Associated Press

(MOJAVE, Calif.) — Virgin Galactic’s experimental spaceship broke apart in flight over California’s Mojave Desert after a device to slow the craft’s descent prematurely deployed, federal investigators said Sunday.

National Transportation Safety Board Acting Chairman Christopher Hart said that while no cause for Friday’s crash of SpaceShipTwo has been determined, investigators found the “feathering” system — which lifts and rotates the tail to create drag — was activated before the craft reached the appropriate speed.

The system requires a two-step process to deploy. The co-pilot unlocked the system but Hart said the second step occurred “without being commanded.”

Hart said the investigation is months from being completed and pilot error and mechanical failure are among many things being looked at.

The co-pilot Michael Alsbury, 39, was killed. Peter Siebold, 43, who piloted the mission, parachuted to the ground and is receiving treatments at a hospital for serious injuries.

Virgin Galactic — owned by billion Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and Aabar Investments PJS of Abu Dhabi — plans to fly passengers to altitudes more than 62 miles above Earth. The company sells seats on each prospective journey for $250,000.

Branson had hoped to begin flights next year but said Saturday that the project won’t resume until the cause of the accident is determined and the problems fixed.

The feathering is a feature unique to SpaceShipTwo to help it slow as it re-enters the atmosphere. After being unlocked, a lever rotates booms at the rear of the plane up to 90 degrees so they act as a rudder. After decelerating, the booms return to their normal position and the craft glides to Earth.

Hart said the feathers activated at Mach 1.0, the speed of sound, but shouldn’t have deployed until it had at least reached a speed of Mach 1.4, or more than 1,000 mph.

SpaceShipTwo tore apart Friday after the craft detached from the underside of its jet-powered mother ship and fired its rocket engine for a test flight. Initial speculation was that an explosion occurred but Hart said the fuel and oxidizer tanks and rocket engine were found and showed no sign of being burned through or breached.

Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides issued a statement Sunday to tamp down conjecture about the cause of the crash.

“Now is not the time for speculation,” he said. “Now is the time to focus on all those affected by this tragic accident and to work with the experts at the NTSB, to get to the bottom of what happened on that tragic day, and to learn from it so that we can move forward safely with this important mission.”

SpaceShipTwo has been under development for years and, like all space projects, has suffered setbacks. In 2007, an explosion killed three people on the ground and critically injured three others during a ground test in the development of a rocket engine.

Prior to Hart’s announcement, Geoff Daly, an engineer who worked on the space shuttle, renewed criticism of Virgin Galactic’s use of nitrous oxide to power the ship’s engine.

Daly was co-author of a critical report on the 2007 incident at Scaled Composites, the Northrop Grumman-owned designer of SpaceShipTwo. The report was critical of Virgin’s claims that nitrous oxide was safe to use in engines for passenger flight, and it complained that the public was never given a full accounting of what happened.

In a June 2013 letter, Daly asked the FAA to put a hold on an experimental flight permit for SpaceShipTwo to ensure the safety of personnel on the ground and in the spacecraft.

The FAA said it would look into his complaint, according to memos posted online, but Daly said no flights of SpaceShipTwo were halted.

A report by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health said the 2007 blast occurred three seconds after the start of a cold-flow test of nitrous oxide. The engine was not firing during the test at the Mojave Air and Space Port.

The nitrous oxide is used with fuel to provide propulsion. Engineers had recently changed the fuel system, switching from a rubber-based fuel to one that used plastics. The new fuel had been tested on the ground but not in flight until Friday.

The loss of SpaceShipTwo was the second fiery setback for commercial space travel in less than a week. On Tuesday, an unmanned commercial supply rocket bound for the International Space Station exploded moments after liftoff in Virginia.

LAHORE, Pakistan — A suicide bomber detonated explosives near a Pakistani paramilitary checkpoint near the country’s eastern border with India on Sunday, killing at least 54 people in the deadliest attack to hit the country in several months, police and government officers said.

The explosion hit near the checkpoint at the Wagah border crossing as hundreds of people were returning from a military parade on the outskirts of Lahore, provincial police chief Mushtaq Sukhera said.

