Like many decisions involving the site of the nation's worst terrorist attack, the disposition of the unidentified remains has been contentious.

A group of victims' family members who say the remains should be stored in an above-ground monument separate from the museum protested the procession. About a dozen wore black bands over their mouths at the site Saturday.

"It's horrible. I am so angry. I am so angry. I am outraged," said Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son was killed at the trade center.

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A flag-draped casket is lifted out of a police vehicle during the ceremonial transfer of unidentifie …

"The human remains of my son and all of the 3,000 victims should be in a beautiful and respectful memorial, not in the basement of a museum," she said.

Rosemary Cain, who also lost her firefighter son at the trade center, was also upset about the transfer.

"I don't know how much of him is down here; if it's one little inch, I want it treated respectfully," she said. "I want it above ground. I don't want it to be part of a museum. I don't want it to be part of a freak show."

Other family members support the plans, which have been in the works for years. Lisa Vukaj, who lost her 26-year-old brother, said the new home for the remains is "a fitting place until technology advances" and new techniques are available to identify their loved ones.

Vukaj, who got emotional as the flag-draped caskets were taken inside the center, said she didn't like that some victims' relatives turned what should have been a solemn event into "a political thing."

"Just come in, pay your respects, be here, have your emotions and don't make it political," she said.

Uniformed officers from the New York Police Department and Fire Department of New York and the Port Authority police carried the three caskets into the repository.

The facility will be available for family visits but will be overseen by the medical examiner. Officials hope that improvements in technology will eventually lead to the identification of the 7,930 fragmentary remains.

The death toll stemming from the attacks at the World Trade Center stands at 2,753. Of those, 1,115, or 41 percent, have not been identified.

Monica Iken-Murphy, whose husband was a bond broker in the North Tower, said she hopes his remains will eventually be identified.

"Every year they identify someone," she said. "Last year they identified a male and female in their 40s. I could be next, and I'm optimistic that he could be one of those. Even if he isn't, I feel he is home. This is where he took his last breath, his last step. This is where he lost his life."

The unidentified remains arrived in three city vehicles accompanied by police and fire department officials.
Contentious decision

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DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) — Residents in eastern Ukraine formed long queues at polling stations Sunday to cast their votes in hastily organized independence referendums, defying the central government which called the ballots illegal and funded by neighboring Russia.

The votes seek approval for declaring so-called sovereign people's republics in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where pro-Russian insurgents have seized government buildings and clashed with police and Ukrainian troops over the past month.

Ukraine's interim president warned that independence for eastern regions would destroy the country's economy. "This is a step into the abyss for the regions," Oleksandr Turchynov said in comments posted on the presidential website Saturday.

Polling stations opened at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) and were due to close at 10 p.m. (1900 GMT). There were reports of sporadic clashes, but the situation remained calm in most of the sprawling regions with a population of 6.5 million and referendum organizers said they expected a high turnout.

Insurgents in the city of Slovyansk, which has seen some of the most violent clashes between pro-Russian militants and government forces in recent weeks, exchanged fire with Ukrainian troops on the outskirts of the city overnight. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said an army soldier was wounded in a mortar shelling.

The port city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov also has remained on edge after Friday's clashes, in which at least seven died. Long lines of voters were seen in the city's streets.

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A masked pro Russia man is seen atop an APC flying a Russian flag, top, and a Donetsk People's R …

The Ukrainian government and the West have accused Russia of fomenting or even directing the unrest in the east, with the goal of destabilizing Ukraine or finding a pretext for invasion. Russia has rejected the accusations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had asked the referendums' organizers to delay the vote as he bargained with Western powers on conditions for defusing the worst crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the Cold War. The insurgents, however, have refused to heed his call.

"For us, the most important thing to show the legitimacy of the referendum is the amount of people who will vote," said Denis Pushilin, leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic. "But for now, we're waiting for the official reaction, particularly from our brothers in Russia."

Election organizers said more than 30 percent of voters cast ballots in the first three hours of voting, but with no international oversight mission in attendance, confirming such claims is likely to be all but impossible.

At one polling station in a school in Donetsk, turnout was brisk in the first hour of voting. All voting slips that could be seen in the clear ballot boxes showed that the option for autonomy had been selected.

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Local residents cast their ballots at a polling station in Luhansk, Ukraine, on Sunday May 11, 2014. …

Although election officials in Donetsk have said they are certain that turnout will be high, it seems likely that most of those opposed to autonomy will decline to participate.

