CAJON PASS >> A semi-truck crashed heading up the hill Sunday, spilling fuel and causing multiple freeway lanes to be closed for most of the day.

The crash happened just before 7 a.m. on the northbound 15 Freeway about two miles south of Oak Hill Road, according to California Highway Patrol dispatch logs. Officials at the CHP’s Victorville office could not be reached by phone.

The big rig, carrying 20,000 pounds of electronics, rolled down the side of the freeway and spilt about 150 gallons of fuel, according to the CHP logs.

A San Bernardino County Fire Department dispatch supervisor said the truck driver escaped serious injury.

The CHP laid cones, closing the three right lanes of the five-lane freeway, according to the agency’s logs, as a hazmat crew attempted to clean the fuel spill and tow-truck drivers rescued the semi.

The lanes were expected to be closed until midnight.

The USC film student in a Hyundai that was struck by a Metro Expo Line train near campus Saturday after he turned his vehicle onto the tracks remained in critical condition Sunday morning while the train’s operator was released from the hospital Saturday, authorities said.

Full service was restored on the Expo Line tracks Sunday morning.

The collision occurred at the intersection of Exposition Boulevard and USC Watt Way shortly before 11 a.m. Saturday, police said. The three-car Metro Expo Line train was traveling eastbound when the 2013 Hyundai Sonata, traveling in the same direction, made a left turn at USC Watt Way and was hit by the train, said Sgt. N. Vargas of Los Angeles Police Department’s South Traffic Division.

The crash derailed the first two cars of the light-rail train and destroyed the silver Hyundai. The train, knocked slightly off its tracks, managed to stay upright.

The film student, who Vargas said was about 31 years old, had to be extricated from the Hyundai he was driving and was clinging to life when he was taken to the hospital, authorities said. A total of 21 people were treated for injuries, including 10 that were taken to area hospitals. Of those 10, eight were commuters on the train that sustained minor injuries, authorities said.

The train’s operator, who sustained serious injuries and was identified as Kenneth Goss, was treated at the hospital Saturday and released.

“He was home last night with his family — a little shaken up but he was home,” said Jose Ubaldo, a Metro spokesman.

Metro supervisor Diljiat Sandhu said it looked like the car’s driver was trying to turn left at a grade crossing and didn’t see the approaching train.

The train, which collided with the car at a traffic signal between USC and the Museum of Natural History, was removed overnight and taken to Metro’s Long Beach yard, Ubaldo said. Full service on both tracks of the Expo line was restored after 5 a.m. Sunday, he said.

LAPD’s South Traffic Division is investigating the incident with help from other LAPD officials, the L.A. Sheriff’s Department, University of Southern California Department of Public Safety and Metro, police said in a statement.

Metro was also conducting its own investigation into the incident as is standard procedure, Ubaldo said.

City News Service and the AP contributed to this report.

VATICAN CITY >> Pope Francis opened solemn Holy Week services with Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square, stressing humility and remembering the dead in the Germanwings crash.

At the end of Mass outside St. Peter’s Basilica for some 70,000 faithful, Francis prayed for those who died in Tuesday’s crash in the French Alps, noting there was a group of German schoolchildren aboard the aircraft. The disaster killed 150 people, including the co-pilot who investigators say deliberately slammed the plane into the mountain.

Francis clutched a palm frond during the traditional procession at the service’s start. In keeping with the simple tone of his two-year-old papacy, Francis leaned on a plain wooden pastoral staff instead of a traditionally more ornate one as he stood under a red canopy on the basilica steps.

He wore bright red vestments to recall Jesus’ death by crucifixion. In his homily, Francis stressed humility, another quality that has marked his papal style.

He hailed those who quietly ignore their own needs to serve others, and paid tribute to Christians who endure with dignity humiliation, discrimination and even persecution for their faith.

Many of the faithful, holding olive branches as symbols of peace, are among pilgrims who have poured into Rome for Holy Week appearances by Francis.

