Massacre

Polish troops stood at attention here yesterday as soil from the mass graves in Katyn Forest, where Soviet secret police massacred World War II Polish officers, was reburied at Warsaw's tomb of the unknown soldier. About 1,000 people watched the ceremony. An official delegation brought two small urns of the soil from Katyn to Warsaw. The other urn is to be placed in a war heroes' cemetery at Powazki, near the capital. For several months Poland and its state-controlled media have openly spoken of how the Soviet secret service killed the 4,500 officers in the spring of 1940.

BERLIN - Prosecutors in Germany said Monday they had shelved their investigation of 17 former German SS soldiers who were part of a unit involved in a Nazi wartime massacre of more than 500 civilians in Italy, because of a lack of evidence. The decision brings to a close a decade-long investigation of the former members of the 16th SS-Panzergrenadier Division "Reichsfuehrer SS," eight of whom are still alive, on allegations that they were involved in the Aug. 12, 1944, killings in the Tuscan village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema.

TRIPOLI, Libya - A leading international prosecutor viewed human bones and charred clothing at the alleged site of a massacre that survivors say was committed by loyalists to Moammar Gadhafi as Libya's capital fell to advancing rebels. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, then pledged to help bring clarity to such unsolved crimes remaining from Libya's civil war. Earlier Wednesday, he said that the court, based in the Hague, Netherlands, would not challenge Libya's right to try Gadhafi's son and onetime heir apparent in his own country and with Libyan judges.

They lay on slabs of ice in the front corridor of the general hospital, lifeless men and boys who only hours before had been on the wrong bus at the wrong time. At first there were 32 of them, so many that the floor was covered with fresh blood. By yesterday afternoon more than half were gone, claimed by relatives for cremation. The wiry corpses were the latest victims of the war raging between militant Sikhs and India's Hindu-dominated central government. They were gunned down Tuesday night - apparently by Sikh terrorists - on two buses just outside this parched market town 150 miles northwest of New Delhi.

OSLO, NORWAY - The chilling images of Anders Behring Breivik simulating shots into the water at the island where he killed 69 people at a youth camp were broadcast around the world yesterday after police took him back there. Restrained by a harness, the Norwegian reconstructed his actions for police in a secret daylong trip back to the crime scene at Utoya island near Oslo. A prosecutor also confirmed Norwegian media reports that police received several phone calls during the attack that were probably from Breivik himself, but wouldn't say how police had reacted to the calls.

If Steven Spielberg had made a fictional movie about the psychological disintegration of a revenge assassin, that would have been fine. Instead, he decided to call this fiction Munich and root it in a real historical event: the 1972 massacre by Palestinian terrorists of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Once you've done that - evoked the actual killing of innocents who but for Palestinian murderers would today be not much older than Spielberg himself - you have an obligation to get the story right.

"I am a student in the Department of Engineering at Harbin Institute of Technology, a survivor of the brutal massacre in Tiananmen Square. " So begins the text of a poster that was being distributed last week at China's Harbin Institute, 675 miles from Beijing. The unsigned narrative was read over the telephone to Jing Zhao, 33, a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. It continues: "In the early morning of June 4, troops forced about 100,000 people into the square and fired on them indiscriminately.

For 42 hours the body of Marc Lepine had lain in the basement morgue, detested by all of Montreal for the carnage he had inflicted upon the city. Now, at 6:45 p.m. on a bitterly cold Friday, it was being transferred to a stretcher, covered with a blanket and placed in the waiting hearse of the Alfred Dallaire funeral home. To disappear, the city hoped, forever. Behind was left a still-incomplete portrait of his life - a pathetic childhood of violent abuse, and later, years of near-success marred by abrupt withdrawals.

Two days after being named to Nepal's throne, King Dipendra died today, a royal official said. The king had been on life support after allegedly shooting himself and most of the royal family. A member of the State Council, a government body that deals with royal affairs, told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity that Dipendra died at an army hospital in Katmandu. Dipendra was accused of going on a shooting spree Friday night that killed eight members of his family.

OSLO, Norway - The right-wing extremist who has admitted killing 77 people in Norway's worst peacetime massacre told a court Monday that he deserves a medal of honor for the bloodshed and demanded to be set free. Anders Behring Breivik, 32, smirked as he was led in to the Oslo district court, handcuffed and dressed in a dark suit, for his last scheduled detention hearing before the trial starts in April. He stretched out his arms in what his lawyer Geir Lippestad called "some kind of right-wing extremist greeting.