Darya, a 25-year old medical worker who refused to give her last name, said she saw no reason to cast ballot as the vote had no legal force anyway.

"There were no notices about this referendum anywhere, about where and when it was happening," she said while walking her dachshund. "In any case, it is not valid, so there was no reason to take part."

Many of those who did vote said they hoped the ballot would help stabilize the situation.

"I just don't have the words to express what is happening in our country," said Liliya Bragina, 65. "I have come so that there will be stability, so that there will be peace."

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A police station is ablaze in Mariupol, eastern Ukraine, Friday May 9, 2014. Fighting between govern …

The haphazard nature of the referendums was in full display at Spartak, a leafy village on the northern fringes of Donetsk.

Villagers were unable to vote for about three hours after polls opened as election officials had failed to bring in the ballot box.

After some arguing between local people and the head of the village council, an election organizer arrived with a voting urn crudely fashioned from cardboard boxes and sealed with tape. Outside the polling station, set up in a village club, one local man complained volubly over the quality of the ballot box as cows basked in the bright sunshine.

Most present said they were voting in favor of autonomy and against the interim government. One said she would not take part in a nation-wide presidential election set for May 25.

"I don't agree with what is happening in the country. And I want some changes for the better. What is happening on May 25 is not honest, truthful or for our best interests. And that is why I am voting today," said Irina Zelyonova, 30, cradling her baby in her arms.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev attend a Victory Day para …

The hastily arranged ballots are similar to the March referendum in Crimea that approved secession from Ukraine. Crimea was formally annexed by Russia days later.

But organizers of Sunday's vote have said that only later will a decision be made on whether they would use their nominal sovereignty to seek full independence, absorption by Russia or to stay part of Ukraine but with expanded power for the regions.

Surveys by polling companies have indicated that a significant majority of people in Ukraine reject movements to break away parts of the country.

Turchynov and Ukraine's caretaker government came to power in February following the ouster of Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych after months of protests in Kiev.

Moscow and many in Ukraine's east denounce the new government as a nationalist junta and allege that it intends to trample on the rights of eastern Ukraine's Russian-speakers.

More than 30 people have been reported killed since Ukrainian forces began mounting offensives to retake some eastern cities now under control of the insurgents.

Turchynov's chief of staff, Serhiy Pashynskyi, pledged Sunday that the government would seek to avoid further civilian casualties. "We will not engage in street fights in Slovyansk or elsewhere because that will lead to dozens of unnecessary deaths," he told reporters.

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Mark Rachkevych in Kiev, Ukraine contributed to this report.

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2 Ukraine regions begin 'illegal' vote

Sunday's referendums on sovereignty in eastern Ukraine could be "a step into the abyss," says a leader in Kiev.
U.S. warns of disorder

Outraged Over Benghazi, Silent on Iraq

When I heard that the House of Representatives hasestablished a select committee to investigate the attack on Benghazi that left several Americans dead in 2012, I couldn't help but wonder what these same legislators might have done had Barack Obama been president in 2003, and had the audacity of George W. Bush to attack a sovereign country that had no relevant connection to the 9/11 attacks with the result that nearly 5,000 Americans and well over 100,000 Iraqi civilians (many of them women and children) perished. Had Obama’s war in Iraq also cost American taxpayers $1.7 trillion, with another $490 in veteran expenses (thus far)—with a total cost of $6 trillion projected—I have no doubt that a select committee would long ago have sent him to the Hague for trial as a war criminal.

It’s sad to think how in our fury over Benghazi we’ve almost forgotten a recent war that destroyed so many families, nearly bankrupted this country (and may yet), and led to a hugely destabilized Iraq that no longer serves as a buffer to Iran. Needless to say, this terrible war was pursued under false pretenses, with huge amounts of government corruption—Houston-based company KBR alone (a spinoff from Halliburton, where Dick Cheney was chairman and CEO before becoming vice president) racked up charges of nearly $40 billion during the war, making it (by far) the winner in the Iraq sweepstakes. In most banana republics, this would be cause for serious investigation; but not so much here, where our politicians (or their friends) are allowed to profit from armed invasions. Can it possibly be so that the U.S. Congress has ignored such obvious corruption while investigating over and over whether Susan Rice was given some edited “talking points” on Benghazi? Really?

