- Associated Press
Va. Tech officials to explain in court
RICHMOND, Va. - The hours leading to the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history and the actions of Virginia Tech administrators will be replayed in a Christiansburg courtroom when the parents of two students slain in the April 2007 massacre press their legal effort to hold school officials accountable.
During the trial that begins Monday, attorney Robert Hall said he would call Tech's president, Charles Steger, and other top university officials to explain their actions the day 33 were killed on the Blacksburg campus, including the gunman. Hall said the parents wanted an apology for what he called the university's botched efforts after the first two killings occurred. He said he had new evidence that revealed further missteps.
The state is the lone defendant in the case. The trial is likely to last a week.
- Associated Press
9/11 families ask rules on remains
NEW YORK - Families of Sept. 11 victims on Sunday called for congressional hearings to establish federal protocols on how to handle human remains after disasters such as the terrorist acts that took thousands of lives in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.
At a news conference near the Sept. 11 memorial, family members spoke days after Pentagon officials revealed that partial remains of several victims were incinerated by a military contractor and sent to a landfill.
The families said they opposed a plan to place unidentified human remains of the New York victims in an underground repository of bedrock they say "desecrates" the memory of their loved ones.
Instead, they would like to see the remains encased in a tomb above ground as part of the memorial.
The Sept. 11 memorial was dedicated on the 10th anniversary of the attacks last September. Work on the planned museum has ground to a halt because of a financial dispute. - Associated Press
Elsewhere:
Passengers on United Continental Holdings Inc. flights over the weekend faced delays and long telephone waits as United swallowed up Continental's operations, but the company says more flights were on time Sunday than Saturday. The company combined passenger reservations data, including frequent-flier accounts, from the two airlines early Saturday.
