World/Nation
Jet crashes in French Alps with 150 on board
SEYNE-LES-ALPES, France - A black box recovered from the scene and pulverized pieces of debris strewn across Alpine mountainsides held clues to what caused a German jetliner to take an unexplained eight-minute dive Tuesday midway through a flight from Spain to Germany, apparently killing all 150 people on board.
The victims included two babies, two opera singers and 16 German high school students and their teachers returning from an exchange trip to Spain. It was the deadliest crash in France in decades.
The Airbus A320 operated by Germanwings, a budget subsidiary of Lufthansa, was less than an hour from landing in Duesseldorf on a flight from Barcelona when it unexpectedly went into a rapid descent. The pilots sent out no distress call and had lost radio contact with their control center, France's aviation authority said, deepening the mystery.
While investigators searched through debris from Flight 9525 on steep and desolate slopes, families across Europe reeled with shock and grief. Sobbing relatives at both airports were led away by airport workers and crisis counselors.
"The site is a picture of horror. The grief of the families and friends is immeasurable," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after being flown over the crash scene. "We must now stand together. We are united in our great grief."
German students, opera singers among victims
HALTERN, Germany - A stunned German town mourned 16 students who went down aboard Germanwings Flight 9525 on their way home Tuesday from a Spanish exchange, while the opera world grieved for two singers who were returning from performing in Barcelona - one of them with her baby.
"This is surely the blackest day in the history of our town," a visibly shaken Mayor Bodo Klimpel said after the western town of Haltern was shocked by news that 16 students from the local high school and two teachers had been on the plane. They had just spent a week in Spain.
Some hugged, cried and laid flowers in front of the Joseph Koenig High School, where the 10th graders had studied, and lit candles on its steps.
"This is pretty much the worst thing you can imagine," Klimpel said at a hastily called news conference.
An announcement was made to students Tuesday lunchtime "that we were all free now but we shouldn't be happy," said Christopher Schweigmann, 16, a 10th-grade student who said he lost two good friends. Students went to a service Tuesday evening, and "everyone was in tears in the church," he said.
Obama agrees to slow U.S. pullout from Afghanistan
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama agreed Tuesday to slow the U.S. military pullout from Afghanistan at the request of its new government but insisted the delay won't jeopardize his commitment to end America's longest war before leaving office.
In a shift from his previous plan, Obama said the U.S. would leave its 9,800 troops currently in Afghanistan in place rather than downsizing to 5,500 by year's end. The size of the U.S. footprint for next year is still to be decided, he said, but he brushed aside any speculation the withdrawal will bleed into 2017 when the next president takes over.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's inaugural visit to the White House offered a stark contrast to visits by his predecessor, Hamid Karzai, who was viewed by U.S. officials as prickly and unreliable. Ghani went out of his way to thank the U.S. for its sacrifices in his country, offering a window into the efforts by Obama and him to rehabilitate the U.S.-Afghan relationship.
Obama acknowledged the change of plans will prevent some U.S. troops from coming home when they expected, but he suggested the danger will be minimized because they won't be in combat. The U.S. combat role in Afghanistan officially ended late last year, a down payment on Obama's re-election pledge to wind down the war the U.S. launched in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
- The Associated Press