CENTENNIAL, Colo. - For James Holmes, "justice is death," prosecutors said Monday in announcing that they will seek his execution if he is convicted in the Colorado movie theater attack that killed 12 people. The decision - disclosed in court just days after prosecutors publicly rejected Holmes' offer to plead guilty if they took the death penalty off the table - elevated the already-sensational case to a new level and could cause it to drag on for years. "It's my determination and my intention that in this case, for James Eagan Holmes, justice is death," District Attorney George Brauchler said, adding that he had discussed the case with 60 people who lost relatives in the July 20 shooting rampage by a gunman in a gas mask and body armor during a midnight showing of the latest Batman movie.

DENVER - Prosecutors in the Colorado theater massacre case have rejected an offer from suspect James Holmes to plead guilty in exchange for avoiding the death penalty, saying the proposal can't be considered genuine because the defense has repeatedly refused to give them information needed to evaluate it. No plea agreement exists, prosecutors said in a scathing court document Thursday, and one "is extremely unlikely based on the present information available...

SEATTLE - An Army staff sergeant accused of massacring Afghan civilians must undergo an official sanity review before a mental health defense can be presented, the military judge overseeing the case said Thursday. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales deferred entering a plea Thursday at Joint Base Lewis-McChord to 16 counts of premeditated murder and other charges related to a nighttime attack on two villages last March. The Army is seeking the death penalty. But the judge, Col. Jeffery Nance, took up arguments over whether Bales can present a mental health defense or testimony from mental health experts, given that he has not yet participated in a "sanity board" review.

WHAT DOES IT TAKE to take down a killer ex-slave? A chainsaw. Movie-studio estimates Sunday show the horror sequel "Texas Chainsaw 3-D" at No. 1 with a $23-million debut. The follow-up to 1974's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" has masked killer Leatherface on the loose again. Quentin Tarantino 's revenge saga "Django Unchained" held on at No. 2 for a second-straight weekend with $20.1 million, raising its domestic total to $106.4 million. After three weekends at No. 1, part one of Peter Jackson 's "The Hobbit" trilogy slipped to third with $17.5 million.

LOS ANGELES - It might not be as well-known to some moviegoers as "Friday the 13th," "Nightmare on Elm Street" or "Saw," but "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" ranks high among the most revered titles in the horror genre. The 1974 serial killer story by Tobe Hooper sent five friends into the clutches of the Sawyer family, a clan of rural cannibals. Although the film's central villain, the power tool-wielding Leatherface, lived on in sequels and a 2003 remake, the series has lain dormant since 2006's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.

HARTFORD, Conn. - A New York City woman tried to scam donors by posing as the aunt of a child killed in the Connecticut elementary school massacre, federal authorities said Thursday. Nouel Alba, 37, was arrested Thursday and accused of using her Facebook account, telephone calls and text messages to seek donations for what she called a "funeral fund. " She told one donor that she had to enter the scene of the mass shooting in Newtown to identify her nephew, according to the criminal complaint.

HARTFORD, Conn. - A New York City woman tried to scam donors by posing as the aunt of a child killed in the Connecticut school massacre, federal authorities said Thursday. Nouel Alba, 37, was arrested Thursday and accused of using her Facebook account, telephone calls, and text messages to seek donations for what she called a "funeral fund. " She told one donor that she had to enter the scene of the mass shooting in Newtown to identify her nephew, according to the criminal complaint.

NEWTOWN, Conn. - People around the world are grieving with the residents of Newtown over the murders of 26 schoolchildren and staff, offering their support by sending toys, money, and other gifts. An outpouring of tens of thousands of teddy bears, Barbie dolls, soccer balls, board games, and more has come from toy stores, organizations, and individuals worldwide. "It's their way of grieving. They say, 'I feel so bad, I just want to do something to reach out,' " said Bobbi Veach, who was helping Saturday at Edmond Town Hall, where all of Newtown's children were invited to choose a toy. After the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre Dec. 14, victims were still being buried Saturday.

FROM SMALL TOWNS to the White House, proposals for gun-control laws have exploded since last week's massacre in Newtown, Conn. But in Philadelphia - where gun violence takes a more devastating toll than in any other major U.S. city - officials have few ways to deal with the issue other than making speeches. In 2008, Mayor Nutter signed a package of laws that included a ban on assault weapons and other measures to combat straw purchasers. But those laws, still on the books, barely have seen the light of day, because, under Pennsylvania law, the power to regulate gun ownership resides in Harrisburg.

SOMETHING IS wrong with me. I've yet to weep for the victims of the Newtown massacre. And I usually cry at everything. Just ask my co-workers. But I didn't feel a thing when I heard the father of 6-year-old Emilie Parker describe how his softhearted little girl had loved to make greeting cards for those having a bad day. I barely blinked when I read that tiny Charlotte Bacon died wearing her new pink dress and boots. I couldn't squeeze out a lone tear for sweet-voiced Ana Marquez-Greene, who sings "Come, Thou Almighty King" in a family video that is going viral.