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| Pope Francis poses for 'selfies' after Palm Sunday homily - Fox News Posted: 13 Apr 2014 07:39 AM PDT
VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis, marking Palm Sunday in a packed St. Peter's Square, ignored his prepared homily and spoke entirely off-the-cuff in a remarkable departure from practice. Later, he hopped off his popemobile to pose for "selfies" with young people and also sipped tea passed to him from the crowd. In his homily, Francis called on people, himself included, to look into their own hearts to see how they are living their lives. "Has my life fallen asleep?" Francis asked after listening to a Gospel account of how Jesus' disciples fell asleep shortly before he was betrayed by Judas before his crucifixion. "Am I like Pontius Pilate, who, when he sees the situation is difficult, washes my hands?" He sounded tired, frequently pausing to catch his breath, as he spoke for about 15 minutes in his homily during Palm Sunday Mass, which solemnly opens Holy Week for the Roman Catholic Church. `'Where is my heart?" the pope asked, pinpointing that as the "question which accompanies us" throughout Holy Week. Francis seemed to regain his wind after the 2 1/2 hour ceremony. He shed his red vestments atop his plain white cassock, chatted amiably with cardinals dressed more formally than he at that point. Then he posed for "selfies" with young people from Rio de Janeiro who had carried a large cross in the square. He had barely climbed aboard his open-topped popemobile when he spotted Polish youths, they, too, clamoring for a "selfie" with a pope, and he hopped off, not even waiting for the vehicle to fully stop, to oblige them. In another moment in the pope's long tour of the square, the Vatican's security chief poured herbal mate tea from a thermos, thrust toward the pontiff by someone in the crowd, into a mate cup, also held out by an admirer, and passed the cup to Francis for a sip. In a crowd of around 100,000 Romans, tourists and pilgrims, people clutched olive tree branches, tall palm fronds or tiny braided palm leaves shaped like crosses that were blessed by Francis at the start of the ceremony. Francis used a wooden pastoral staff carved by Italian prison inmates, who donated it to him. The pope wants to put people on the margins of life at the center of the church's attention. Francis wore red vestments, symbolizing blood shed by the crucified Jesus. Holy Week culminates next Sunday with Easter Mass, also in St. Peter's Square. Many faithful will remain in Rome, while others will pour into the city for the April 27 canonization of two popes, John Paul II and John XXIII. Francis noted that John Paul's long-time aide, now Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow, Poland, had come to Rome. Francis noted he'll be making a pilgrimage to South Korea this summer, with the key event an Asian youth gathering on Aug. 15 in Daejeon. |
| Bus crash: Report of fire in FedEx truck, no skid marks add to mystery - Los Angeles Times Posted: 13 Apr 2014 08:05 AM PDT Investigators probing the collision of a FedEx freight truck and a charter bus that killed 10 were dealing with disparate clues, including reports that the truck was on fire before the crash as well as evidence that its driver appeared not to brake. A woman who said the truck sideswiped her car moments before Thursday evening's fatal accident said she saw flames coming from beneath the twin-trailer vehicle as it veered across a grassy median toward disaster. A man who lives next to Interstate 5, however, said he saw no flames from the truck before the crash as he watched it swerve out of control after it made an abortive attempt to move into freeway's fast lane. Both witnesses said the truck veered sharply from southbound lanes, across the median and into a Silverado Stages charter bus, which carried 48 people, including 44 Southern California high school students. "When they collided, it was boom!" said Ryan Householder, 31, who watched from his home, where he had been mowing his lawn. He said he was haunted by the screams of those who couldn't escape the burning bus. A National Transportation Safety Board member said Saturday evening that the truck left no skid marks on either the roadway or the median. In contrast, more than 145 feet of tire marks indicated that the bus driver tried to stop and swerve to the right, said the NTSB's Mark Rosekind. "That driver was clearly reacting to a situation with braking and a driving maneuver," he said. Rosekind cautioned that it remained too early to tell what prompted the FedEx driver to leave the southbound lanes. The investigator said blood samples had been obtained from the drivers, both of whom died in the crash. The samples will be used to test for alcohol, drugs or medication. The regulator confirmed that some of the victims were thrown from the bus. "We're going to look at whether seat belts might have kept them in place and whether that would have made a difference," Rosekind said. Rosekind said a black-box-style electronic device was recovered from the bus and will be analyzed. The truck's device was destroyed, but other steps will be taken to analyze the machinery. Rosekind said the bus was a "very new motor coach" — only about a month old. The FedEx truck was manufactured in 2007, he said. The new details about the moments before the accident came as three more students, previously listed as missing, were confirmed dead. The toll includes five students, three adult chaperons and the still-unidentified drivers. Final, formal identification of remains could take several weeks. "We have no one that's missing. All the names are accounted for. We just don't know which body goes with which name," said Larry Jones, sheriff and coroner for Glenn County, north of Sacramento. "And we don't know at this point what body to release to what family." Bonnie and Joe Duran, who live near Tacoma, Wash., had just passed the charter bus and were heading north, according to the NTSB official, when the FedEx truck suddenly burst across the median. "It was on fire already," Bonnie Duran, who was driving, said of the truck. She told NBC4-TV that the flames appeared to be coming from the lower rear of the truck cab. She tried to veer her rented four-door Nissan Altima to the right, but it was too late. The FedEx truck sideswiped her, ripping off the rear passenger door. A moment later, the truck slammed into the charter bus. Both burst into flames. Neither of the Durans was seriously injured. ALSO: Bus crash survivor recounts harrowing escape California bus crash: 5 students among 10 killed; at least 30 injured Aspiring TV producer mistakenly killed by deputies in West Hollywood |
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