Ukraine: The official time in Crimea jumped two hours ahead last night as Russia’s newest acquisition switched to Moscow time. A crowd of flag-waving Crimeans sang the Russian national anthem as the clock on the main railway station in Simferopol turned ahead.

  Secy. of State John Kerry was halfway home from Saudi Arabia when he turned around to meet today in Paris with the Russian foreign minister to talk about defusing the international crisis over Crimea. Despite troops massed on the Ukraine border, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pledged yesterday that Russia has no plans to invade neighboring Ukraine. World leaders are skeptical. Russia also said no Russian troops were in Crimea, which is now occupied by Russian troops.

Flight 370: Objects identified in the Indian Ocean so far have been described only as “sea junk.” Some objects have been seen that have the colors of the missing Malaysian airliner, but they have not been identified. An Australian ship is being fitted with an electronic “pinger locator”  to be towed through the water listening for the jet’s black box. The deadline is approaching. The black box has only about a week left in its batteries.

Nation: The number of people missing in the Washington state mudslide has dropped to 30 as searchers continue to dig for bodies. The official death toll is 18, although more than two dozen bodies have been found. Only people who have been identified have been added to the list of dead.

Some people are now asking why homes were built in an area identified as dangerous since the 1950s. A few homeowners said they were not warned. But as long ago as 1999 a report filed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, warned of “the potential for a large catastrophic failure” of the hillside above Oso, Wash.

Death Losing Popularity: A shrinking majority of Americans support the death penalty, according to the Pew Research center. A slim majority of 55 percent support death for murderers and 37 percent are against it. As recently as the  early 1990s nearly 80 percent of Americans favored the death penalty.

Baroken Baracket: President Obama’s Final Four bracket was wrecked Friday when Louisville lost in the Sweet 16 and yesterday Wisconsin beat Arizona 64-63. But if Michigan State beats Connecticut today, his pick for the ultimate winner is still in the game.

The Obit Page: Jeremiah Denton a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for more than seven years and a former US Senator from Alabama, died this past week at age 89. Denton was a Navy pilot when he was shot down over North Vietnam in July, 1965. In 1966 his captors put him in a propaganda film and didn’t notice that be blinked the message T-O-R-T-U-R-E in Morse Code, alerting the US to the harsh treatment of prisoners in the notorious Hanoi Hilton prison. Denton was awarded the Navy Cross for his blinks and went on to become the first Republican senator from Alabama since Reconstruction after the Civil War.

Sizemology: A Japanese business daily reports that Apple is preparing to release a larger model iPhone in the fall. It will come in a 5-inch version. That makes it bigger than the iPhone 5S and 5C, but smaller than an iPad mini, which is much bigger than the iPod Shuffle that’s only a third the size of the iPod Nano.

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