Man On Death Row For 25 Years Walks Free

A man who has been on death row for a quarter of a century has walked free after his murder conviction was overturned.

Glenn Ford, who was found guilty over the 1983 killing of jeweller Isadore Rozeman, was exonerated after new evidence came to light.

As he walked out of a maximum security prison in Angola, Louisiana, the 64-year-old said: "My mind is going in all kinds of directions but it feels good."

However, he also said he harboured some resentment for being wrongly imprisoned.

"I've been locked up almost 30 years for something I didn't do," he said.

"I can't go back and do anything I should have been doing when I was 35, 38, 40, stuff like that."

Asked what was the first thing he was going to do, he replied: "Going to get something to eat."

The overturning of his conviction and sentence by a judge was based on new information that corroborated his claim that he was not present or involved in Mr Rozeman's death, Mr Ford's lawyers said.

Prosecutors called it a "recent development" but would not elaborate on the new evidence, saying it could jeopardise their future case against the real killer.

Mr Ford, who worked part-time for Mr Rozeman, was found guilty in 1984 and was sentenced to die by electrocution.

He has been on death row since August 1988 and had always maintained his innocence, filing multiple appeals, most of which were denied.

Mr Rozeman, 56, was shot dead behind the counter of his jewellery shop in Shreveport.

No murder weapon was ever found and there were no eyewitnesses to the crime.

His lawyers, Gary Clements and Aaron Novod, said: "We are very pleased to see Glenn Ford finally exonerated, and we are particularly grateful that the prosecution and the court moved ahead so decisively to set Mr Ford free."

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Malaysia Airlines Plane: Relatives Vent Anger

What Has Happened To Malaysia Airlines Plane?

Updated: 6:49am UK, Wednesday 12 March 2014

The missing Malaysia Airlines flight may be proving so hard to find because it could have vanished in an aviation "black spot", an expert has told Sky News.

:: For the latest on this story click here

Former Boeing 777 instructor and United Airlines captain Ross Aimer said it was "disturbing" that there had been no distress call from flight MH370's cockpit and that the plane's emergency locator transmitters had not sent any signals.

He said: "These are very sophisticated equipment that should have been working under any condition - in the water, in the jungle, after a fire, after an explosion - and none of them have talked to the outside world yet.

"There are spots in the world, however, that are called blind spots, where you can not communicate for some reason.

"Unfortunately, that area near Vietnam, over the Gulf of Thailand, those are some of the black spots, so perhaps at that time there was no data transmission between the aircraft and the airline."

Flight MH370 vanished from radar screens early on Saturday about one hour into a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

When it last made contact, the Malaysia Airlines jet was at cruising altitude, 11km (35,000 feet) above sea level, largely considered the safest part of a flight.

While there is still no confirmation that the Boeing 777-200 crashed, aviation experts have put forward possible causes of its disappearance including a terrorist attack, extreme turbulence, human error or even suicide.

The failure of the pilots to send a distress signal has given rise to speculation there was a sudden catastrophe - possibly caused by a mechanical failure or an explosion.

Former Navy pilot Dr Simon Mitchell has told Sky News that despite flying becoming safer over the years, mistakes are still made.

"We've expended billions of dollars on developing very sophisticated aids to make the life of the pilot safer and more straightforward, but there are still opportunities whereby mistakes can be made," he said.

Investigations into Air France flight 447 that plunged into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009, killing 228 people, eventually concluded that both technical and human error were to blame for the disaster.

Closer to the area where MH370 vanished, Adam Air flight 574 with 102 people on board disappeared in January 2007, also at its cruise phase, during a domestic flight in Indonesia.

Authorities found the pilots lost control after becoming preoccupied with malfunctioning navigational equipment.

The lack of wreckage from MH370 also suggests a high-altitude disaster which spread debris across an area too wide to be easily detected.

Aviation experts say the size of the debris field will be one of the first indicators of what happened.

A smaller field would indicate the plane probably fell intact, breaking up upon impact with the water.

A large, widespread field would signal the plane probably broke apart at a high elevation, perhaps because of a bomb or a massive airframe failure.

But sudden, accidental structural failures are considered extremely unlikely in today's passenger aircraft.

