QUICK HITS

Data recorder still missing:

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Five days after the crash of a passenger jet in southern China, the disaster’s cause remains a mystery while the search for the plane’s second “black box” continued Friday. Hundreds of people combed the impact zone and a much larger debris field along steep slopes. They were searching for a box containing the flight data recorder.

GIF inventor dies: Stephen

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Wilhite, the inventor of the internet-popular short-video format, the GIF, has died. He was 74. His wife, Kathaleen, said Thursday that he died of COVID on March 14. Wilhite won a Webby lifetime achievement award in 2013 for inventing the GIF, which decades after its creation became omnipresent in memes and on social media.

Home sales fall: A gauge of

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U.S. pending home sales fell unexpectedly in February for a fourth straight month as limited inventory continued to restrict a real estate market that’s now facing another challenge — rising borrowing costs. The National Association of Realtors’ index of pending home sales decreased 4.1% from a month earlier to an almost two-year low of 104.9, according to data released Friday.

Jail use halted: U.S. Immigration 4 and Customs Enforcement will no longer send immigrant detainees to an Alabama jail that has long been the subject of complaints, and the agency will limit its use of three other facilities. ICE will discontinue use of the Etowah County Detention Center in Gadsden, Ala., and will curtail its use of three other jails in Florida, Louisiana and North Carolina.

Truck plant to shut down:

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General Motors is shutting down its pickup truck factory in Fort Wayne, Indiana, for two weeks next month because the company has run short of computer chips. The plant employs more than 4,000 blue-collar workers.