Fatal Failure: A new review of federal crash data reveals that 303 people died as a result of failed airbags in General Motors cars during the same 10-year period when GM was also failing to acknowledge problems with finicky ignition switches. The study commissioned by the Center for Auto Safety blows open GM’s potentially criminal failure to acknowledge problems with ignition switches now linked to 12 deaths.

  The airbag study raises the question of whether the two issues are linked and the safety bags failed in crashes because the ignition turned off. GM first knew of the ignition problem in 2004 and recalled 1.6 million cars only last month. A GM spokesman said the airbag study is a flawed use of information from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System. “Without rigorous analysis, it is pure speculation to attempt to draw any meaningful conclusions,” the spokesman said.

Flight 370: Seven days after a Malaysian Airlines jet went missing the search is shifting west to the India ocean, the opposite direction from its flight path. Investigators are working on the possibility that the jet was still communicating with satellites as it travelled west for several hours after its last radio contact. The plane’s transponder, which puts its location on radar, stopped sending a signal 40 minutes into the flight. When The Wall Street Journal first reported the theory of continued flight Malaysia Airlines denied it. The investigation has been rife with conflicting and incorrect reports.

Ukraine: In a deepening military threat, Russia is reported to be massing armored and airborne troops in the Belgorod, Kursk and Rostov regions adjacent to Eastern Ukraine. Russia admits that it is “training” artillery, air assault, and ground forces in those areas. Keep in mind they said they were holding military “exercises” when they occupied Crimea. Speaking to the German parliament, Chancellor Angela Merkel said a Russian invasion of Ukraine would be a catastrophe that she considers a threat to her own country and potentially damaging to Russia itself. “The territorial integrity of Ukraine cannot be called into question,” Merkel said.

World: Hundreds of militants believed to be from the group Boko Haram have assaulted the Nigerian city of Maiduguri. They are reported to have attacked the military barracks, the university, and an area where civil servants live.

Nation: McDonald’s workers in three states filed a lawsuit accusing the burger chain, basically, of stealing wages. The lawsuits are part of a national movement by fast food workers to receive fairer pay. The suits filed in New York, Michigan, and California accuse the burger chain of sometimes forcing employees to work off the clock and not paying the cost of cleaning uniforms. In California the worker complaints say McDonald’s and its franchise owners “failed to pay them for all time worked, failed to pay proper overtime” and “altered pay records.”

Banned in Saudi: Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of the Interior published a list of 51 names citizens may not give their babies because they are religiously inappropriate or have Western Origin. Among them are Linda and Laureen, but also Abdul Mo’een.

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