Wreckage

Recovery workers found the "black box" flight data recorder Saturday in the wreckage of Pakistan's worst-ever plane crash, and it appeared to be in good condition, officials said. An analysis of the data on the recorder could provide clues as to why the Airblue flight crashed Wednesday into the hills overlooking the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, killing all 152 people onboard, including two Americans. The recorder's decoding may take weeks, however. The black box was found during a difficult recovery effort hampered by rain, mud and a lack of proper roads in the heavily forested Margalla Hills.

"I can calculate the movements of the stars, but not the madness of men." — Isaac Newton, after losing the equivalent of $3 million in the financial catastrophe of the South Sea Bubble in 1720. The word "bubble" just has an inescapably happy feel to it, conjuring up kids and parties and sudden iridescent poppings, screams of laughter, the giddy clapping of happy hands and an overall lack of consequence. That was fun; now where's the cake? Even more so when the word gets paired with "tulip" or "South Sea."

The wreckage of an Afghan passenger plane missing since Monday has been discovered in rugged mountain terrain with no sign of survivors, officials said Thursday. There were 44 people aboard the Antonov-24 twin turboprop, including an American and three Britons. The flight, operated by private Pamir Airways, crashed on a domestic run from the northern city of Kunduz to the capital, Kabul. NATO's International Security Assistance Force, which helped with the search, said it would aid Afghan security forces in recovery efforts.

An Air India flight from Dubai crashed Saturday morning in the city of Mangalore after apparently overshooting the runway, killing at least 160 people. Televised images showed rescuers carrying limp bodies up a wooded slope and wreckage still burning hours after the crash, with bodies and the nearby ground covered with white foam emergency workers used to fight the blaze. There were reportedly 166 passengers and crew on the Boeing 737-800 jet, which was believed to be 2 or 3 years old, a relatively new addition to the company's fleet.

An Afghan passenger plane carrying at least 43 people was believed to have crashed in a snowstorm in the rugged Hindu Kush mountains Monday, and Western military forces were aiding in efforts to locate the wreckage and rescue any survivors. Those aboard the missing plane -- an old Russian model -- included at least five foreigners, according to provincial officials in the northern city of Kunduz, where the flight originated. The plane, an Antonov-24 turboprop operated by private Pamir airways, left at about 8:30 a.m. for the capital, Kabul, but disappeared amid the jagged peaks of the nearly 13,000-foot-high Salang Pass.

Magic Johnson, Queen Latifah, Martin Short, John McEnroe, Megan Mullally, Whoopi Goldberg and Tony Danza all have a common talking point. When it came to hosting a television talk show, they walked the walk, but could not talk the talk. A crew of top comedians -- George Lopez, Wanda Sykes and Mo'Nique -- have just launched talk shows, venturing into a near-saturated field that already includes David Letterman, Conan O'Brien and the struggling Jay Leno, among many others. But as the threesome attempt to establish their own foothold, they have another goal -- avoiding the missteps of previous popular entertainers and sports figures who flopped in making the transition to hosting a gabfest.

Blame A Novel Michelle Huneven Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus & Giroux: 296 pp., $25 We first see the heroine -- and she truly becomes one over the course of "Blame" -- through the eyes of 12-year-old Joey, who is bedazzled by her glamorous uncle Brice and his tall, blond girlfriend Patsy MacLemoore, who's drunk (as usual) when she gives the girl a beer and botches an attempt to pierce her ears. A year later, in May 1981, Patsy awakens from a blackout in a California jail.

A sightseeing helicopter and a small plane collided and crashed into the murky Hudson River off lower Manhattan today, killing all nine people on the aircraft and underscoring the potential perils of uncontrolled airspace over the busy corridor. Hours after the crash, which occurred about noon as sunbathers, bicyclists, joggers and tourists crowded the parks lining both sides of the river, divers and search boats were scouring the water for wreckage and victims. Though the water was only 30 feet deep where the aircraft plummeted, visibility was about 2 feet and the current was powerful, hampering recovery efforts, said Mayor Michael Bloomberg.