QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Over the past two days, hope has become apparent, because we are almost back to becoming one.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, on a deal between Abbas’ Fatah faction and the militant group Hamas to form a united government Article, this page

Vienna building collapse kills at least 1

VIENNA - A residential building in Austria’s capital partially collapsed after an apparent explosion Saturday, killing one person and leaving another missing, officials said. Five others were injured.

Witnesses heard a dull thud before the top two floors of the building collapsed, raining debris onto the street in Vienna’s 15th district shortly after 10 a.m. Saturday local time.

“There was a cloud of dust, and lots of people screaming and running,” said Ted Knops, a 32-year-old resident. “It was like a science-fiction movie when something comes bursting through the wall.”

Police spokesman Adina Mircioane said a 19-year-old man who was rescued from the rubble died on his way to a hospital.

“We are looking for a woman in her 50s who is still missing,” Mircioane said, adding that the five other people had been treated for minor injuries.

The cause of the explosion was still being investigated, she said.

Search in area of last ‘ping’ 95% done

CANBERRA, Australia - Australian Authorities said a robotic submarine scanning the Indian Ocean floor for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is expected to complete its search of the most likely crash site, and with no clue yet found of the missing Boeing 777, the search area will be extended.

The Joint Agency Coordination Center said in a statement that the submersible Bluefin 21 had searched 95 percent of an area around where the authorities detected the last ping thought to have come from the jet, which disappeared March 8 with 239 people on board. “No contacts of interest have been found to date,” the statement said.

The search coordination center said in a statement that the Bluefin 21 is expected to complete the focused underwater search area and continue examining adjacent areas during a mission starting today.

Launched from the Australian naval vessel Ocean Shield, the Bluefin 21 scoured the seabed in a circle with a radius of 6.2 miles around that last ping, which was thought to have come from one of the plane’s black box data recorders.

The Bluefin 21 is deployed about 1,000 miles off the coast of the state of Western Australia, around an area that authorities had calculated as most likely to yield some sign of the plane. On Friday, it was forced to return to the ocean’s surface because of technical problems, which were resolved overnight.

Suspected Morsi allies get long terms

CAIRO - An Egyptian court on Saturday convicted and sentenced 11 purported supporters of the country’s ousted Islamist president to up to 88 years in prison on charges that include violating a protest law and assaulting police.

The case comes amid a sweeping crackdown by Egypt’s military-backed government against the Muslim Brotherhood. Authorities have killed hundreds of Islamists and arrested about 16,000 others since the army removed President Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood leader, from office last July.

Five of the 11 people sentenced Saturday by the court in the southern city of Minya were tried in absentia. The charges against the defendants were linked to rallies in the town of Samallout to protest the violent dispersal by security forces of two pro-Morsi sit-ins that killed hundreds and wounded thousands.

The presiding judge Saturday was the same one who issued death sentences against nearly 530 suspected Islamists at a mass trial in March. The ruling stunned rights groups and drew condemnation from abroad.

Turkish law to expand spy unit signed

ISTANBUL - Turkish President Abdullah Gul has signed into law a bill that expands the powers of the National Intelligence Organization, local media reported Saturday.

The bill was passed by parliament earlier this month, despite concerns about new powers being granted to the spy agency, including eavesdropping rights, access to consumer data and the ability to conduct more operations abroad.

The law also provides for prison terms of up to 10 years for journalists who publish leaked classified documents.

Sources would face similar sentences.

The opposition Republican People’s Party has pledged to fight the new law in the courts.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party have pushed through several disputed bills after a corruption scandal hit the government in December.

Authorities were given more power to block Internet websites and track users’ browsing history.

A second law that was enacted overhauled a key authority that oversees the judiciary, which critics have warned will politicize it. The Constitutional Court has struck down parts of the law.

Front Section, Pages 10 on 04/27/2014