• Nine new reports of noise and light in sky near Malaysia-Thai border
• Eyewitnesses in villages reported sightings of plane low over the sea
• Search now focuses on Strait of Malacca and Andaman Sea
• Relatives in Beijing shout and throw bottles at Malaysian Airlines staff
• They demand: 'Why is Malaysian military keeping what they know secret?'
• Officials now reveal search is covering 27,000 square nautical miles

Malaysian authorities have defended their handling of the hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines passenger jet as they revealed the search is now covering 27,000 square nautical miles.

Officials have admitted they were unsure which direction the plane was headed when it disappeared as the international search mission carries on in its fifth day.

The mystery over the plane's whereabouts has been confounded by confusing and occasionally conflicting statements by Malaysian officials, adding to the anguish of relatives of the 239 people on board the flight - two thirds of them Chinese.

Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein described the multinational search for the missing plane as an unprecedented and complicated effort and defended his country's efforts.

He said two areas, in the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea, were being searched by a total of 49 ships and 39 planes.

Who knows, soon we might see headlines and cable TV shows asking: "Is Dianne Feinstein a whistleblower or a traitor?"

A truthful answer to that question could not possibly be "whistleblower." It may already be a historic fact that Senator Feinstein's speech on March 11, 2014 blew a whistle on CIA surveillance of the Senate intelligence committee, which she chairs. But if that makes her a whistleblower, then Colonel Sanders is a vegetarian evangelist.

In her blockbuster Tuesday speech on the Senate floor, Feinstein charged that the CIA's intrusions on her committee's computers quite possibly "violated the Fourth Amendment." You know, that's the precious amendment that Feinstein - more than any other senator - has powerfully treated like dirt, worthy only of sweeping under the congressional rug.

The disappearance four days ago of a Malaysian Airline Systems Bhd. (MAS) aircraft with 239 people on board is confounding search teams and a global audience used to around-the-clock connectivity and real-time updates.

The Boeing Co. (BA) 777-200 wide-body, among the world's safest planes, vanished without any distress call or other indication something was amiss. Half a week later, nine nations including the U.S. and Australia have joined a search that while focused on the Gulf of Thailand between Malaysia and Vietnam now extends west to Indonesia and east to the South China Sea.

That the largest civil twin-engine airliner could disappear without a trace and elude a frenzied search that includes satellite surveillance runs counter to the advances in technology that have facilitated both flying and reconnaissance efforts after an incident. While authorities quickly traced two passengers who boarded the 777 with stolen passports, the area being combed has grown so vast that the search may take some time, said Remi Jouty, president of France's BEA air-accident investigation bureau, which was instrumental in finding the Air France (AF) Flight 447 jet that crashed over the Atlantic in 2009.

A San Jose police officer has been charged with sexually assaulting a woman who he had taken to a hotel following a domestic disturbance with her husband.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, officer Geoffrey Graves and four other officers were called to the woman's home on Sept. 22. The woman was a hotel maid, and told officers that she wanted to spend the night at a nearby hotel.

The woman told police that Graves drove her to the hotel, but then returned about 15 minutes later. The officer partially undressed himself and sexually assault the woman, the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office explained at a press conference on Tuesday.

Hampton has more than its fair share of problems, per a recent audit

The small town of Hampton, Fla., has caught the attention of state lawmakers - who want to see it dissolved. That's because it's wildly corrupt, per a 42-page state audit of its books released last month, which CNN reports "reads like a primer on municipal malfeasance." The town of 477 people about 20 miles north of the Gainesville essentially functioned as a glorified speed trap, with 17 officers (roughly one per every 25 residents) known for sitting on lawn chairs or taking cover behind recycling bins along a 1,260-foot stretch of well-traveled highway US 301 armed with radar guns. That's not illegal - though AAA has gone so far as to put up billboards warning about it - but from there, things have allegedly taken a turn for the criminal.

CNN reports that on Friday, state and Bradford County investigators descended on city hall as part of a criminal investigation, taking the door to the police chief's office off its hinges in the process. This after the audit revealed 31 law violations. Hampton didn't pay bills on time, or withhold employee payroll taxes. It allegedly made thousands in dubious expenditures and kept cash from water customers in a bag intermingled with petty cash. Some of its records were "lost in a swamp," auditors were told, per Time. And it's unclear where all the ticket money - $616,960 between 2010 and 2012, until pressure forced the town to pack up its speed trap - went. The Florida Times-Union reports that the town has about three weeks to prove it's making progress on turning things around; otherwise, the legislature will very likely dissolve Hampton, which would then become part of unincorporated Bradford County. The town's acting mayor thinks its possible to save the town; she took over for the former mayor, who is in jail after allegedly dealing oxycodone. (In other Florida news, this may be the dumbest thing ever said during a DUI stop.)

Sixty young people sign open letter to Netanyahu announcing their resistance to the draft in biggest wave of refusal since 2008

"If necessary, I will go to jail."

Those are the words of 17-year-old Dafna Rothstein Landman, one of 60 and counting Israeli youth who signed an open letter sent to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the weekend declaring their refusal of compulsory service in the Israeli military - the biggest wave of conscientious objection the country has seen since 2008.