This is especially so with the Boeing 777-200, which has one of the best safety records of any jet.

Authorities have not ruled out terrorism or hijacking, though, with suspicions over two of the passengers found to be travelling on stolen passports.

"There are two categories of people who use these (stolen passports) - criminals and terrorists," Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, said.

In the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, there was substantial wreckage despite it being a mid-air explosion, and claims of responsibility came soon after the disaster.

But no-one has come forward to claim the Malaysia incident as their attack.

Whatever caused the apparent crash, there would be some debris - but it could take a while to find.

It took two years to find the main wreckage of the Air France plane plunged into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009, killing 228 people.

An Indonesian navy ship detected metal on the ocean floor a week after the Adam Air flight disappeared in 2007.

It was a further two weeks before the US Navy picked up signals from the flight data and cockpit recorders, and seven months for the recorder to be recovered.

The Malaysian jet could have made a U-turn shortly before it vanished, officials say, adding one more level of uncertainty to the effort to find it.

It is thought the plane could be hundreds of miles from where it was last detected, and the search has been widened in the hope of finding the plane.

Just about every major jet to disappear in the modern era has eventually been found. The rare exceptions did not involve passengers.

In September 1990, a Boeing 727 owned by the Peruvian Faucett Airlines ditched into the North Atlantic after running out of fuel on its way to Miami.

The accident was attributed to poor pilot planning and the wreck was never recovered.

More mysterious was the disappearance of another Boeing 727 being used to transport diesel fuel to diamond mines in Africa.

The owners had numerous financial problems and the plane took off without clearance and with its transponder turned off. It is believed to have crashed in the Atlantic Ocean.

One theory, never proven, is that it was stolen so the owner could collect insurance.

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Last-Ditch Bid To Resolve Ukraine Dispute

An eleventh-hour effort is being made aimed at averting a fresh crisis over Ukraine ahead of a breakaway vote in Crimea.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is travelling to London to meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Friday.

Mr Kerry has said he will present Mr Lavrov a "series of options" in a bid to resolve the dispute.

The frantic diplomatic effort comes ahead of a critical referendum in Ukraine's southern region of Crimea on whether to join Russia.

The Black Sea peninsula has been the scene of a tense stand-off between Moscow and the West, following the toppling of Kremlin ally Viktor Yanukovych as Ukrainian president.

It led to the seizing of the region by pro-Russian forces.

Crimea's majority Russian-speaking population are expected to back the split from Ukraine.

The vote has been denounced by the new Ukrainian government in Kiev, which has vowed not to give up a "single centimetre" of territory.

And Western powers say they will not recognise the referendum as it violates international law and Ukraine's constitution.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin has defended the move arguing it is legal.

Mr Kerry has been unsuccessfully trying for more than a week to broker a meeting between Russian, Ukrainian and European diplomats to try and ease tensions.

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HIV And Hepatitis Scare Over Insulin Injections

Patients given insulin at a New York hospital have been warned they could have been infected with HIV and hepatitis B and C.

It has sent out more than 4,000 letters explaining the risk of possible blood contamination and is urging them to get tested for the viruses as a precaution.

The health scare centres on insulin pens for diabetics which are pre-filled syringes used by the hospital to dispense the hormone in a single patient.

Its reservoir part - where the hormone is held before it is injected into a patient - may have been used on more than one person.

The pens each contain multiple insulin doses with disposable needles, and while nurses used new needles for each patient, they may not have used a fresh pen.

Blood could have back-flowed into the chamber contaminating the insulin, the South Nassau Communities Hospital warned.

One visitor Peter Vetro said: "It's just shocking to hear something like that. I just can't believe that."

Another, Andra Vetro, said: "It's actually very scary because you come to the hospital when you're sick, and you don't hope to get even worse while you're inside the hospital."

Hospital spokesman Damian Becker said no-one was seen re-using the insulin pen reservoir on more than one patient, but a nurse was heard saying it was all right to do so.

Since the scare, it has banned the use of insulin pens and now only permits single-patient-use vials to administer insulin treatments.

The hospital, which has said the risk of infection is extremely low, will be offering the patients free and confidential blood testing services.

