Midday Roundup: Boeing 777 wing fragment found on remote island

Mystery solved? A beach-cleaning crew on a remote island in the Indian Ocean found part of an aircraft wing that experts say could belong to the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Australian officials called the find a “very significant development” in the almost 18-month search for the aircraft, which vanished over the Indian Ocean last year. The Boeing 777, which was carrying 239 people from Malaysia to China, is the only aircraft unaccounted for in the area. Officials confirmed today a number on the part corresponds to a Boeing 777 component. According to Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, that virtually guarantees it came from Flight 370. “Our view is there is no other known source for … a piece of that size and significance,” he told CNN. Réunion Island, the French territory where the wing fragment was found, is 2,300 miles west of the area where Australian search crews have been combing the waves for any trace of the missing plane.

Conflicting accounts. The former University of Cincinnati police officer charged with murder in the July 17 shooting death of an unarmed black motorist pleaded not guilty today. Ray Tensing, 25, shot Samuel DuBose, 43, after pulling him over for a missing front license plate. Tensing said he fired his weapon when DuBose started driving away, dragging the officer with him. But video of the incident released today tells a different story. Although Tensing’s hand was on the car door when it started rolling forward, he fired immediately. He was not dragged, said Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters. “This is the most asinine act I’ve ever seen a police officer make,” Deters said. “It was senseless. It’s just horrible.” Tensing’s lawyer maintains his client feared for his life and insisted there are two sides to the story.

Irreparable damage. Three University of Virginia graduates are suing Rolling Stone over its now-retracted story about a gang rape at their fraternity. The men—George Elias IV, Stephen Hadford, and Ross Fowler—claim they suffered “vicious and hurtful” attacks because of inaccuracies in the story written by Sabrina Rubin Erdely. The article was a bombshell of a story, but the magazine later admitted it couldn’t adequately corroborate important details. But school officials, facing public backlash, briefly suspended all fraternities and sororities and launched its own investigation into what happened. Although the names of the alleged rapists were not included in the article, details provided by the also unnamed female source, “Jackie,” pointed to the three men as her attackers. “Upon release of the article, family friends, acquaintances, co-workers and reporters easily matched (Elias) as one of the alleged attackers and, among other things, interrogated him, humiliated him, and scolded him,” the lawsuit said, adding that Hadford and Fowler “suffered similar attacks.”

Lingering hate. Surveillance footage shows two white men placing Confederate flags at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached. A maintenance worker found the flags at about 6 a.m. today and notified the National Park Service, which operates the nearby Martin Luther King Jr. Center. Investigators eventually found four flags on the campus. It’s not the first time the flag, the recent center of much debate about pervasive racism in America, has been left at the site. Vandals once even left the flag on King’s grave. Atlanta Police Chief George Turner called the incident disgusting but not surprising.