officer in charge of police special operations, testified in an Istanbul court this week as one of scores of suspects accused of membership in a shadowy organization that plotted to overthrow the Turkish government. Among those arrested are businessmen, politicians, journalists and army officers. News reports have linked the group — known as “Ergenekon” — to a series of unsolved assassinations over the past 15 years. The Ergenekon investigation has been under way since 2007. In prosecutors’ first voluminous indictment, they charged suspects with plotting to attack a NATO base in Turkey, as one of a series of “bloody attacks aiming at creating serious crisis, chaos, anarchy, terrorism and instability.”

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Critics say the investigation is a political witch hunt. They accuse Turkey’s observant Muslim prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of targeting staunch secularists. Prosecutors are preparing a second indictment that is expected to charge several army generals who were arrested last year with membership in Ergenekon.

The Biology of Belief

Most folks probably couldn’t locate their parietal lobe with a map and a compass. For the record, it’s at the top of your head — aft of the frontal lobe, fore of the occipital lobe, north of the temporal lobe. What makes the parietal lobe special is not where it lives but what it does — particularly concerning matters of faith.

If you’ve ever prayed so hard that you’ve lost all sense of a larger world outside yourself, that’s your parietal lobe at work. If you’ve ever meditated so deeply that you’d swear the very boundaries of your body had dissolved, that’s your parietal too. There are other regions responsible for making your brain the spiritual amusement park it can be: your thalamus plays a role, as do your frontal lobes. But it’s your parietal lobe — a central mass of tissue that processes sensory input — that may have the most transporting effect.

Needy creatures that we are, we put the brain’s spiritual centers to use all the time. We pray for peace; we meditate for serenity; we chant for wealth. We travel to Lourdes in search of a miracle; we go to Mecca to show our devotion; we eat hallucinogenic mushrooms to attain transcendent vision and gather in church basements to achieve its sober opposite. But there is nothing we pray — or chant or meditate — for more than health.

Health, by definition, is the sine qua non of everything else. If you’re dead, serenity is academic. So we convince ourselves that while our medicine is strong and our doctors are wise, our prayers may heal us too.

Here’s what’s surprising: a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that faith may indeed bring us health. People who attend religious services do have a lower risk of dying in any one year than people who don’t attend. People who believe in a loving God fare better after a diagnosis of illness than people who believe in a punitive God. No less a killer than AIDS will back off at least a bit when it’s hit with a double-barreled blast of belief. “Even accounting for medications,” says Dr. Gail Ironson, a professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Miami who studies HIV and religious belief, “spirituality predicts for better disease control.”

It’s hard not to be impressed by findings like that, but a skeptic will say there’s nothing remarkable — much less spiritual — about them. You live longer if you go to church because you’re there for the cholesterol-screening drive and the visiting-nurse service. Your viral load goes down when you include spirituality in your fight against HIV because your levels of cortisol — a stress hormone — go down first. “Science doesn’t deal in supernatural explanations,” says Richard Sloan, professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University Medical Center and author of Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine. “Religion and science address different concerns.”

That’s undeniably true — up to a point. But it’s also true that our brains and bodies contain an awful lot of spiritual wiring. Even if there’s a scientific explanation for every strand of it, that doesn’t mean we can’t put it to powerful use. And if one of those uses can make us well, shouldn’t we take advantage of it “A large body of science shows a positive impact of religion on health,” says Dr. Andrew Newberg, a professor of radiology, psychology and religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania and co-founder of Penn’s Center for Spirituality and the Mind. “The way the brain works is so compatible with religion and spirituality that we’re going to be enmeshed in both for a long time.”

It’s All in Your Head
“enmeshed in the brain” is as good a way as any to describe Newberg’s work of the past 15 years. The author of four books, including the soon-to-be-released How God Changes Your Brain, he has looked more closely than most at how our spiritual data-processing center works, conducting various types of brain scans on more than 100 people, all of them in different kinds of worshipful or contemplative states. Over time, Newberg and his team have come to recognize just which parts of the brain light up during just which experiences.

When people engage in prayer, it’s the frontal lobes that take the lead, since they govern focus and concentration. During very deep prayer, the parietal lobe powers down, which is what allows us to experience that sense of having loosed our earthly moorings. The frontal lobes go quieter when worshippers are involved in the singular activity of speaking in tongues — which jibes nicely with the speakers’ subjective experience that they are not in control of what they’re saying.

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Virgin Atlantic passenger’s "culinary journey of hell"

Image one:
A six-page rant to Virgin Atlantic’s Sir Richard Branson about a woeful in-flight meal attracted so much attention on the Internet that it was rumored to be a clever marketing stunt.