And it has asked patients to schedule a blood test within 60 days of receiving the letter.

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Ukraine: Russian MPs Facing EU Travel Ban

By Anushka Asthana, Political Correspondent

David Cameron has said the UK will push for an EU-wide travel ban to be imposed on a number of "prominent Russian MPs" if talks over the Ukraine fail to materialise.

The Prime Minister said Britain had "put on the table" the idea of targeting high-profile individuals.

He refused to provide a specific number but Downing Street sources suggested it was likely to be between 15 and 20 MPs who had backed the "violation" of Ukraine's territory.

"I'm not naming names today," Mr Cameron said, although he did outline the type of politicians he wanted to include.

"The criteria is people who have been pushing for the unacceptable steps that have been taken."

Sources argued the focus would be on travel bans rather than asset freezes because the Russian politicians involved did not tend to have significant assets.

They would not confirm whether Russian oligarchs could also be targeted.

Speaking during a flight to Israel and the occupied territories, the Prime Minister said he wanted Russia to take part in talks with the "contact group" as part of the first phase of action over Ukraine.

But he added: "If the contact group doesn't get going and make some progress, then we move to the second phase which will include asset freezes and travel bans.

"We would be pushing for those travel bans to include certain prominent Russian MPs. We had a meeting yesterday in London with partners about this (and) put that on the table."

Mr Cameron said these were "tough and important" measures.

The Prime Minister will hold bilateral talks with both the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during his trip, and said he would also be "following progress in Ukraine closely".

He hit back at claims the UK has failed to take as strong a stance as the US over the crisis in Ukraine.

"The European Union meeting surprised me," he said.

"Everyone was expecting the US would take a series of steps and the EU would fall short.

"Britain played a vitally important role bringing countries together, bringing together the Poles who, like us, want to see strong action with other countries to forge a consensus and find a way through this."

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Missing Plane: Malaysia 'Holding Back Details'

Missing Plane: 13 Things You Need To Know

Updated: 10:52pm UK, Tuesday 11 March 2014

As the search for Flight MH370 continues, we answer 13 questions about the disappearance and what could have happened.

When did the plane disappear?

Flight MH370 vanished from radars early on Saturday, an hour into a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. When it last made contact, the jet was cruising at 35,000 feet over the South China Sea. There are reports that the plane tried to turn around but this would give rise to the question: why didn't the pilot communicate this decision to air traffic control? Meanwhile, at an undisclosed time a relative reportedly managed to call one of the passengers. Investigators have repeatedly tried to call the same number without success.

:: Sky News will be showing a 12-minute special report on the story so far of the missing flight MH370 at 2.30pm.

Who was on board?

The plane's manifest contained 12 crew from Malaysia and 227 passengers from 14 different countries: 153 Chinese, 38 Malaysians, seven Indonesians, six Australians, five Indians, four French, three Americans, two each from Iran (both travelling on fake passports), New Zealand, Ukraine and Canada, and 1 each from Russia, Taiwan and Netherlands. Among the passengers was a 19-strong group of prominent artists returning from an exhibition in Malaysia. It is also known that five children - aged two to four - were on board. The oldest person on the plane was 79.

What are the main theories?

Mechanical error remains the most likely explanation. Poor conditions and strong turbulence always have to be considered, but weather conditions were good in this instance. Four areas of investigation are focused on the possibility of human involvement: hijacking, sabotage, psychological problems or personal problems with passengers or crew.

Could there have been a mechanical error?

Inquiries into Air France flight 447 that dived into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009 en route from Brazil to Paris, killing 228 people, blamed both technical and human error. However, in the event of engine failure, a plane such as the Boeing 777-200 could glide for 80-90 miles (128-145km), giving the pilot time to issue a distress signal. The descent would also have been traced by radars. The lack of any Mayday makes an explosion a possibility.

Could the plane have broken up in the air?

The apparent lack of wreckage from MH370 does point to a high-altitude disaster. In such an event the debris would be spread far and wide, making it difficult to find. A smaller field would indicate the plane probably fell intact, breaking up on impact with the water. In the event of a sudden loss of pressure due to a window blowing out the crew would dive the plane in order to lose altitude - but this would not cause the plane to disintegrate.

