Midday Roundup: Germanwings co-pilot had practiced deadly maneuver

New crash details. French investigators said today that Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz practiced a controlled descent on an earlier flight the day he caused a deadly plane crash. En routed from Dusseldorf, Germany, to Barcelona, Spain, on March 24, Lubitz deliberately put the plane into a descent five times in 4 1/2 minutes while the pilot was out of the cockpit, investigators said. On the return flight, he locked out the pilot and descended until the plane crashed into a mountain, killing himself and 149 people. Investigators are still working to identify systemic problems that contributed to the crash, potentially including cockpit security and medical confidentiality rules.

Self-discipline. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said today she asked the Justice Department to investigate city police for civil rights abuses. In the wake of the citywide outcry following the death of Freddie Gray, who was injured in police custody, Rawlings-Blake said she personally asked U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to step in. The investigation will look for patterns of rights violations of minority groups by police.

Budget blueprint. The Senate on Tuesday adopted a GOP spending plan that would gut Obamacare and put the country on a path to a balanced budget. The nonbinding resolution sets the stage for battles later this year over concrete spending bills. It promises to cut domestic agencies and spending programs like Medicaid, food stamps, transportation, and student aid. But Republicans don’t plan to adhere to most of those cuts in follow-up legislation. President Barack Obama is sure to veto any bill that drastically cuts health care and other domestic programs.

Rescue app. A woman whose boyfriend held her children and her hostage used Pizza Hut’s smartphone app to call for help. Ethan Nickerson is accused of holding Cheryl Treadway and her three young children at knifepoint in Highlands County, Fla., on Monday. Treadway convinced her captor to let her order a pizza for the kids and included the message “911hostage help!” in her online request. Pizza Hut alerted police, who went to the address and rescued the family. “I've been with the company for 28 years, and I’ve never seen nothing like that, ever,” Pizza Hut Manager Candy Hamilton told ABC News today. “We didn’t even question it, we immediately called 911.”

Merry, but less bright? The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) may turn out to be the Grinch that regulated Christmas lights. The CPSC released a new report that deemed Christmas lights dangerous. The ruling identifies some Christmas decorations as a substantial product hazard because of things like minimum wire size, sufficient strain relief, or overcurrent protection. The agency reported that more than 250 people have been killed by Christmas decorations since 1980.

WORLD Radio’s Kristen Eicher and The Associated Press contributed to this report.