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Spain's Ministry for Development has leaked a preliminary report into the crash of Spanair Flight 5022. The McDonnel-Douglas MD-82 that was lost at Madrid's Barajas Airport in Spanair's first and only fatal accident resulted in the deaths of 154. Controversy has come as a result of both the documents' contents and the fact that it was leaked at all. According to the report, the airliner was defective for as yet undetermined reasons. The wing flaps failed to move into the required configuration for takeoff, and the alarm system that would norma

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that started preliminary experiments on September 10, 2008 in CERN, Geneva, and the planned International Linear Collider (ILC) will carry out a series of experiments in the future to validate the standard model of particle physics. The model predicts that Higgs boson particles gives mass to all fundamental particles and explains the existence of dark matter, or invisible matter in between galaxies. The LHC is a 27 kilometer long circular high energy particle accelerator which took more than 20 years an

The last pass is flown, the final lap completed, the winner has long since left the circle with "Gold Unlimited" race trophy. The only thing left of the 45th National Championship Air Races & Air Show, in Reno, NV is the awards dinner, which will take place away from the airfields and hangars, and the photos and memories of the event. The week's festivities and hard fought races came to its climax on Sunday with the final races for the Biplane, Formula One, Jet, Sport, T-6, and Unlimited classes. This year saw some of the fastest races in it

Lehman Brothers, a major American investment banker, has filed paperwork for bankruptcy. It would be the largest collapse of an investment firm in 18 years. Lehman attempted to find a buyer over the weekend but it met with no success. The last remaining bidder, Barclays PLC bank pulled out Sunday afternoon. Barclays, a United Kingdom-based bank, had become the sole bidder after a consortium led by Bank of America pulled out early Sunday morning citing that it would need government support before considering a bid. The support would consist of

The International Monetary Fund and the European Union approved aid packages to help Georgia recover from its conflict with Russia, which occurred in early August. The IMF approved a US$750 million loan which will allow Georgia to rebuild its currency reserves. The European Union also approved an aid package of €500 million in aid by 2010, which is expected to help internally displaced people (IDPs) and economic recovery in the form of new infrastructure. Only €100 million of the EU aid will be given to Georgia this year. These loans are aimed

With Bay Street in turmoil in sympathy with Wall Street, Canadian party leaders traded slurs over the slowing economy and measures to secure it against the slump happening south of the border. "We have the worst economy in the G8, our labour productivity has fallen for nine months straight and over the summer in July we saw the largest single month of jobs losses in 17 years," Stéphane Dion said as the Liberal leader worked through St. John's, N.L. Dion is hoping to sweep Newfoundland and Labrador's 7 seats, capitalizing on N.L. Premier Danny

News reports have said that British television and radio presenter Vernon Kay has been forced to state that he is not dead after an editor to the free content encyclopedia Wikipedia posted inaccurate claims that he was dead. He said that "I am alive and kicking. A few friends rang to check that I was all right. I wish I was on a yacht in Greece," in response to the claims. After seeing these reports, Wikinews decided to investigate these edits further. Wikinews learned that the first of these edits was made by a user contributing from the I

A helicopter went down in the Kimberley region of Australia killing four civilians. The pilot, who was male, died along with three female passengers. The crash happened at the Purnululu National Park. A bushfire was started by the crash but authorities say it will be contained. The accident occurred 6.2 miles from the Bellburn airstrip serving the town of Argyle, where there is a diamond mine. The helicopter went down in the Purnululu National Park. The helicopter was owned and operated by Slingair Heliwork.

Anchorage, Alaska — A group calling itself "Alaska Women Reject Palin" held an anti-Sarah Palin rally Saturday, despite receiving threatening phone calls last week. Palin is the vice presidential candidate, running with John McCain, on the Republican ticket in the American presidential election to be held on Nov. 4. On Wednesday, the group sent a press release to the local media about the rally. The press release, a copy of which was obtained by Wikinews, says that Alaska Women Reject Palin is a group "who challenge the claim that Palin's valu

Bank of America (BoA) is attempting a takeover of Merrill Lynch, which, if successful, would combine two of the largest banks in the world. BoA would buy Merrill Lynch for around $44 billion in stock. BoA, the largest bank in the United States, has been looking for a major acquisition for the last few months. The bank was seen as a possible buyer of Lehman Bothers before it pulled out, citing lack of financial support by the U.S. government, and possible shareholder problems. Merrill's CEO John Thain is believed to have initiated the discussio

Ten years of messages and interviews with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden have been leaked. Translated by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the documents were posted on a blog Friday. Posted to Secrecy News blog on September 12, and copied to similar sites including Wikileaks.org, the ten years of messages span from 1994-2004. The packet, issued in 2004, is nearly 300 pages, and labeled "official use only". It was translated by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), a division of the CIA, and includes interviews w

The Libertarian National Committee (LNC) was reported to be in a deadlock Sunday night over how to address the growing controversies surrounding their party's U.S. presidential nominee, former congressman Bob Barr. Many libertarians have spoken out against Barr since his last minute refusal to attend former Republican presidential hopeful Congressman Ron Paul's third party unity conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on Wednesday. The effort to replace Barr as the nominee has been rejected. Not a single person on the 17-membe