Shaft

Federal safety regulators have opened an investigation into reports of steering problems in the hot-selling 2011 Hyundai Sonata sedan. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is looking into whether the vehicles can sustain a separation in the steering shaft assembly that results in a loss of steering capability. Regulators are also examining whether a bolt in the steering system can become loose. The vehicles involved in the probe were manufactured during the same month at the Hyundai factory in Alabama and had fewer than 600 miles at the time of the alleged incidents, regulators said.

Federal safety officials have opened an investigation into a complaint about the steering system in Kia's small car Soul by a driver who claimed that he lost control of his car after the steering wheel came off. Although normally a single complaint is unlikely to trigger a safety probe, the incident is cause for concern because "it occurred without warning on a new vehicle at low mileage and resulted in a complete loss of steering as well as...

Vonetta McGee, an actress whose big-screen heyday during the blaxploitation era of the 1970s included leading roles in "Blacula" and "Shaft in Africa," has died. She was 65. McGee died Friday at a hospital in Berkeley after experiencing cardiac arrest and being on life support for two days, said family spokeswoman Kelley Nayo. Although McGee had been diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma at age 17, Nayo said, her death was not related to the disease. McGee was described as "one of the busiest and most beautiful black actresses" by Times movie reviewer Kevin Thomas in 1972, the year she appeared opposite Fred Williamson in the black action movie "Hammer," and had starring roles in the crime-drama "Melinda" and the horror film "Blacula."

Miner Oleg Vishnyakov was on duty repairing a shaft wall 1,600 feet below the ground when he and three comrades heard the first blast Saturday night. The sound, like that of a blown-out tire, was quickly followed by the roar of a huge explosion and a hot wave of coal dust. "We never were in a serious mine accident before but knew the drill quite well," Vishnyakov recalled in a low voice as he lay in a hospital bed in the Siberian town of Mezhdurechensk. "The urge to run to your safety was strong, but you shouldn't run because thus you will spend your oxygen much faster.

About 9 a.m. Friday, Virginia Task Force One, out of Fairfax County, pulled Haitian bellhop Mondesir Luckson from a crumbled elevator shaft in the upscale Montana Hotel in Port-au-Prince. Luckson drank some water, ate some food and talked about how he could hear other people trapped in the rubble. At first there were eight voices, he said, then there were only six. An hour later, the search team hauled out American Daniel Woolley, an Internet program manager with the Christian charity group Compassion International, from another elevator shaft.

At least 61 prospectors have been found dead in an abandoned gold mine, police said. The bodies were found by other illegal miners, who brought 36 to the surface over the weekend, according to Harmony Gold Mining Co., which had ceased working its Eland shaft. An additional 25 bodies left at drop-off points underground were brought up, said Tom Smith, chief of operations for Harmony's southern region. Police called on relatives to help identify the victims, and said they were investigating what might have caused the deaths.

A Northern California man died after he fell into a mine shaft in northern Nevada, authorities said. Sheriff's deputies in Lyon County, Nev., said Terry Berardy of Mokelumne Hill, about 55 miles southeast of Sacramento, was unconscious and unresponsive after he was extricated Saturday from the shaft around the Ludwig Mine near Smith Valley. Deputies said Berardy fell at least 80 feet as he and friends and family were exploring the area. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Mexican authorities have arrested eight men after discovering a sophisticated tunnel, believed to be designed to ferry drugs, that nearly reached into U.S. territory. Baja California state preventive police said Tuesday that they were acting on a tip when they raided a Mexicali home Monday afternoon and found some of the suspects hard at work in the passage, which was longer than a football field. The tunnel's destination appeared to be a residential neighborhood across the border in Calexico.

A 13-year-old girl who fell into a brush-covered mine shaft while riding an all-terrain vehicle was found dead at the bottom after an overnight search, and her 10-year-old sister was rescued with serious injuries, authorities said. The girls were out for a ride in Chloride when their father, who was ahead of them on a dirt bike, noticed they were missing. The mine, believed to be inactive, was next to a dirt road and had no signs or barriers.