News Headlines - 09 March 2014

▽BBC review airs end of licence fee | The Sunday Times

MEMBERS of a panel reviewing the future of the BBC have suggested that it scrap the licence fee and switch to a subscription service from 2020.
The radical plan has been recommended by some of the country’s most influential economists, consultants and academics and comes as the corporation faces swingeing cuts ahead of its charter renewal at the end of 2016.
If introduced, it would be the greatest change to the BBC since its creation in 1922.

▽BBC News - Missing Malaysia Airlines plane 'may have turned back'

Radar signals show a Malaysia Airlines plane that has been missing for more than 24 hours may have turned back, Malaysian officials have said. Rescue teams looking for the plane have now widened their search area.
Investigators are also checking CCTV footage of two passengers who are believed to have boarded the plane using stolen passports.

▽Japan Airlines flight makes emergency landing in Hawaii | theguardian.com

The pilot of the Dreamliner flight JL002, carrying 171 passengers and crew, decided to divert to Hawaii after a warning message about falling pressure of lubricant oil in its right engine, according to Japanese national broadcaster NHK.
NHK said there was no fire and no injuries.

▽AFP: Blocked by sunken Russian ships, Ukraine's navy stays defiant

Russia has deliberately sunk three of its own ships to block Ukrainian navy vessels entering a lake off the Black Sea, officers say, highlighting Moscow's determination to wear down the morale of Kiev's forces in Crimea.
The Ochakov -- a Soviet-era warship decommissioned in 2011 and set to be sold for scrap -- was towed to the entrance to Lake Donuzlav on Crimea's western coast from the Russian base at Sevastopol on Thursday and blown up.

▽Obama kicks off reboot of "Cosmos" series - WTOP.com

The reboot of "Cosmos" got a high-level introduction on Sunday night.
President Obama taped a 30-second video message that aired before the first episode of the science series "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey," hosted by astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson. It's a new version of astronomer Carl Sagan's groundbreaking 1980 series "Cosmos."
In the introduction, Obama begins by saying, "America has always been a nation of fearless explorers," adding that that spirit animated Sagan's series.