There was no immediate explanation

There was no immediate explanation.President George Bush was briefed on the crash almost as soon as it happened. Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, cut short a visit to Bulgaria to return home.. The American Senate threw out controversial plans to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in north-east Alaska, inflicting a heavy blow to President Bush’s energy programme yesterday. Republicans failed to gain the 60 votes required to cut short the debate, with a guillotine motion falling short even of a simple majority to lose by 54 votes to 46.The Alaskan drilling project was passed last summer by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

But despite intense lobbying, and apocalyptic warning from the Bill’s supporters of the dangerous US reliance on imported oil, the Democrats were unmoved. Mr Bush now has no choice but to withdraw the Alaska plan if he is to secure passage of the rest of his energy Bill, with its proposed deregulation of the energy market and measures to boost both coal-derived and nuclear power.The White House indicated that it might try to reinstate the plan. Its spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said: “The President believes that it’s vital for Congress to enact balanced, comprehensive energy reform.” Drilling for the billions of barrels of oil believed to lie beneath the 1.5 million acres of coastal plain of the sprawling refuge has been the most contentious issue facing the Senate as it tried to shape its own energy Bill, which will have to be reconciled with the House version before it can be signed by the President. Mr Bush has claimed that the oil can be produced without damage to the area’s fragile environment and wildlife ­ including a herd of 123,000 caribou that calves each year on the coastal plain. The administration also points to the turmoil in the Middle East and uncertainties in Venezuela, another key supplier, as a reason for exploiting America’s resources.At present the US relies on imports for 57 per cent of the 19 million barrels of oil it uses every day. If fully on stream in about 10 years, the Alaskan fields could produce about 2 million barrels a day.But environmentalists, mostly Democrats ­ and, as yesterday proved, a handful of Republican senators too ­ say the oil can be found elsewhere.

“The solution is not in the Arctic,” Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a leading foe of the Bill, said.. Ally McBeal, the television drama series famous for suggesting, at least half-seriously, that the best way for women to get ahead in the legal profession is to starve themselves and act ditsy around the office, is being pulled off the air after five seasons because of a slump in ratings. The show never recovered, and viewers were disappearing faster than Ms Flockhart’s perilously thin waistline.A two-hour special episode broadcast in the US earlier this week garnered the lowest ever audience rating in its category.Long before Downey’s well-publicised addiction struggles, the show hit the headlines over the psychological and medical problems assailing its cast. Flockhart’s extraordinary thinness became regular tabloid fodder, particularly after she fainted on set and was taken to hospital 16 months ago.Courtney Thorne-Smith, who played Georgia in the show’s first three seasons, quit to pursue other interests and later confided in a newspaper interview: “The amount of time I spent thinking about food and being upset about my body was insane.”Ally is the second hit Fox series to reach the end of its run.

The X-Files, one of the network’s runaway smashes of recent years, has also been withdrawn after a long, slow decline.The loss of Ally McBeal represents no more than a marginally eased workload for Mr Kelley, who always seems to have at least three big series on the go. His previous hits include Chicago Hope, LA Law, The Practice and, more recently, Boston Public. Among his new projects is a show for Fox to be called Girls Club. From the title, it seems the job prospects of excessively svelte glamour babes are still safe in his hands..