Ethiopian Dreamliner catches fire at Heathrow - Boeing stock plunges.

LONDON -- A fire on an empty Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane forced Heathrow Airport to close both its runways Friday, suspending all arrivals and departures.

The airport said in a tweet that there were no passengers aboard the Ethiopian Airlines plane, and British police said the fire is being treated as unexplained. London's fire department said its firefighters were on standby to assist Heathrow's crews.

Television images showed nearly a dozen fire trucks on the scene and firefighters standing around the Ethiopian Airlines plane, which was parked on a remote stand.

Fire-retardant foam appeared to have been sprayed, but no damage to the plane was immediately apparent.

The incident is likely to heap more pressure on Boeing Co., which makes the Dreamliner.

The Dreamliner was grounded for three months earlier this year amid concerns about overheating lithium-ion batteries. Shares in Boeing have fallen more than 1.3 percent on the news.

9-11 terrorist mastermind builds Top Secret vacuum cleaner for the CIA?

WASHINGTON (AP) — Confined to the basement of a CIA secret prison in Romania about a decade ago, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the admitted mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, asked his jailers whether he could embark on an unusual project: Would the spy agency allow Mohammed, who had earned his bachelor's in mechanical engineering, to design a vacuum cleaner?

The agency officer in charge of the prison called CIA headquarters and a manager approved the request, a former senior CIA official told The Associated Press.

Mohammed had endured the most brutal of the CIA's harsh interrogation methods and had confessed to a career of atrocities. But the agency had no long-term plan for him. Someday, he might prove useful. Perhaps, he'd even stand trial one day.

And for that, he'd need to be sane.

"We didn't want them to go nuts," the former senior CIA official said, one of several who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the now-shuttered CIA prisons or Mohammed's interest in vacuums.

So, using schematics from the Internet as his guide, Mohammed began re-engineering one of the most mundane of household appliances.

That the CIA may be in possession of the world's most highly classified vacuum cleaner blueprints is but one peculiar, lasting byproduct of the controversial U.S. detention and interrogation program.

By the CIA's own account, the program's methods were "designed to psychologically 'dislocate'" people. But once interrogations stopped, the agency had to try to undo the psychological damage inflicted on the detainees.

The CIA apparently succeeded in keeping Mohammed sane. He appears to be in good health, according to military records.

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X-47B UCAS lands on aircraft carrier

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USS GEORGE H. W. BUSH, at sea (NNS) -- The X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator completed its first-ever carrier-based arrested landing on board USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) off the coast of Virginia July 10.

"It isn't very often you get a glimpse of the future. Today, those of us aboard USS George H.W. Bush got that chance as we witnessed the X-47B make its first ever arrested landing aboard an aircraft carrier," said Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus. "The operational unmanned aircraft soon to be developed have the opportunity to radically change the way presence and combat power are delivered from our aircraft carriers."

Today's demonstration was the first time a tailless, unmanned autonomous aircraft landed on a modern aircraft carrier.

This test marks an historic event for naval aviation that Navy leaders believe will impact the way the Navy integrates manned and unmanned aircraft on the carrier flight deck in the future.

In May 2013, the X-47B successfully completed underway carrier deck operations aboard USS George H. W. Bush to include a first-ever catapult launch and nine touch-and-gos.

"We have certainly come a long way in the 102 years since Eugene Ely made the first arrested landing aboard an aircraft carrier. Naval aviators have always been at the forefront of operational and tactical innovation, and today was no exception," said Mabus. "People make unmanned aviation possible and it is people who will provide the fresh thinking and new ideas so crucial to successes like the X-47B program and the unmanned aircraft of the future."

Breaking: Asiana 777 crash-lands at SFO

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USA TODAY: An Asiana Airlines flight from Seoul crashed on landing at San Francisco's airport Saturday, forcing passengers to escape the aircraft using inflatable emergency exit slides.

Passengers who got off the plane told reporters they did not believe there were any fatalities. Images from the scene showed smoke billowing from the plane and emergency exits open from the plane's fuselage, with the tail separated from the aircraft. Gaping holes could be seen in the roof of the plane's body, blackened by fire.

The plane was a Boeing 777, FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford said. It crashed on runway 28L at San Francisco International Airport, he said.

There were 291 people aboard, KCBS radio reported.

The wreckage was sprayed with white fire retardant.

Laura Brown, spokeswoman for the FAA in Washington, said Asiana Flight 214 from Seoul was attempting to land at San Francisco International Airport when it crashed.

"All we know is that a foreign airline, Asiana Airlines Flight 214 arriving from Seoul, South Korea, crashed while landing,'' she said. "That's all I've got right now.

She said it appeared the plane crashed after touching down for a landing, although the sequence of events was not clear.

A passenger, David Eun, issued Tweets after the crash: "Fire and rescue people all over the place. They're evacuating the injured. Haven't felt this way since 9/11.''

Later, Eun Tweeted: "I'm fine. Most people are totally calm and trying to help. .. the majority of passengers seem OK.''

The National Transportation Safety Board was dispatching a team of crash investigators to the site.

A video clip posted to Youtube showed smoke coming from a silver-colored jet on the tarmac. Passengers could be seen jumping down the inflatable emergency slides. Images showed the the body of the plane largely intact but with severe fire damage.

The tail of the airplane was separated from the aircraft. Weather at the time was clear.

SFO Tower communications posted HERE

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Snowden in Moscow airport - Putin says "Nyet."

Edward Snowden is at a Moscow airport, and no, you can’t have him.

Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the first official acknowledgment of the whereabouts of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden yesterday, and promptly rejected U.S. pleas to turn him over.

Snowden, who is charged with violating American espionage laws, fled Hong Kong over the weekend, touching off a global guessing game over where he went and frustrating U.S. efforts to bring him to justice.

Putin said Snowden is in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo Airport and has not passed through Russian immigration, meaning he technically is not in Russia and thus is free to travel wherever he wants.

After arriving Sunday on a flight from Hong Kong, Snowden registered for a Havana-bound flight Monday en route to Venezuela and then possible asylum in Ecuador, but he didn’t board the plane.

Speculation has been rife that Russian security services have been talking to Snowden and might want to keep him in Russia for a more thorough debriefing, but Putin denied that.

“Our special services never worked with Mr. Snowden and aren’t working with him today,” Putin said at a news conference during a visit to Finland.

Because Moscow has no extradition agreement with Washington, it cannot meet the U.S. request, he said.

“Mr. Snowden is a free man, and the sooner he chooses his final destination the better it is for us and for him,” Putin said. “I hope it will not affect the businesslike character of our relations with the U.S., and I hope that our partners will understand that.”

Secretary of State John Kerry said yesterday that the United States wants Russia to show respect for the rule of law and comply with common practices when it comes to fugitives from justice.

Putin’s staunch refusal to consider deportation shows his readiness to further challenge Washington at a time when U.S.-Russian relations are already strained over Syria and other issues, including a Russian ban on adoptions by Americans.

“Just showing America that we don’t care about our relations, we are down to basically a Cold War pattern: The enemy of your government is our friend,” said Masha Lipman of the Carnegie Moscow Center.

“The Russian administration has not come that far, but we don’t know what it’s up to,” she said.

Despite Putin’s denial, security experts believe Russia’s special services wouldn’t miss the chance to question a man who is believed to hold reams of classified U.S. documents and could shed light on how the U.S. intelligence agencies collect information.