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I’ve spent a good deal of time in the Middle East over the years, lecturing at universities in places like Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and Morocco. Soon after the invasion of Iraq, I was staying at a hotel in Amman, when into the hot tub by the pool stepped a tall American with a closely shaved head. He seemed about my age, and we struck up a cheerful conversation. I explained I was in the country at the behest of the Department of State, as a kind of cultural ambassador. He liked this, and told me he was en route to Baghdad. He was a general in the army, a career officer with a specialty in intelligence. I asked him what he thought would come of the Iraq war.

He said, without pausing, that in ten years the U.S. would be out of Iraq, as the American people would never support an expensive war in an obscure country longer than a decade. He was right about that. He guessed that thousands would die. And he was more or less right about that, though his figures were a bit low. He predicted the region would be dangerously destabilized, and that sooner or later Iran would assert control over the Shia majority who would almost certainly take control, repressing the Sunni minority, which Saddam Hussein had led to power. Let’s say he was absolutely on the mark here, as Nouri al-Malaki was hiding from Hussein in Iran before assuming high office in Iraq, where he now has become a kind of dictator, supported strongly by Grand Ayatolla Kazim al Haeri, one of the most influential Shia voices in Iran.

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I remember this general shaking his head bitterly, noting that we had turned Iraq into a magnet for all sorts of dangerous elements, drawing al Qaeda into a region where they had only a minimal presence before the war. He also pointed out that large numbers of Iraqi citizens had been displaced, and that the number would increase. Indeed, some four million Iraqis have been run out of their homes, and these wandering families--he said with a wry smirk--would never become our allies in the region (to put it mildly).

A few days after this conversation in Amman, I was giving a lecture on American poetry at a university on the Iraqi-Jordan border, talking to perhaps 800 students about Robert Frost. Afterwards, a young man came up to me with Frost’s poems in hand. He could recite reams of Frost, Dickinson, Whitman, and Lowell, and he did so while I stood there, amazed. He had just completed a degree, he explained, in American poetry, and I asked him if he were going to become a teacher one day. He said, indeed, it was his fondest hope. “But first,” he said, “I am crossing the border into Iraq, to fight against the American invader.” My jaw dropped. “And why is this?” I wondered. He said, “You must understand that, for my generation, this is like the Spanish Civil War. I must join in the fight for freedom. I must join the equivalent of our Lincoln Brigade.”

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These encounters in Jordan stick with me, a decade later. Now Iraq lies in ruins, and the U.S. has tens of thousands of enemies with a right to their anger. Meanwhile, Americans mourn the loss of so many brothers, fathers, uncles, sisters, mothers. Many veterans lie in hospitals across the nation, dazed and confused. This war that somehow never found its way onto the books continues to drag on our economy. So why haven't we brought Bush and Cheney to Washington to answer some very hard questions under oath? Well, I suppose we've got Benghazi to worry about.

Jay Parini, a novelist, poet, and professor at Middlebury College, most recently published Jesus: The Human Face of God.

No More Mr. Nice Pope

When Pope Francis was elected in March 2013, American nuns who belong to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) were optimistic that they would enjoy a fresh start. The group, which represents 80 percent of American nuns, had been lambasted under Pope Benedict XVI for “pushing radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

Since Francis seemed to be the polar opposite, they had every reason to hope the clampdown would be lifted. After all, in his first six months in office, he managed to tighten the reins on extravagant priests and even seemed to bend on gays in the priesthood. Why not lighten up on the nuns, too?

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But the sisters, it seems, were dead wrong to think they might get a fair shake under Francis. In what is being viewed as an even stronger clampdown, the Vatican has essentially warned the nuns that they must reform their organization and mend their errant ways or risk further scrutiny by the Holy See. In scathing remarks at an April 30 meeting, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, criticized the nuns’ choice of speakers to address their conferences, their leadership awardees, and the lack of spiritual guidance in their work.

And lest anyone assume the strong language was a leftover from Benedict’s days, Müller made sure the nuns knew Francis heartily endorsed the criticism. “What the Holy Father proposes is a vision of religious life and particularly of the role of conferences of major superiors which in many ways is a positive articulation of issues which come across as concerns in the doctrinal assessment,” he said. “I urge you to reread the Holy Father’s remarks and to make them a point of discussion with members of your board as well.”