The plane's safety record?

Sudden, accidental, structural failures are considered extremely unlikely in today's passenger aircraft. This is especially so with the Boeing 777-200, which has one of the best safety records of any jet. One of the missing plane's wingtips was clipped in an incident while taxiing in 2012 but it was repaired and certified as safe.

Could it have been a terrorist attack or hijacking?

In the event of a hijacker trying to enter the cockpit, a pilot can send a secret distress code - something that wasn't done on Flight MH370. The profiles of all 239 passengers are being checked against databases worldwide but the terrorism theory was weakened on Tuesday when Malaysian police confirmed it had identified the two passengers who were travelling on fake passports. Both were said to be seeking asylum in Europe. In the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, claims of responsibility came soon after the disaster - but no one has come forward to claim the Malaysia incident as their attack.

Human error?

The 53-year-old pilot was very experienced, having amassed more than 18,000 flying hours since being employed by the airline in 1981. However, in Indonesia in 2007, Adam Air flight 574 disappeared with 102 passengers during a domestic flight, where the authorities found the pilots lost control after becoming preoccupied with malfunctioning navigational equipment. Former Navy pilot Dr Simon Mitchell told Sky News: "We've expended billions of dollars on developing very sophisticated aids to make the life of the pilot safer and more straightforward, but there are still opportunities whereby mistakes can be made."

Why was there no distress signal?

One explanation is that the plane fell into a communications black spot. Former Boeing 777 instructor and United Airlines captain Ross Aimer explained: "These are very sophisticated (items of) equipment that should have been working under any conditions - in the water, in the jungle, after a fire, after an explosion - and none of them have talked to the outside world yet. There are spots in the world, however, that are called blind spots, where you cannot communicate for some reason. Unfortunately, that area near Vietnam, over the Gulf of Thailand, those are some of the black spots."

Where is the search taking place?

Nine aircraft and 24 ships are currently taking part in the search in the seas off Vietnam and Malaysia. Search teams from Australia, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines, New Zealand and the US are assisting. Officials said on Tuesday that the search was being conducted on both sides of Vietnam's Ca Mau peninsula. The search area has been expanded from 50 nautical miles from where the plane disappeared - over waters between Malaysia and Vietnam - to 100 nautical miles (115 miles; 185km). This expansion was a result of a new report from the Malaysian military, who say they tracked the plane in the Strait of Malacca - a long distance from where it last made contact - in the hours following its disappearance.

Why has no wreckage been found?

Whatever caused the apparent crash, there would be some debris - but it could take a while to find. It took two years to find the main wreckage of Air France flight 447 in 2009.  In 2007, in the case of the Adam Air flight, it was a week before an Indonesian naval vessel detected metal on the ocean floor. It was a further two weeks before the US Navy picked up signals from the flight data and cockpit recorders and seven months for the recorder to be recovered. If the plane had crashed on land, chances are the wreckage would have been found by now. At sea, much of the plane would have sunk, but some debris should remain on the surface. Worryingly, the longer the search takes the harder it becomes as the wind and tide spread any debris further from the initial crash zone.

Could the 'black box' provide answers?

As well as wreckage, search teams are looking for the aircraft's emergency locator transmitter (ELT) - though these do not always work if a plane hits water. However, attached to the plane's black box is a device known as a pinger. This can emit radio signals deep under water for up to 30 days - or 40 days in warm water.

Has a plane ever simply vanished?

Since the start of the jet age in the 1950s, nearly every major aircraft that disappeared was found - eventually - and the rare exceptions did not involve passengers. In September 1990, a Boeing 727 plunged into the North Atlantic after running out of fuel. The accident was attributed to poor pilot planning and the wreck was never recovered. Another Boeing 727 transporting diesel to diamond mines in Africa took off without clearance and with its transponder turned off. It is believed to have crashed in the Atlantic Ocean.

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Pistorius Crime Scene Reconstructed In Court

Pistorius Trial: Evidence Summary

Updated: 2:18pm UK, Tuesday 11 March 2014

A summary of the evidence heard in the first two days of the Oscar Pistorius murder trial.

