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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The truck that caught fire a half mile underground at a southeastern New Mexico nuclear waste dump was 29 years old, improperly maintained and operating without an automatic fire-suppression system, according to a report to be released Friday.

By Jeremy Wagstaff SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Criminals may already have made off with up to $500 million worth of bitcoins since the virtual currency launched in 2009 - and you can double that if it turns out they emptied Mt. Gox. "It's just growing pains," says Keith Jarvis, a security researcher at Dell SecureWorks. "Bitcoin is large enough and has enough momentum behind it to survive any public relations damage from this (Mt. Gox) case or anything else." The fall of Mt Gox, the Tokyo-based exchange which filed for bankruptcy last month after saying it lost some 850,000 bitcoins to hackers, is certainly the virtual currency's biggest crisis. But data collated by Reuters from specialist bitcoin industry websites and internet forums shows that more than 730,000 bitcoins were already missing to theft, hacking, cyber-ransom payments and other apparently criminal pursuits before Mt. Gox's collapse.

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso was quickest in Friday's first practice for the season-opening Australian Formula One Grand Prix with Lewis Hamilton a surprise early casualty. The Spaniard clocked a fastest lap of one minute 31.840 seconds as the cars took to the track for the first time ahead of Sunday's race. But there was an unexpected disaster for former world champion Hamilton and Mercedes when his car stopped on his first lap. Hamilton, who has been tipped by rival drivers as the one to beat this weekend after impressive pre-season testing, sat out the remainder of opening practice, while his teammate Nico Rosberg got in 15 laps for the sixth-best time.