The author was reported to be Oliver Beale, a 29 year old art director who works at a London advertising agency. Both he and Virgin have insisted the letter, described as possibly “the world’s best passenger complaint,” is authentic. Here’s what Beale had to say after a flight he described as a “culinary journey of hell.” The letter Dear Mr Branson REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008 I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit. Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at the hands of your corporation. Look at this Richard. Just look at it: [see image one, above]. I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this Why have I been given it What have I done to deserve this And, which one is the starter, which one is the dessert You don’t get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue hasn’t it. No sane person would serve a dessert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a dessert with peas in: [see image two, above]. I know it looks like a baaji but it’s in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you’ll be fascinated to hear that it wasn’t custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It’s only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the dessert after all. Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started dessert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So let’s peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what’s on offer. I’ll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat their with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.

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Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this: [see image three, above]. Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It’s mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird. Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard. By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to its baffling presentation: [see image four, above]. It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn’t want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above. I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point. Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on: [see image five, above]. I apologise for the quality of the photo, it’s just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson’s face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel: [see image six, above]. Is that Ray Liotta A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I’d had enough. I was the hungriest I’d been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen. My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations: [see image seven, above]. Yes! It’s another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff. Richard…. What is that white stuff It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I’d done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard. So that was that Richard. I didn’t eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this I can’t imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary. As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It’s just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it’s knees and begging for sustenance. Yours Sincerely XXXX

Man charged with arson in Australia wildfires

Porcelain dolls sit in front of a burnt house in the township of Phesant Creek, 100km north of Melbourne.
Police have arrested a man in connection with one of the myriad wildfires that have laid waste to parts of southeastern Australia and killed at least 181 people.

Police say the man is suspected of lighting a fire on February 7. He was charged with arson causing death, intentionally or recklessly lighting a bush fire, and possessing child pornography, according to a statement by the Victoria state police. The man, who was not named, is suspected of starting a blaze called the Churchill fire. The development came as the blazes that have roared through the region for nearly a week were slowly coming under control. The Country Fire Authority said the number of fires burning had dropped to 21 from about 35 on Thursday. While “the threat will remain for weeks to come,” a spokesman said no towns were under threat Friday morning and that good weather had allowed firefighters to build containment lines around the fires. Meanwhile, more than 150 detectives were working on an arson investigation, authorities said. Two men who were arrested for “suspicious behavior” on Thursday were released without charges. “We are satisfied with their explanation and don’t expect to talk to them again,” Victoria state police inspector Peter Sheppard said. Firefighters have battled blazes since Saturday — including several new fires that broke out Tuesday night, which officials said almost certainly were the result of arson. See map of fire-hit areas »

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The official death toll from the fires has remained at 181 for the past two days. But government officials say that number could reach as high as 300 based on the number of people missing and number of homes destroyed. iReport.com: Raging fire approaches home Sheppard said the tally is not being updated as frequently because it’s become harder to verify fatalities from the fires — which have destroyed more than 1,800 homes and displaced about 7,000 people. “Initially it was a fairly straitforward process — bodies were in cars, on sides of roads,” he said. “Now, the search is through buildings. Many have collapsed.” Watch profiles of lucky animals that survived the fires »

He said that in the town of Marysville, which was hard-hit by the wildfires, bodies are believed to be in a hotel but firefighters cannot get access to it. iReport.com: Wildfires tear through Victoria state » On Thursday, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced to parliament that the government will hold a memorial service and national day of mourning for victims of the fires. He said the government is working with the nation’s Council of Churches to determine the day.

Plane crashes into suburban Buffalo-area home; 49 killed

A huge fire burns from the wreckage of Continental Airlines Flight 3407 near Buffalo, New York.
A Continental Airlines plane crashed into a home near Buffalo, New York, late Thursday, killing 44 passengers and four crew members on board, according to New York State police.

Authorities also said one person on the ground was killed. It is not yet known whether that person was in the home at the time of the crash. Continental Connection Flight 3407, operated by Colgan Air, was en route from Newark, New Jersey, when it went down, said Bill Peat with New York State Emergency Management in Albany. The crash occurred about seven miles from Buffalo Niagara International Airport. “At this time, the full resources of Colgan Air’s accident response team are being mobilized and will be devoted to cooperating with all authorities responding to the accident and to contacting family members and providing assistance to them,” a statement from the airline said. The plane crashed about 10:20 p.m., hitting a Clarence Center, New York, home. Watch crash video from CNN affiliate WGRZ » Authorities said the plane went down near a local fire hall, so firefighters were quick to respond to the accident scene. Area resident Keith Burtis said he was driving to the store about a mile from the crash site when he heard the plane go down. “It was a high-pitched sound,” Burtis said. “It felt like a mini-earthquake.” Watch officials on the scene: ‘This is not a rescue mission’ » Shortly after the crash, Burtis said he saw a steady stream of fire trucks rush by him as smoke billowed into the sky. Other witnesses told CNN they saw the plane nose-dive toward the ground. Twelve residents were evacuated from the area. “I felt the impact … sounded like a large explosion,” said Brendan Biddlecon, who told CNN he lives two blocks from where the plane crashed. Biddlecon ran out his home and to within a couple hundred yards of the crash. The smoke was thick and acrid, and the heat was intense, he said. Are you on the scene Let us know at iReport The Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office established a command post at the scene and had investigators there, a statement from the office said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the crew, the passengers and our residents on Long Street,” said Clarence Supervisor Scott Blylewski. “This is clearly a tragedy,” said Dave Bissonette, the town’s natural disaster services coordinator. Watch what iReporter captured on film A command post has been set up at the scene by the Erie County Medical Examiner’s office and has investigators and doctors on the scene. Continental Airlines confirmed that the Bombardier Dash 8 Q400, a 74-seat turboprop, was operating between Newark Liberty International Airport and Buffalo. Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) permanently grounded its fleet of Dash 8s after three crash landings during a two-month period in 2007 that were blamed on the aircraft’s landing gear. “Confidence in the Q400 has diminished considerably and our customers are becoming increasingly doubtful about flying in this type of aircraft,” Mats Jansson, president and CEO of SAS, said at the time. “I have decided to immediately remove Dash 8 Q400 aircraft from service.” The National Transportation Safety Board said early Friday that was preparing a “go team” to head to Buffalo to investigate the crash. There was a wintry mix at the time of the crash, officials said. Watch more on the plane crash » Officials said relatives of passengers aboard the flight should call 1-800-621-3263 for information. At this time, officials said they are not concerned about a hazardous materials situation on the ground. Watch the brother of one the passengers speak » Rep. Chris Lee, R-New York, issued a statement: “We are deeply shocked and saddened by the tragic accident that occurred tonight in Clarence. Our focus right now is on supporting the first responders on the ground and their efforts to ensure the health and safety of people in the area. “I will do my best to provide helpful information as we learn more. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims’ families at this difficult hour.”

