Fight 370: No new sounds have been heard since Tuesday in the search for the missing Malaysian airlines plane.  Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said, “Given that the signal from the black box is rapidly fading, what we are now doing is trying to get as many detections as we can so that we can narrow the search area down to as small an area as possible.” The ocean is 15,000 feet deep in the area of the search and the terrain is not mapped.

Ukraine: Masked gunmen have taken over a police station and security services building in Sloviansk in Eastern Ukraine. They fired guns and used stun grenades during their assault. Authorities say they believe the Russian speaking gunmen wanted to capture the arsenal of assault rifles and pistols inside. Ukrainian authorities are still in a standoff with gunmen who took a government building in Donetsk and have since taken a police station in that city.

Smackdown: The US has blocked Iran’s pick for envoy to the United Nations from entering the country because he was part of the 1979 takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran. Fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days. Diplomatic efforts failed to persuade Iran not to send the envoy Hamid Aboutalebi to the UN. White House spokesman Jay Carney said. “Our position is that we will not be issuing him a visa.” It’s a blow to US/Iran relations that were beginning to warm up.

Oscar Performance: Prosecutor Gerrie Nel finished the week pounding on Oscar Pistorius’s explanation for shooting his girlfriend, again reducing the defendant to tears. “She was standing right in front of the toilet door when you shot her,” Nel said, “that’s the only reasonable explanation for her standing upright. That’s the only reasonable explanation why you shot her in the head.

Pistorius said that Reeva Steenkamp never shouted or screamed “I wish she let me know she was there. She did not do that.”

Nel replied, “Of your whole version, this is the most improbable,” Nel said dismissively. “There is no way that you’ll convince a court that she stood there saying nothing.”

Small Screen: Both Al Jazeera America and the CBC, Canada’s public broadcaster, announced layoffs yesterday. AJam, which has been in operation only since August, says it’s streamlining and laying off mostly freelancers. Some of them were met by security when they reported to work. The startup has been more expensive than expected and executives are trying to bring the bills back to earth.

Things are much worse at CBC where they are cutting $130 million and 657 jobs in the next two years. The Canadian government has been reducing its funding of the CBC while demanding more programming in French.

Orange is the New Black: The Texas woman accused of stabbing her boyfriend to death with a stiletto-heeled shoe was sentenced to life in prison yesterday. Ana Trujillo, 45, stabbed her boyfriend 25 times in the face and neck and claimed she did it in self defense.

The Obit Page: Jesse Winchester, the singer-songwriter who moved to Canada to dodge the Vietnam war, died of cancer at home in Charlottesville, Va. He was 69. He wrote songs for Jimmy Buffett, Elvis Costello, and Joan Baez. In the early 1970s he was friends and performed with Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm of The Band. Among Winchester’s own early 70s hits were “Yankee Lady” and “The Brand New Tennessee Waltz.”

Justice Files: A Pakistani court has thrown out attempted murder charges against a nine-month old baby accused of throwing rocks at police officers. Mohammad Musa Khan had been fingerprinted and appeared in court on his grandfather’s lap holding a milk bottle. Musa was included in charges that accused his family of “planning a murder, threatening police and interfering in state affairs.” The police inspector who brought the charges has been sent to his room with no dinner.

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