Day 7

Friend Darren Fresco told the court Oscar Pistorius "laughed" after firing his gun through the sunroof of a car.

Mr Fresco said he asked Pistorius if he was "******* mad". "He just laughed about what had happened. It felt as if my ear was bleeding," he said, referring to the episode in late 2012.

The court was told the athlete had a "big love for weapons" and Mr Fresco also recalled an occasion when Pistorius asked him to pass him his gun at Tasha's restaurant in Johannesburg on January 13 last year.

He said he warned Pistorius his Glock pistol was "one-up" - meaning it had a bullet in the chamber - and that he thought he saw the runner remove it.

The gun went off under the table, followed by a "deafening hush" - and Pistorius "instantly" passed the weapon back to him and asked him to "take the rap for it" because there was "too much media hype" around him, Mr Fresco said.

Pathologist Gert Saymaan, who conducted a post-mortem examination on Reeva Steenkamp, also finished giving his evidence as a court ban on tweeting during his evidence was lifted by Judge Thokozile Masipa.

The court heard the amount of urine in Ms Steenkamp's bladder at the time of her death amounted to the rough equivalent of a teaspoon - and that the model's last meal was consumed no more than two hours before her death.

Ms Steenkamp was shot after 3am, which means she must have eaten after 1am. Pistorius had said the couple were in the bedroom by 10pm.

Prof Saayman admitted he was not "an expert in this field" but his conclusions were based on scientific probability.

Day 6

Oscar Pistorius threw up in court as details of the post-mortem examination of Reeva Steenkamp were read out.

A live video feed of the trial was cut while a pathologist gave "graphic" evidence of his examination.

Professor Gert Saayman said Ms Steenkamp had bullet wounds to her head, right hip and right arm.

He said the Ranger branded bullets used were designed to "expand and mushroom" and cause substantial damage.

Prof Saayman said the head wound would have been incapacitating but added Ms Steenkamp may not have died straight away.

 Earlier in the day a security guard finished giving his evidence.

Chief security guard Pieter Baba says Pistorius told him all was fine when he called after receiving reports from other residents that they had heard gunshots.

 But Mr Roux insisted to him that it was Pistorius who phoned the security guard, rather than the other way round.

Mr Baba denied this.

Day Five

Prosecution witness Samantha Taylor, ex-girlfriend of Oscar Pistorius, broke down in court as she told how the athlete cheated on her with Reeva Steenkamp.

Miss Taylor also told the court how Pistorius once fired a gun out of the sunroof of a car after being stopped by police.

The star's ex-lover described how Pistorius would sometimes "scream at her" and often carried a gun with him.

The court was told how Pistorius once woke Ms Taylor fearing there was an intruder in the house and got up to investigate with his gun.

Security guard Pieter Baba described the moment he saw a distressed Pistorius carrying Reeva down the stairs.

The guard said that Pistorius assured him everything "is fine" after shots were reported. 

More evidence from Ms Taylor suggested that Pistorius once feared he was being followed and waved his gun at the suspect car until it drove off near his home.

Day Four

Prosecution witness Dr Johan Stipp told the court how he went to Oscar Pistorius' residence after hearing shots fired on the night Reeva Steenkamp was killed.

He said he saw Ms Steenkamp lying on her back and Pistorius by her side, frantically trying to resuscitate her.

It was clear Ms Steenkamp was mortally wounded, he said, and Pistorius was crying and praying that she'd survive. During his evidence, Pistorius broke down in the dock, sobbing as he held his head in his hands.

Earlier, Pistorius' defence team said it would have been "impossible" for neighbours to hear screams on the night Ms Steenkamp died.

Lawyer Barry Roux said neighbour Charl Peter Johnson's claim that he heard gunshots followed by a woman screaming was incorrect.

"You cannot hear it inside your house," he said. "At any distance, she was in a locked bathroom."

Mr Johnson also claimed to have heard five or six shots on the night of the killing. But Mr Roux pointed out that in his initial notes he wrote that he "did not count the number of shots fired".

Day Three

Mr Johnson's evidence continued, and he was repeatedly challenged by Mr Roux who at one point said: "You are saying all the evidence that your wife gave us yesterday."

