GOSSIP GAZER ONLINE

Traveling to Crimea? Don't try landing in Simferopol unless your plane originated in Moscow. Flights from Kiev, Istanbul and several other cities have been suspended for the rest of the week. If you come by train, expect to be searched by pro-Russian militia. If you want to rally in favor of Ukraine's West-leaning interim government, expect to be surrounded by pushy pro-Russians. Breakneck preparations are under way for a Sunday referendum -- to be held largely in secret -- and the grip of security measures is tightening around Simferopol, the regional capital. When Crimeans go to vote, they will have to choose between two alternatives. The ballot questions will be: Do you support reuniting Crimea with Russia, as a subject of the Russian Federation? Or, do you support the restoration of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Crimea and Crimea's status as a part of Ukraine? According to the 1992 Constitution, Crimea is really an indepen...

Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah. The last radio transmission from the cockpit of missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 was "Alright, good night", Kuala Lumpur's ambassador to Beijing reportedly said today during a meeting with Chinese relatives of passengers. Iskandar Sarudin was speaking to passengers' relatives and friends at a Beijing hotel. A total of 153 of the 239 people on board the aircraft are Chinese. The flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing disappeared from radar screens early on Saturday without making a distress call and no confirmed wreckage has been found, despite a vast search. The "alright, good night" comment from one of the pilots came as the flight switched from Malaysian to Vietnamese airspace, Singapore's Straits Times newspaper quoted the ambassador as saying. As confusion deepens over the search area and whether Malaysian military radar tracked the aircraft, he said "now is not the time" t...

As the search for a missing Malaysia Airlines jet entered a fifth day Wednesday, investigators remained uncertain about its whereabouts. Here's a summary of what we know and what we don't know about Flight 370, which was carrying 239 people when it disappeared from radar screens over Southeast Asia. THE FLIGHT PATH What we know: The Boeing 777-200ER took off from Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, at 12:41 a.m. Saturday (12:41 p.m. Friday ET). It was scheduled to arrive in Beijing at 6:30 a.m. the same day, after a roughly 2,700-mile (4,350-kilometer) journey. But around 1:30 a.m., air traffic controllers in Subang, outside Kuala Lumpur, lost contact with the plane over the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam. What we don't know: What happened next. The pilots did not indicate any problem to the tower, and no distress signal was issued. Malaysian military officials cite radar data as suggesting the plane might have turned back toward Kuala Lu...