Both the Pakistani and the Indian military conduct daily parades and flag-flying ceremonies on their respective sides of the border. The events draw crowds of hundreds, a number that would rise into the thousands on a weekend like Sunday.

The death toll was likely to rise because over 100 people were wounded, with several in critical condition, Sukhera said.

Police are investigating the bombing, and had intelligence reports in advance that there could be such a blast in the city, he added.

Another Lahore officer, Haider Ashraf, said some paramilitary troops were among the dead and wounded. The paramilitary forces’ provincial Director General Tahir Javed said three soldiers died.

Dr. Khurram Shahzad at private Ghurki Trust hospital said that there were 10 women and seven children among the dead, and eight members of a single family. He said several of them had multiple critical wounds.

Live TV footage on private Pakistani news channels showed people drenched in blood and crying in pain as they were evacuated to hospitals.

At the hospitals, relatives of the dead cried and beat their chests and heads. “My brothers, my two brothers,” private Geo News TV showed a man wailing. “They both are dead.”

All the officers said they did not know what the target could have been. Javed, the paramilitary official, said the bomber exploded hardly 500 meters away from the checkpoint manned by the paramilitary troops.

Security has been increased in all major Pakistani cities to thwart possible attacks on minority Shiite Muslims observing Ashura, a 10-day ritual to commemorate the death of Imam Hussain, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad.

But, Haider, the police officer, said there was no such Shiite processions happening in the area where the bombing took place.

Jamatul Ahrar, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack. Pakistani Taliban are made up of several local militant groups.

Ahrar was set up some months ago by half a dozen militant commanders who previously worked for the outfit but had evolved differences with its chief.

Its spokesman, Ahsanullah Ahsan, said the suicide attack was part of the militants’ war against the government and their attempts to enforce their version of Islamic law in the country. “We will continue such attacks,” he told an Associated Press reporter by phone from an undisclosed location.

The militants have been waging a war against the state for over a decade, aiming to topple the government, killing thousands of Pakistanis.

At present, the Pakistani army is fighting the militants in their last safe haven, in the tribal area of North Waziristan where they say they have killed over 1,200 insurgents.

The militants have been on the run, some of them relocating them to other tribal areas and others managing to escape to neighboring Afghanistan.

The suicide bombing was the deadliest attack in Pakistan since the military launched the offensive in mid-June.

BERLIN — A wrought-iron gate bearing the Nazis’ cynical slogan “Arbeit macht frei,” or “Work sets you free,” has been stolen from the former Dachau concentration camp, police said Sunday.

Security officials noticed early Sunday morning that the gate measuring 190 by 95 centimeters (75 by 37 inches) – set into a larger iron gate – was missing, police said in a statement. Whoever stole it during the night would have had to climb over another gate to reach it, they added.

Police said they found nothing in the immediate vicinity of the camp and appealed for anyone who noticed any suspicious people or vehicles to come forward.

Dachau, near Munich, was the first concentration camp set up by the Nazis in 1933. More than 200,000 people from across Europe were held there and over 40,000 prisoners died before it was liberated by U.S. forces on April 29, 1945. The camp is now a memorial.

Memorial director Gabriele Hammermann condemned the theft of the gate, which she described as “the central symbol for the prisoners’ ordeal,” news agency dpa reported.

She said a private security service supervises the site but officials had decided against surveillance of the former camp with video cameras because they didn’t want to turn it into a “maximum-security unit.” That decision may now have to be reviewed, she added.

A blog posted by Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial wrote that “while we do not know who is behind the theft of the sign, the theft of such a symbolic object is an offensive attack on the memory of the Holocaust.”

In December 2009, the infamous “Arbeit macht frei” sign that spanned the main gate of the Auschwitz death camp, built by the Nazis in occupied Poland, was stolen. Police found it three days later cut into pieces in a forest on the other side of Poland.

A Swedish man who had a neo-Nazi past was found guilty of instigating that theft and jailed in his homeland. Five Poles also were convicted of involvement and imprisoned.

The purpose was to protect news helicopters, according to an exclusive report from AP

(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. government agreed to a police request to restrict more than 37 square miles of airspace surrounding Ferguson, Missouri, for 12 days in August for safety, but audio recordings show that local authorities privately acknowledged the purpose was to keep away news helicopters during violent street protests.

