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US air accident investigators hold a hearing Wednesday into the role that sophisticated cockpit automation might have played in the fiery crash of a South Korean airliner in San Francisco. Three passengers died when Asiana Airlines Flight 214 clipped a seawall, skidded out of control and burst into flames upon landing after an otherwise routine flight from Seoul on July 6. Another 182 passengers and crew aboard the Boeing 777 were injured -- and first indications suggested the pilots approached the runway at well below the optimum speed for landing. Wednesday's nearly 12-hour hearing was supposed to be a two-day affair, but its scheduled start Tuesday was postponed due to a federal government shutdown prompted by wintry weather in Washington.

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — Uruguay's Senate gave final congressional approval Tuesday to create the world's first national marketplace for legal marijuana, an audacious experiment that will have the government oversee production, sales and consumption of a drug illegal almost everywhere else.

Uruguay's Senate has approved ground-breaking legislation legalizing marijuana, becoming the first nation in the world to oversee the production and sale of the drug. After a marathon debate, 16 leftist senators out of 29 lawmakers voted Tuesday in favor of the legislation championed by President Jose Mujica, who must now sign it into law. Outside the Senate, hundreds of cannabis-smoking supporters launched fireworks in what they dubbed "the last march with illegal marijuana." "The war against drugs has failed," said Senator Roberto Conde as he presented the bill on behalf of the ruling leftist Broad Front, calling it an "unavoidable response" to that failure.