Ukraine Crash: The US says a satellite tracked a surface to air missile taking down the Malaysian Airlines jetliner in Ukraine yesterday with 298 people on board. Officials said the tracking did not reveal the missile’s point of origin, but it is believed to have come from a Russian made battery.

Separatist rebels, Russia, and Ukraine all deny responsibility. There are conflicting reports as to whether rebels recovered the jet’s data recorders. But some evidence points to rebel responsibility. The audio of an intercepted telephone call reveals a separatist rebel leader telling a Russian officer, “We have just shot down a plane.” In a second call, a man who has seen the wreckage says, “It was definitely a civilian aircraft.”

The recording was edited and the full content was not made public.

The jetliner came down from 33,000 feet and pieces were scattered for miles in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border. Reporters said dozens of bodies were strewn in fields. Half the passengers were Dutch and a major Aids researcher was among them.

Russia and President Vladimir Putin will come under extreme heat for this incident, regardless of whether its own personnel were involved with firing the missile. Russia has supported the separatists. And if the missile system was provided by Russia, Vladimir Putin could be blamed for the entire disaster.

Invasion: Israel began a ground invasion of Gaza last night. A statement said, “A large IDF force has just launched a ground operation in the Gaza Strip,” and that forces would focus on tunnels used to infiltrate Israeli territory.

Yesterday the Israel thwarted an attack by 13 militants who emerged from one of those tunnels. And Israel says that Hamas militants fired 100 rockets in the hours after a five-hour “humanitarian” ceasefire to allow Gazans to lay in food and supplies. The invasion comes after 10 days of sometimes-intense cross-border bombardment and the deaths of more than 220 Palestinians. The Israeli Defense Forces did not put a time limit on how long the invasion will last.

The invasion was backed by heavy tank and artillery fire. At least 24 Palestinians and one Israeli have been killed so far.

Feet Up: A new report claims to explain what happened to many people who have disappeared from the American work force. They retired. While economists have debated causes for the shrinking workforce, the White House Council of Economic Advisers says that 1.6 percent of the more than three point drop is because Baby Boomers have been retiring, many of them early. The report still says there are a lot of people discouraged by the recession who stopped looking for work, and there’s a drop in the percentage of men who work as women increasingly take the load.

The Obit Page: Durable and funny actress Elaine Stritch, who exercised her sharp tongue on Broadway, in the movies, and on television for nearly 70 years, has died at her Michigan home at age 89. She was in the Rodgers and Hart-John O’Hara musical “Pal Joey” and William Inge’s “Bus Stop.” The Stephen Sondheim song “The Ladies Who Lunch” from the show “Company” became her signature. Stritch was also in two Woody Allen movies and more recently had a recurring role in the NBC sitcom “30 Rock.” NY Times critic Brooks Atkinson once wrote, “Miss Stritch can destroy life throughout the country with the twist she gives to the dialogue.”

Bunga Bunga: Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, 77, has won a reversal of his conviction for having sex with an underage prostitute. The billionaire politician was accused of getting it on with a 17-year-old known as in the Italian press as “Ruby the Heartstealer.” His lawyer said the decision “goes beyond our rosiest expectations.” And all this time Ruby thought she was Berlusconi’s rosiest expectation.

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