On Aug. 12, the morning after the Federal Aviation Administration imposed the first flight restriction, FAA air traffic managers struggled to redefine the flight ban to let commercial flights operate at nearby Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and police helicopters fly through the area — but ban others.

“They finally admitted it really was to keep the media out,” said one FAA manager about the St. Louis County Police in a series of recorded telephone conversations obtained by The Associated Press. “But they were a little concerned of, obviously, anything else that could be going on.

At another point, a manager at the FAA’s Kansas City center said police “did not care if you ran commercial traffic through this TFR (temporary flight restriction) all day long. They didn’t want media in there.”

FAA procedures for defining a no-fly area did not have an option that would accommodate that.

“There is really … no option for a TFR that says, you know, ‘OK, everybody but the media is OK,'” he said. The managers then worked out wording they felt would keep news helicopters out of the controlled zone but not impede other air traffic.

The conversations contradict claims by the St. Louis County Police Department, which responded to demonstrations following the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, that the restriction was solely for safety and had nothing to do with preventing media from witnessing the violence or the police response.

Police said at the time, and again as recently as late Friday to the AP, that they requested the flight restriction in response to shots fired at a police helicopter.

But police officials confirmed there was no damage to their helicopter and were unable to provide an incident report on the shooting. On the tapes, an FAA manager described the helicopter shooting as unconfirmed “rumors.”

The AP obtained the recordings under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. They raise serious questions about whether police were trying to suppress aerial images of the demonstrations and the police response by violating the constitutional rights of journalists with tacit assistance by federal officials.

Such images would have offered an unvarnished view of one of the most serious episodes of civil violence in recent memory.

“Any evidence that a no-fly zone was put in place as a pretext to exclude the media from covering events in Ferguson is extraordinarily troubling and a blatant violation of the press’s First Amendment rights,” said Lee Rowland, an American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney specializing in First Amendment issues.

An FAA manager urged modifying the flight restriction so that planes landing at Lambert still could enter the airspace around Ferguson.

The less-restrictive change practically served the authorities’ intended goal, an FAA official said: “A lot of the time the (lesser restriction) just keeps the press out, anyways. They don’t understand the difference.”

The Kansas City FAA manager then asked a St. Louis County police official if the restrictions could be lessened so nearby commercial flights wouldn’t be affected. The new order allows “aircraft on final (approach) there at St. Louis. It will still keep news people out. … The only way people will get in there is if they give them permission in there anyway so they, with the (lesser restriction), it still keeps all of them out.”

“Yeah,” replied the police official. “I have no problem with that whatsoever.”

KMOV-TV News Director Brian Thouvenot told the AP that his station was prepared at first to legally challenge the flight restrictions, but was later advised that its pilot could fly over the area as long as the helicopter stayed above 3,000 feet. That kept the helicopter and its mounted camera outside the restricted zone, although filming from such a distance, he said, was “less than ideal.”

None of the St. Louis stations was advised that media helicopters could enter the airspace even under the lesser restrictions, which under federal rules should not have applied to aircraft “carrying properly accredited news representatives.” The FAA’s no-fly notice indicated the area was closed to all aircraft except police and planes coming to and from the airport.

“Only relief aircraft operations under direction of St. Louis County Police Department are authorized in the airspace,” it said. “Aircraft landing and departing St. Louis Lambert Airport are exempt.”

Ferguson police were widely criticized for their response following the death of Brown, who was shot by a city police officer, Darren Wilson, on Aug. 9. Later, under county police command, several reporters were arrested, a TV news crew was tear gassed and some demonstrators were told they weren’t allowed to film officers. In early October, a federal judge said the police violated demonstrators’ and news crews’ constitutional rights.

“Here in the United States of America, police should not be bullying and arresting reporters who are just doing their jobs,” President Barack Obama said Aug. 14, two days after police confided to federal officials the flight ban was secretly intended to keep media helicopters out of the area. “The local authorities, including police, have a responsibility to be transparent and open.”