Under the banner of Shministim - Hebrew for 12th graders - the group of conscientious objectors condemns the dehumanization of Palestinians living under occupation. In the Palestinian territories, "human rights are violated, and acts defined under international law as war-crimes are perpetuated on a daily basis," their letter states. "These include assassinations (extrajudicial killings), the construction of settlements on occupied lands, administrative detentions, torture, collective punishment and the unequal allocation of resources such as electricity and water."

Entitled We Refuse to Serve in the Occupation Army, the letter charges that this dehumanization hurts Israelis as well. "The problem with the army does not begin or end with the damage it inflicts on Palestinian society. It infiltrates everyday life in Israeli society too: it shapes the educational system, our workforce opportunities, while fostering racism, violence and ethnic, national and gender-based discrimination."

"We refuse to forsake our principles as a condition to being accepted in our society," reads the joint letter, penned by people aged 16 to 20 who are eligible for compulsory service in the Army. "We have thought about our refusal deeply and we stand by our decisions."

Dafna, who helped write the letter, told Common Dreams she was only 15 years old when she began questioning her military service - a process she says was catalyzed when she reflected on the imprint of Israeli militarism on her own schooling experience. "I realized to what extent the education system is geared towards the Army and not towards further education, the job market, personal interests, etcetera," she said.

Soon after, she began traveling from her home in Tel Aviv to the West Bank, where she participated in Palestinian demonstrations against Israeli occupation. Here, she witnessed the "violence of the Army" first-hand. "I met people from those Palestinian villages," she said. "That meant that instead of names in a newspaper they became people, with faces and personalities."

She added that she became aware of the way "the Army perpetuates an ideal of male violence," within Israeli society.

Novelist Anne Rice, best known for her books about vampires, has signed onto a petition asking Amazon.com to stop allowing people to post anonymous reviews. In an interview with the Guardian, Rice says the "anti-author gangsters" make her a victim of bullying.

It doesn't take long to find a cruel, anonymous comment on everything from newspaper websites to Yelp and Amazon.

"That's the stupidest book I've ever read," wrote one person while reviewing a novel on Amazon.

Well-known vlogger, ZE Frank, recently taped a YouTube video responding to online critics. In it, he says: "For example, some young gentleman said he wanted to punch me in the face because my voice was so annoying."

A Pew Research study found 25 percent of people admit to posting anonymous comments online. A communications professor at the University of Houston studying the issue found anonymity contributes to less civil discourse. He looked at online comments in newspapers for more than a year and half and found 53 percent of comments were uncivil in papers that allowed anonymity. That percentage dropped to 29 percent when newspapers required names or links to Facebook accounts.

A Fall River man says he was recording a police officer who was out of control, but instead, he was arrested and his cell phone was seized.

Now the video he recorded is gone. Police say he erased it, even though they were the ones holding the phone.

George Thompson says last January he was just sitting on his front porch, watching a Fall River police officer working a paid detail. Thompson says the officer was on his phone and was swearing very loud.

That's when Thompson pulled out his phone. Thompson says Officer Tom Barboza then rushed him and arrested him, charging him with unlawful wiretapping.

But in Massachusetts it's perfectly legal to record video and audio of a public official, including police, as long as they are performing their duties and the recording isn't hidden. Barboza's own police report shows that Thompson acknowledged he was recording the officer.

Sunrise Children's Services is working to recover from a massive budget shortfall after Kentucky churches withheld $7 million because the children's home had proposed ending its policy of discrimination against LGBT employees.

Bill Smithwick, the then-director of Sunrise Children's Services, proposed last year that the home allow employees who were openly gay and lesbian over fears that government funding would dry up.

After churches in Kentucky began withholding their donations, Smithwick was forced to resign, and the children's home did not change its policy.

But the damage was done, and Sunrise Children's Services was already facing a $7 million budget shortfall, according to WDRB.

The Kentucky Baptist Convention, which approves of the anti-LGBT policy, is now back in the Sunrise's corner. The convention has launched a fundraising drive telling churches that it's once again safe to donate.

"Now that our churches have confidence in the leadership of Sunrise and the direction of Sunrise, we'll give them the opportunity to re-invest in this ministry to children," Kentucky Baptist Convention Executive Director Paul Chitwood told WDRB.

However, the policy of discrimination puts Sunrise at risk of losing government funding, which provides 85 percent of its $27 million budget.

Cameraman tells of moment Australian naturalist's chest was repeatedly pierced by barb, and his last words - 'I'm dying'

The only person to witness the moment Steve Irwin was pierced in the chest by a stingray barb said the injuries were so severe that the Australian TV naturalist could not possibly have been saved.

Justin Lyons, a regular underwater cameraman for Irwin and a close friend, said the jagged barb punctured Irwin's chest dozens of times, causing a massive injury to his heart. "He obviously didn't know it had punctured his heart but he knew it had punctured his lung," Lyons told Australia's Network Ten television.

"He was having trouble breathing. Even if we'd been able to get him into an emergency ward at that moment we probably wouldn't have been able to save him, because the damage to his heart was massive. As we're motoring back I'm screaming at one of the other crew in the boat to put their hand over the wound and we're saying to him things like, 'Think of your kids, Steve, hang on, hang on, hang on.' He just sort of calmly looked up at me and said, 'I'm dying.' And that was the last thing he said."