On Friday evening, the pope will preside over a Way of the Cross service at the Colosseum. On Easter Sunday he will celebrate mid-morning Mass in St. Peter’s Square, and then give a blessing from the basilica’s central balcony.

LOS ANGELES >> A three-car Metro Expo Line train smashed into a car turning onto the tracks Saturday in front of the University of Southern California, seriously injuring the operator and leaving the driver of the car close to death. Nineteen passengers escaped with minor injuries.

The eastbound train slammed into the car just before 11 a.m. when the driver tried to make a left turn across the tracks running down the middle of Exposition Boulevard, police said.

The crash derailed the first two cars of the light-rail train and obliterated the silver Hyundai. The train, knocked slightly off its tracks, somehow managed to stay upright.

“We had to use the Jaws of Life to extricate the driver, and we transported him to a local hospital,” Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Daniel Curry said at the scene. “He was in extremely critical condition.”

Neither the operator of the train nor the driver of the car have been publicly identified.

Throughout the morning, Los Angeles firefighters attended to the stream of passengers filing off the stricken train. Of the 19 to suffer mostly cuts and bruises, eight were taken to nearby hospitals.

“They are still triaging patients from the train; it’s still uncertain the condition of the driver of the car,” said Ramon Montenegro, a spokesman for the sheriff’s Transport Policing Division, early in the day.

Metro spokesman Jose Ubaldo said the car and train were heading east, with the train running down the center of Exposition Boulevard when the car swung a left turn toward a USC side street that dead-ends into a campus parking lot. It was struck by the nose of the train.

The train hit the car at a traffic signal between USC and the Museum of Natural History at 934 Exposition Blvd., where it was knocked slightly off its tracks near Vermont Avenue, according to witnesses.

Metro supervisor Diljiat Sandhu said it looked like the car’s driver was trying to turn left at a grade crossing and didn’t see the approaching train. What was left of the vehicle was still partly wedged onto the tracks Saturday afternoon.

Drivers attempting to make such left turns are normally regulated by a left-turn arrow and flashing alarms for approaching trains, which encounter signals to stop if cars turn across the grade crossing.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the signals flashed before the crash.

After the collision, a photo shot from a USC office building across the street and posted on the Internet showed a crushed car on the westbound tracks at the Watt Drive signal. The eastbound train rested on the tracks linking Culver City to downtown Los Angeles.

Metro cars are designed to be pulled or pushed from the front or back. The wrecked train was being pulled, officials said, with the train operator perched in the front of the leading car.

Expo Line service in both directions was cut, and firefighters were warned about a half-hour after the crash that the train line’s overhead power supply could not be immediately cut off. The train’s electric arms had been retracted, but firefighters were warned that low voltage batteries might still be a hazard.

Police shut down several blocks of Exposition Boulevard while the Metro crews worked to remove the train.

While service through the area was suspended, Sandhu said the transit agency formerly known as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority was providing shuttle buses to get riders around the wreck. A “bus bridge” was set up to ferry Expo Line passengers between the Expo/23rd stop and the Expo/Vermont station, Montenegro said.

Metro spokesman Ubaldo said the agency was working to restore rail service by Saturday evening. That’s when an estimated 90,000 people were expected to fill the stands of the nearby Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to watch a sold-out soccer game.

The train was back up and running by 3:30 p.m. up to the Exposition Park station, according to news reports. The full line was to reopen by 8 p.m.

City News Service and the Associated Press contributed to this report

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. >> Derryl Cousins, a major league umpire from 1979 to 2012 and an alumnus of El Segundo High School and El Camino College, was recently arrested for drunk driving here.

According to the written police report, Cousins was pulled over by Scottsdale Police Officer Kevin Reynolds on March 18 at 2:22 a.m. He was driving about 10 mph below the posted speed limit at the time, drifting over a lane divider on eastbound Indian School Road in downtown Scottsdale.

