LOCARNO, Switzerland -- Authorities seeking to unravel why a small plane smashed into a Milan office tower offered possible explanations Friday, including mechanical failure and two focusing on the Swiss pilot: Did he fall ill, or was it suicide?

Friends at a small, private airstrip in this Swiss town say Luigi Fasulo, 67, was in good spirits when he took off Thursday, and none believe he would have killed himself. Milan's Chief Prosecutor Gerard D'Ambrosio also said suicide was the least likely scenario.

But the pilot's son told an Italian newspaper he may have taken his life because he was distraught over financial troubles.

U.S. planes drop bombs in northern Iraq

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- U.S. and British planes patrolling a no-fly zone over northern Iraq bombed Iraqi air defense systems Friday in response to anti-aircraft fire, U.S. officials said.

The bombs were dropped after Iraqi forces east of Mosul fired on a routine air patrol, the U.S. European Command, based in Stuttgart, Germany, said in a written statement.

In Baghdad, the official Iraqi News Agency quoted a statement from the Iraqi military that described the raid as an attack on civilian facilities.

Cardinals await Vatican for rules on sex abuse

VATICAN CITY -- American cardinals meeting next week over the sex abuse scandal are looking for guidance from the Vatican on a range of issues, including a proposed policy of "one strike and you're out" for priests implicated in sex abuse cases, a U.S. church official said Friday.

With the American church engulfed in the scandal, Pope John Paul II summoned U.S. cardinals for extraordinary meetings Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the situation.

American churchmen who met with the pope last week "gave him a sense of urgency," said Monsignor Francis Maniscalco, a spokesman for the U.S. bishops.

He said the cardinals have two main issues in mind: a single policy for sex-offending priests judged by psychologists to have been rehabilitated and a uniform policy on reporting sexual offenses.

Talks on Congo's future remain deadlocked

SUN CITY, South Africa -- Weeks of talks aimed at mapping out Congo's political future deadlocked Friday, with the sides failing to meet a deadline for an agreement on creating a new transitional government.

Delegates at the Congo talks had hoped to adopt a plan for a new government at the closing session Friday. Instead, they fought to keep the peace process alive after South African President Thabo Mbeki's last-ditch efforts to broker a compromise deal failed.

Instead of Mbeki's compromise, the government and one of the two major rebel groups agreed on their own deal that would have left the other rebel movement out of power. That group rejected the accord and said it had not decided whether to continue talks.

Calls to boycott U.S. goods get mixed reaction

CAIRO, Egypt -- Amr Sayed says he supports calls in the Arab world to boycott U.S. companies because of Washington's perceived pro-Israel bias. But the 17-year-old goes to McDonald's anyway for burger and fries -- he says there's just no Egyptian equivalent.

Throughout the Middle East, boycott calls have been widely circulated via mobile phone messages, newspaper articles, e-mails with pictures of dead Palestinians, banners at street demonstrations and, sometimes, in sermons at mosques.

The calls,began after the start of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000.

--From wire reports