Air Crash: A German Airbus passenger plane with 150 people on board crashed today in a remote and mountainous area of southern France. The flight bound for Düsseldorf was operated by Germanwings, a discount subsidiary of Lufthansa.

German news agencies are reporting that among the passengers were 16 school children and their teachers.

The cause of the accident is not known but radar revealed the A320 went into a steep descent before disappearing.

The plane had reached an altitude of 38,000 feet about 40 minutes out of Barcelona when it went off the radar. Authorities say the plane went down so abruptly, and hit in such rough terrain in the French Alps, they doubt there are any survivors. Reaching the wreckage may be very difficult.

The Folo: Police in Charlottesville, Va. say they are unable to confirm the occurrence of a gang rape at the University of Virginia described last fall in a disputed article published in Rolling Stone Magazine. Until it was discredited, the article fed a fury about rape on college campuses.

Chief Timothy Longo said his investigators were unable to find or even identify the young man said to have lured a student named “Jackie” into a gang rape at the Phi Kappa Psi back in 2012. Neither did they find evidence that a party had taken place that night at the fraternity as the article said. Jackie refused to cooperate with the police.

After the article called “A Rape on Campus” was published last November, several inconsistencies were revealed, casting doubt on the whole tale. Rolling Stone is expected within weeks to publish an external review of the story commissioned through the Columbia Journalism Review.

The Supremes: The Court yesterday declined to hear a case challenging Wisconsin’s voter identification law that many of its opponents say discourages voting by racial minorities, the elderly, and the disabled who are less likely to have government identification.

Republicans across the country have demanded stricter voting laws … they say it’s to cut down on fraud, although there’s almost no detectable voter fraud. Similar laws are under challenge in other states and the Supreme Court may ultimately have to consider them.

Yemen: The US has pulled out all its remaining personnel and about 100 special operations troops on the brink of a developing civil war. The government is squaring off against Shiite Houthi rebels. Yemen has been a valuable US base for strikes against al Qaeda and other terror groups training and operating out of the country.

So Sorry: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has apologized for his election day comment that Arab voters were turning out in “droves” threatening the conservative vote. “I know that my comments last week offended some Israeli citizens and offended members of the Israeli Arab community,” Netanyahu said. “This was never my intent.”

Mob Justice: Twenty-six people have been arrested in the killing of an Afghan woman falsely accused of burning pages from the Quran. The woman named Farkhunda was beaten to death and thrown off a bridge before her body was burned and thrown in a river. Farkhunda had been criticizing the practices of a local Mullah before he shouted out the accusation and a mob fell on her.

Against Afghan tradition, her coffin was carried to her grave by women.

Civilization: Utah’s governor Gary Herbert yesterday signed a new law allowing the use of a firing squad for an execution if lethal drugs are not available, even if it is “a little bit gruesome.”

Angelina: Actress Angelina Jolie revealed in today’s NY Times that two years after having both breasts removed to prevent genetic cancer, she has had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed as well as a safety measure against the cancer that killed her mother, grandmother and aunt. The operation puts the 39-year-old into early menopause. Describing the moment she knew what she was facing, Jolie said, “The beautiful thing about such moments in life is that there is so much clarity. You know what you live for and what matters.”

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