The restricted flight zone initially encompassed airspace in a 3.4-mile radius around Ferguson and up to 5,000 feet in altitude, but police agreed to reduce it to 3,000 feet after the FAA’s command center in Warrenton, Virginia, complained to managers in Kansas City that it was impeding traffic into St. Louis. A police official assured the FAA he had no objections to commercial air traffic entering the zone, according to one recording.

The flight restrictions remained in place until Aug. 22, FAA records show. A police captain wanted it extended when officials were set to identify Wilson by name as the officer who shot Brown and because Brown’s funeral would “bring out the emotions,” the recordings show.

“We just don’t know what to expect,” he told the FAA. “We’re monitoring that. So, last night we shot a lot of tear gas, we had a lot of shots fired into the air again. It did quiet down after midnight, but with that … we don’t know when that’s going to erupt.”

The recordings do not capture early conversations about the initial flight restriction imposed a day earlier, but they nonetheless show the FAA still approved and modified the flight restriction after the FAA was aware that its main intent was to keep the media away.

One FAA official at the agency’s command center asked the Kansas City manager in charge whether the restrictions were really about safety. “So are (the police) protecting aircraft from small-arms fire or something?” he asked. “Or do they think they’re just going to keep the press out of there, which they can’t do.”

Wilson Kipsang and Mary Keitany win the men's and women's races

Wilson Kipsang of Kenya has won the men’s title at the New York City Marathon.

The former world-record holder has now won in Berlin, London and New York in just over 13 months. Ethiopia’s Lelisa Desisa was second, and 2010 champ Gebre Gebremariam third.

Kipsang won in an unofficial time of 2 hours, 10 minutes, 59 seconds.

Boston Marathon champ Meb Keflezighi of the United States was fourth.

Two-time defending champion Geoffrey Mutai was sixth.

Mary Keitany of Kenya won the women’s title, overtaking countrywoman Jemima Sumgong with about a half-mile to go. It was her first marathon since 2012 after the birth of her second child.

Keitany won in an unofficial time of 2 hours, 25 minutes, 7 seconds — 3 seconds ahead of Sumgong, which would match the closest finish in the history of the women’s race.

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — Burkina Faso’s army appointed a military colonel as transitional leader on Saturday, it said, after the West African country’s president resigned from 27 years in office amid violent protests against his continued power.

Lt. Col. Isaac Yacouba Zida was unanimously appointed by the army to lead Burkina Faso, the army said in a declaration. “The period of transition” its “form and duration will be determined later” after talks with others in the country, said the declaration drafted and signed after senior officers met with the joint chief of staff Saturday.

Blaise Compaore resigned Friday after protesters stormed parliament and set the building ablaze following two days of violent demonstrations against his bid to amend the constitution to stand next year for another term. His move left the impoverished West African country in a state of uncertainty, and both Joint Chief of Staff Gen. Honore Traore and Zida had made remarks that they were in power.

Compaore, his family and those close to him had been taken in by Ivory Coast, according to a statement from the office of President Alassane Ouattara. It did not elaborate. It said Ouattara was following events “with particular attention.”

Earlier Saturday, Zida said that the president’s resignation amid violent street protests was an “insurrection” and not a coup, and that Compaore and a top aide were both safe.

“Starting today I will assume all the responsibilities of this transition and of head of state,” he said in an announcement carried on radio early Saturday.

Zida was the second in command of the president’s security regiment. Having been in Burkina Faso’s ranks for more than two decades, Zida is close to the president and appreciated by lower ranking soldier.

Zida called on the international community including the African Union to “support our people during this difficult ordeal.” He had announced that the country’s borders had been closed, a transitional committee had been set up and the constitution had been suspended.

Gen. Traore, the joint chief of staff, had on Friday told reporters that he would assume the presidency until elections were called, so Lt. Col. Zida’s declaration Saturday caused initial confusion.

Burkina Faso hosts French special forces and serves as an important ally of both France and the United States in the fight against Islamic militants in West Africa.

The United States called on Burkina Faso’s military to follow “the constitutionally mandated process for the transfer of power and holding of democratic elections.”

“We condemn any attempts by the military or other parties to take advantage of the situation for unconstitutional gain and call on all parties to respect the people’s support for the democratic process,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.