Midday Roundup: Students killed in fiery California bus crash

Highway tragedy. A FedEx tractor-trailer slammed into a bus carrying 44 high school students on a Northern California freeway Thursday afternoon, leaving 10 people dead in a fiery crash. The students came from a number of Southern California high schools and were on their way to visit Humboldt State University in a three-bus convoy. The university coordinated the trip to bring prospective students to tour its campus in Arcata, Calif. The crash happened a little after 5:30 p.m. on Interstate 5 near Orland, a small city about 100 miles north of Sacramento. The drivers of both the bus and the FedEx truck were among those killed.

Public confession. Pope Francis asked for forgiveness today from people who were sexually abused by priests, and vowed the church will not waver in its fight to protect children. Francis made the off-the-cuff remarks to members of the International Catholic Child Bureau, a French Catholic network of organizations that protects children’s rights. Francis said he felt “called to take it upon myself” and “ask forgiveness” for the evil that some priests had committed against children. “The church is aware of this damage,” Vatican Radio quoted him as saying. “We don’t want to take a step back in dealing with this problem and the sanctions that must be imposed. On the contrary, I think we must be even stronger. You don’t play around with the lives of children.”

Seat change. Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown hopes to befuture New Hampshire Sen. Scott Brown. Brown, a Republican, announced his candidacy last night at an event in Portsmouth, N.H. In 2010, Brown won a special election in Massachusetts before losing his seat to Democrat Elizabeth Warren two years later. He lived in New Hampshire as a baby and frequently visited his grandparents there while growing up. Moving to another state to make a Senate run is not unprecedented; Robert Kennedy and Hillary Clinton both did it successfully.

Comedy kings. Stephen Colbert will replace David Letterman as host of CBS’s The Late Show when Letterman retires in 2015. Colbert hosts a mock news show on Comedy Central in which he plays a satire version of a conservative commentator. Colbert reportedly will ditch the character for The Late Show, which will compete with The Tonight Show and its new host, Jimmy Fallon. Colbert and Fallon have had an on-again-off-again mock feud since 2011, when Fallon got his own Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavor. Their fake fighting expanded when they received Emmy nominations in the same category. During Thursday night’s monologue on The Tonight Show, Fallon quipped that the upcoming war for late night’s top talk show spot wouldn’t be a war at all, but rather a dance-off.

The Associated Press and Mary Reichard contributed to this report.