Cousins, 68, hadn’t been driving long. He claimed to have had “about four drinks” at Karsen’s Grill, only a few blocks from the site of the arrest.

Cousins was given a handheld portable breath test prior to being arrested and booked on suspicion of driving under the influence. His blood alcohol count registered a .220.

According to Reynolds’ report, Cousins was polite throughout the process.

“I’m a law-abiding citizen, I’ve just been drinking too much,” he said, according to the report.

At the booking station, Cousins was given two more breath tests on an Intoxilyzer 8000 machine. His blood-alcohol count registered a .223 and .231, high enough to be charged with a misdemeanor for “Extreme DUI” under Arizona state law.

Cousins was released when he paid $2,000 bail. According to Sgt. Ben Hoster, the public information supervisor for the City of Scottsdale, Cousins will be assigned a future date in court.

Cousins currently lives in Las Vegas according to the booking report.

UPLAND >> At least three people, including two pregnant women, were injured in a multi-vehicle crash involving a jack-knifed tractor trailer on the eastbound 10 Freeway at Mountain Avenue Wednesday morning, according to the California Highway Patrol.

• Video: Big rig crash backs up traffic for miles

The crash was reported just after 7:30 a.m. prompting authorities to issue a SigAlert for the area, according to the CHP incident log. Traffic was backed up for miles on both sides of the freeway.

• PHOTOS: 3 injured in Montclair crash

Several paramedic units were requested for injured motorists, however it appeared most of the injuries were minor.

All but one lane of the freeway, including the carpool lane, were blocked for about two hours as CHP officers and rescue personnel tended to the crash. There were reports drivers were using the right-hand emergency lane to get around the large collision.

Traffic was backed up to Fairplex in Pomona as well as to the Ontario area on the westbound lanes of the freeway.

WASHINGTON >> The Associated Press has learned that two Americans presumed to have died in the plane crash in the southern French Alps include a U.S. government contractor and her daughter.

The mother was identified as Yvonne Selke of Nokesville, Virginia, a longtime and highly regarded employee of Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. in Washington, and her grown daughter, whose name was not immediately available. Selke worked with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s satellite mapping office, according to a person close to the family. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because this person was not authorized to release information to reporters.

A person who answered the phone at Selke’s home said the family was not providing any information.

A Booz Allen spokeswoman declined to comment, noting that Germanwings had not yet disclosed identities of the crash 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.

• Photos: Passenger jet carrying 150 people crashes in the French Alps

“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 “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.

“It’s impossible to believe that they all won’t be there anymore in the coming days,” he said.

Crisis counselors were at the school soon after the crash.

“I think many haven’t really grasped what happened, and I think the grief will come a bit later for many,” counselor Ingo Janzen said.

“The town is totally silent, nothing is happening anymore in town, everyone is like petrified,” said resident Gerd Schwarz, 64.

The town of 38,000 lies about 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of the plane’s destination, Duesseldorf.

Officials confirmed that the school group was among the 150 people on board the plane. Among the victims were also two opera singers, business travelers en route to a trade fair in Cologne and two babies.

A total of 67 Germans, many Spaniards, two Australians, and one person each from the Netherlands, Turkey, and Denmark were among the victims, according to their respective governments.

Spanish authorities were still trying to determine how many of their citizens were on board. The Mexican government said there were indications that one Mexican national was also among the victims.

The German students and their teachers spent a week in Llinars del Valles and were seen off at the town’s train station early Tuesday by their Spanish host families, said Pere Grive, the deputy mayor of the town of 9,000, about a 45-minute drive from Barcelona.

German and Spanish students from the two towns have been doing such exchanges for at least 15 years. The Spanish students had spent time in Germany in December.

“We are completely shattered and the students are also devastated,” Grive told The Associated Press.

In Haltern, the high school was going to be kept open Wednesday but no classes were planned.

“There will be an opportunity for the students to talk about the terrible event,” Klimpel said.

