QUOTE OF THE DAY “It has all the telltale signs of what we saw in Crimea. It’s professional, it’s coordinated, there’s nothing grass-roots-seeming about it.” Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., about clashes in eastern Ukraine Article, 1A36 die in bus crash on Mexico highway
VERACRUZ, Mexico - A passenger bus slammed into a broken-down truck and burst into flames, killing at least 36 people Sunday in southern Mexico, the Veracruz state government reported.
State and federal officials said four people survived the crash, which occurred shortly after midnight in the southeastern state of Veracruz.
A statement from the state’s civil defense agency said the victims were business people from the region who were traveling from the Tabasco state capital of Villahermosa to Mexico City.
The agency’s emergency director, Ricardo Maza Limon, said the victims apparently burned to death inside the bus, which was so badly charred that the tires melted and the markings on its sides were unreadable.
The federal Highway Department, which earlier put the death toll at 34, said the three-axle bus was on a highway in the area of Acayucan when it struck a five-axle tractor-trailer owned by a milk protein company.
Israeli says faction slowing peace effort
JERUSALEM - Israel’s chief peace negotiator on Sunday accused a hard-line faction of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s increasingly unwieldy coalition government of undermining her efforts, while Jewish settlers moved into a West Bank building that has been a flash point of violence in the past.
Netanyahu’s chief negotiator, Tzipi Livni, said she was optimistic the sides would get through a crisis that has left the talks on the brink of collapse.
She also accused the hard-line Jewish Home, a pro-settler party, of trying to thwart her efforts. She took aim at the party’s leader, Naftali Bennett, and Housing Minister Uri Ariel, a strong supporter of Jewish settlements.
“There are people in the government who don’t want peace,” Livni said. “Bennett and Uri Ariel represent those who want to prevent a peace process.”
Further escalating tensions, three families of Jewish settlers moved into a contested house in the volatile city of Hebron after a protracted legal battle.
Under heavy protection by Israeli forces, the families moved belongings into the home without incident.
Pope speaks from heart on Palm Sunday
VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis, marking Palm Sunday in a packed St. Peter’s Square, ignored his prepared homily and spoke entirely off-the-cuff. Later, he continued to stray from the script by hopping off his popemobile to pose for selfies with young people and sipping tea passed to him from the crowd.
In his homily, Francis called on people, himself included, to look into their hearts to see how they are living their lives.
After the ceremony, he chatted amiably with cardinals.
Then he posed for selfies with young people from Rio de Janeiro who had carried a large cross in the square.
Francis had barely climbed aboard his open-topped popemobile when he spotted Polish youths. They, too, were clamoring for a selfie with the pope, and he hopped off to oblige them. In another moment in the pope’s tour of the square, the Vatican’s security chief poured herbal mate tea from a thermos also held out by an admirer, and passed the cup to Francis for a sip.
Holy Week culminates next Sunday with Easter Mass, also in St. Peter’s Square.
Car bombings in Iraq kill 16, hurt dozens
BAGHDAD - Bombings targeting security forces in northern Iraq killed at least 16 people Sunday, authorities said.
In the deadliest attack, an explosives-laden parked car exploded as a joint Iraqi army and police patrol passed through a busy commercial area in Mosul, killing five civilians and five members of the security forces, a police officer said. He said the blast wounded 12.
A medical official confirmed the figures. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
Mosul is about 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.
Hours earlier, a suicide car bomber drove his vehicle into a security checkpoint in the northern town of Dibis, killing six people and wounding 15, Police Chief Col. Bestoon Rasheed said.
Dibis is near the city of Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 04/14/2014