Mr Johnson replied that it was not unusual for two people to use the same words when describing an incident.

He mentioned some notes that he'd taken after the shooting, which are on his laptop and iPad. He was asked to end his evidence for the day and come back the next day, so the defence team had the opportunity to view his notes.

Pistorius' friend Kevin Lerena was then called, who described an incident in January last year in which Pistorius allegedly discharged a firearm by mistake while eating with friends in a restaurant.

He said the athlete then asked his friend Darren Fresco to take the blame.

The owner of the restaurant, Jason Loupis, and his wife Maria, later confirmed the incident after taking the stand.

Mrs Loupis said there was a child nearby when Pistorius' gun went off in the restaurant.

Day Two

The evidence of Ms Burger continued.

Defence lawyer Barry Roux said her evidence had been influenced by media coverage of the shooting, but she denied this.

Mr Roux said that evidence later in the trial would show that Ms Steenkamp would not have been able to scream after the final shot hit her in the head.

Ms Burger stood by her initial statement that she heard Ms Steenkamp after the final shot.

Another neighbour then took the stand for a short time, before Ms Burger's husband gave his evidence.

He told how he thought Pistorius and Ms Steenkamp were being held up in their house and said he looked at additional security measures for his own home the next day.

He backed up his wife's evidence, saying he heard screams after the final shot.

Day One

The first witness, university lecturer Michelle Burger, took the stand.

She says she woke on the night of the killing to the sound of gunshots and a woman screaming.

She described hearing "bloodcurdling screams" and four shots.

She is a key witness for the prosecution, as her evidence would appear to contradict Pistorius' claims that he thought he was shooting at an intruder.

The defence argued she is unreliable due to alleged discrepancies between her police statement and court testimony.

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Boy Rescued From 40cm-Wide Well In China

A boy has been rescued after falling down a 36ft-deep well too narrow for rescuers to climb down.

Firefighters took six hours to free the 10-year-old from the 40cm-wide hole in a village in Hebei Province, north China.

The 40cm-wide hole was too narrow for rescuers to climb down

They used three excavators to clear earth from around the well and pumped oxygen into the chamber to keep him alive.

Rescuers finally broke through a section of the well wall to reach the boy.

Rescuers pumped oxygen into the well to keep the boy alive

Doctors said the youngster suffered only slight bruises.

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Live Updates: NY Buildings Collapse After Blast

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3:59pm UK, Wednesday 12 March 2014

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Explosion And Building Collapse In New York

By Sky News US Team, in New York

An explosion has triggered a building collapse and fire in New York City, killing at least two people and injuring 17 others.

The blast near Park Avenue and 116th Street in East Harlem levelled two apartment buildings.

Crews battling to put out the fire. Pic: Karolina Knepaite

Witnesses reported hearing a large explosion around 9am.

One five-storey building appeared to be reduced to rubble, and images from the scene showed a second building also severely damaged.

Fire crews attempt to sift through the rubble

Aerial footage showed a large plume of smoke and debris scattered in the area.

Sky News New York correspondent Hannah Thomas-Peter is at the scene and says she saw one person being removed on a stretcher.

Debris rained down on the street and cars below. Pic: @miss_softy/Twitter

She described an "acrid smell" in the area and said people are wearing masks due to lingering smoke.

Witnesses say the blast was so powerful it knocked groceries off the shelves of nearby stores.

A view of debris scattered in the area. Pic: Karolina Knepaite

Eoin Hayes, 26, said the explosion shook his entire apartment building.

He said he ran to the window and saw flames consuming one building and smoke rising into the air.

Broke glass covers the pavement. Pic: Marty Bacardi/@cashrfcnyc

"I was in my bedroom and the explosion went off, it kind of shook the whole building," Mr Hayes said. "You could feel the vibrations going through the building."

The FDNY says it has 39 units and nearly 170 personnel at the scene. The cause of the explosion was not immediately known.

Local electric and gas companies were shutting down service in the area.

Metro-North Railroad has suspended all commuter train service in the area. The train line runs along the scene of the collapse, and television footage showed some debris on the tracks.

More follows...

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