Also among the passengers were two German singers who had been in Barcelona to perform in Richard Wagner’s “Siegfried” at the city’s Gran Teatre del Liceu — Duesseldorf-born contralto Maria Radner and bass baritone Oleg Bryjak, who was born in Kazakhstan but had been a member since 1996 of the ensemble at Duesseldorf’s Deutsche Oper am Rhein opera house.

“We have lost a great performer and a great person in Oleg Bryjak. We are stunned,” said Christoph Meyer, director of Deutsche Oper am Rhein.

Radner took the Germanwings flight with her husband and baby, Liceu director of communications Joan Corbera said. He added that the theater’s employees will hold two minutes of silence on Wednesday in the singers’ honor.

Also traveling on the plane with her baby was Marina Bandres, who came from Jaca in the Spanish Pyrenees and lived in Britain, Jaca Mayor Victor Barrio said. Bandres had been attending a funeral in Jaca for a relative.

Business travelers included Carles Milla, the managing director for a small Spanish food machinery company, his office said, adding that he had been on his way to a food technology fair in Cologne. Two employees of Barcelona’s trade fair organization were also on the flight.

Catalonia’s regional leader, Artur Mas, said the government would arrange transportation for families who want to view the crash site but did not say when the visit would take place.

At Barcelona airport, passenger Marcel Hemmeldr said he felt “very strange” to check in for Germanwings’ evening flight to Duesseldorf.

“The people were standing at the same place where we’re standing now … now they’re not there anymore. So it’s a strange feeling, a really strange feeling,” he said. “I feel sorry for everybody in Germany. All the people there who have lost some family members.”

Dorothee Thiesing and Martin Meissner in Haltern, David Rising and Geir Moulson in Berlin, Jorge Sainz and Ciaran Giles in Madrid, Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, and Mike Corder in The Hague contributed to this report.

SANTA ANA >> Charges were filed Tuesday against four people accused in a dine-and-dash at an Anaheim-area restaurant that ended with a waitress getting run over in the parking lot as they drove off.

Rowshaid Cordell Pellum, 24, of Cerritos, was charged with aggravated assault and hit-and-run with injury, both felonies, and a misdemeanor count of defrauding an innkeeper. Co-defendants Santeea Munay Ralph, 23, Shyteice Lashay Miles, 19, and Markeisha Michelle Williams, 18, all of Long Beach, were each charged with a misdemeanor count of defrauding an innkeeper.

Pellum faces up to four years and eight months in prison if convicted, while the women would face up to six months in jail.

Pellum and Ralph were scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon. Arraignment for the other two defendants has yet to be scheduled.

The hit-and-run occurred at 6:22 p.m. Sunday at the Mexico Lindo restaurant in the 10900 block of Magnolia Street. The four patrons left without paying, prompting their 28-year-old server to follow them out to the parking lot to confront them, sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Hallock said.

As the suspects drove away in a black Volkswagen Jetta, the waitress was struck by the sedan and knocked down, he said.

Maria Uriostegui, a mother of two, was taken to an area hospital with what Hallock described as “minor to moderate” injuries.

Uriostegui told reporters after being released from the hospital that she had a feeling the group was going to walk out on their bill.

“When they got there, there was just something that — I just had a feeling that something was not going to work out at the end of them having lunch,” she said. “And I kept kind of a close eye on them because I just had that sense. And yes, they just walked out and I went to tell them, ‘I’m sorry you guys forgot to pay your bill.’ They, the four of them, turned around, looked at me, laughed and just kept walking to their car.”

She said she was hoping to jot down the license plate number, but the car had no plates.

About 1 a.m. Monday, deputies patrolling in the Stanton area saw a black Volkswagen sedan in the parking lot of a Motel 6 in the 7400 block of Katella Avenue, Hallock said.

“It was just great police work, a great observation on their part” to spot the Jetta, he said.

Deputies talked to the motel manager, and the residents connected to the Jetta matched the victim’s descriptions of the suspects, who were arrested without incident, Hallock said.