Confessions of a Shopaholic: Relic of an Economy Past

Long, long ago, in a very different economy, there were people called shopaholics. They wielded credit cards and wore shoes so ugly that they came to be considered beautiful. A few of these creatures can still be found toting small dogs in Los Angeles or being led around New York City by Tom Cruise, but their ranks are presumably diminishing at the same rate as your 401.

Perhaps, then, it’s a good thing they have been commemorated in Confessions of a Shopaholic, a movie adaptation of Sophie Kinsella’s series of novels about a shopping-obsessed, debt-ridden young English journalist named Becky Bloomwood . As a romantic comedy, it is forgettable. But as an ill-timed anthropological artifact, Confessions offers weird pleasures, not least among them the fact that it makes us root for the debt collector.

Reframed in the movie as an American, Becky is a classic case of the aspirational shopper, scarred by a childhood full of sensible brown shoes and thrift-store shopping with her mother . “When I shop, the world gets better,” Becky says dreamily. “And then it’s not, and I need to do it again.”

Isn’t that exactly what they told us the week before Christmas And we didn’t shop — and look how much worse the world got. Maybe Becky is on to something. Certainly her new editor, Luke , thinks so. Oblivious to her $16K in debt, he hires her to write for Successful Savings magazine right after she’s been laid off from a gardening magazine that’s being shuttered . He likes her sort of Everywoman approach to consumerism and forgives her complete ignorance of actual finances.

Naturally, her column is an instant hit. This might be less absurd if we were privy to their content, but director P.J. Hogan probably didn’t want to trouble the American moviegoing public with such details. That Becky and Luke will fall in love is also a given, but that’s a touch harder to swallow. It’s not that Dancy isn’t cute — he is, like a smaller, more delicately featured Hugh Grant — but simply because Becky seems more interested in mannequins than in men. There’s nothing womanly about any of her getups; they’re more like costumes put on by a little girl playing dress-up. She’s not looking for a boyfriend; she’s looking for a $120 scarf that, as she says in voiceover, can help define your psyche.

There’s no evidence that Becky ever really questions this point of view. Maybe that’s why we ultimately find a character we’re presumably supposed to hate, the collection agent doggedly pursuing her, so sympathetic. Angular, angry Derek Smeath has been driven to the brink by Becky’s inexcusable number of excuses. When he finally pounces, the satisfaction is akin to seeing your little sister get spanked for reading your diary.

Fisher, an Australian actress whose breakthrough moment happened around a dinner table with Vince Vaughn in Wedding Crashers, is a nifty performer. Her charms are enough to keep the movie — entering the marketplace just as the country’s financial situation becomes truly dire — from being criminally distasteful. She’s got that rare gift for making slapstick seem organic. Confessions runs her through the chick-flick moves of endearment , but there are a few scenes where she cuts loose and we get to see her Lucille Ball–style warmth and wackiness. It’s a simple pleasure to watch Becky attempt to retrieve a wrongly addressed envelope before it lands in the hands of her idol, fashion-magazine editor Alette .

The movie’s other saving grace is that Becky has absolutely hideous taste. Whether this is intentional, only costume designer Patricia Field knows for sure. What Carrie Bradshaw might have pulled off, Becky sinks under. Colors, plaids, accessories, boots — it’s all garish; she doesn’t wear or carry a single appealing object for the length of the movie. This is oddly comforting. We’re officially 14 months into this recession, and many of us are not just tightening belts but swearing off shopping altogether. Confessions, perhaps inadvertently, assures us that being deprived of Gucci boots can be a good thing.

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