Focus \\\'shifts west\\\' for missing jet

The needle-in-a-haystack hunt for a missing Malaysian airliner spread to the vast Indian Ocean Friday after the White House cited "new information" that it might have flown for hours after vanishing nearly seven days ago. Multiple US media reports, citing American officials, said the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777's communication system continued to "ping" a satellite for a number of hours after it disappeared off radar with 239 people aboard, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. "It's my understanding that based on some new information that's not necessarily conclusive, but new information, an additional search area may be opened in the Indian Ocean," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "The USS Kidd is transiting the Strait of Malacca en route to the Indian Ocean," a US Navy official told AFP, referring to a guided-missile destroyer initially deployed to the Gulf of Thailand on the other side of Malaysia's coast.