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What Müller was specifically referring to, among other things, was the LCWR’s choice to honor Sister Elizabeth Johnson with its most prestigious leadership award. A prominent theologian from Fordham University, Johnson has been a thorn in the side of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has criticized her work, including her popular book Quest for the Living God: Mapping the Frontiers in the Theology of God. “It saddens me to learn that you have decided to give the Outstanding Leadership Award during this year’s assembly to a theologian criticized by the bishops of the United States because of the gravity of the doctrinal errors in that theologian’s writings,” Müller told the LCWR. “This is a decision that will be seen as a rather open provocation against the Holy See and the doctrinal assessment. Not only that, but it further alienates the LCWR from the bishops, as well.”

Muller then went on to inform the LCWR that it will be required to get approval from Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, whom Benedict assigned to guide the group through reforms, for almost everything it does that concerns the public. Sartain, he said, would be far more involved in the group’s decisions and daily business from now on. Müller warned the sisters to pay special attention to the LCWR’s annual assembly in August, when new speakers and awardees will be named. “I also understand that plans for this year’s assembly are already at a very advanced stage, and I do not see the need to interrupt them,” he said. “However, following the August assembly, it will be the expectation of the Holy See that Archbishop Sartain have an active role in the discussion about invited speakers and honorees. “

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The LCWR is choosing not to give interviews on the meeting, but it did confirm to the National Catholic Reporter that Müller’s meeting notes were accurate in terms of tone and tenor. In a statement posted on their website, the sisters said, “As articulated in the Cardinal’s statement, these remarks were meant to set a context for the discussion that followed. The actual interaction with Cardinal Müller and his staff was an experience of dialogue that was respectful and engaging.”

In an interview with The Daily Beast before Francis’s election, then LCWR president Sister Florence Deacon said she had high hopes for the new pope. “It is important that we have a leader who appreciates the roles of the laity and of women religious who have accepted its call to renewal and who are committed to building a more just and peaceful world,” she said.

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The clampdown on the nuns began in 2012, when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued its original doctrinal assessment after investigating the organization. Then it chastised the sisters for staying silent on some of the church’s signature issues, including birth control, euthanasia, homosexuality, and the ordination of women. Instead, in their work in schools, hospitals, and centers for the poor, they were just doing what they could to help the population, rather than acting as missionaries for the church. Their silence on the issues was interpreted as an endorsement, which was particularly annoying to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which felt the sisters were undermining the status quo.

According to the doctrinal assessment of the LCWR, the sisters were “moving beyond the Church” and as such, creating “a serious source of scandal” that is incompatible with religious life.

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The nuns’ next trial of faith will be their August assembly, which will be seen as a litmus test for just how seriously they are taking the Vatican’s criticism. Their options will be to get in line with with the bishops and cardinals or break away and form their own group outside the Holy See’s jurisdiction.

Francis, for his part, does not appear flexible on the topic. In several interviews, including one last September with the Jesuit magazine America, he dismissed the idea of women as equals. “I am wary of a solution that can be reduced to a kind of ‘female machismo,’ because a woman has a different make-up than a man. But what I hear about the role of women is often inspired by an ideology of machismo,” he said then. Now it is up to the nuns to flex their muscles or succumb.

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Moscow (AFP) - Victory for Austria's bearded transvestite Conchita Wurst at the Eurovision Song Contest prompted an outpouring of anti-gay anger from Russian politicians and stars on Sunday.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin wrote on Twitter that the Eurovision result "showed supporters of European integration their European future: a bearded girl."

"There's no limit to our outrage. It's the end of Europe. It has turned wild. They don't have men and women any more. They have 'it'," nationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky told Rossiya-1 state television.

"Fifty years ago the Soviet army occupied Austria. We made a mistake in freeing Austria. We should have stayed," added the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, known for his outrageous statements.

Russia's entry, the Tolmachevy Sisters, came seventh.

Russia gave Austria five points -- one more than it awarded Ukraine as the ex-Soviet neighbours are locked in a deadly crisis.

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Tolmachevy Sisters representing Russia perform during the Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final in Cop …

Russia last year adopted a controversial law banning the "propaganda" of homosexuality to minors, prompting condemnation from Western leaders and rights activists. Russia has also banned adoption of Russian children by foreign gay couples.

Popular hip-hop star Timati wrote on his Instagram account that Wurst's victory was the result of a "mental illness of contemporary society".

"I wouldn't like one fine day to have to explain to my child why two guys are kissing or a woman is walking round with a dyed beard and that's supposed to be normal," he said.

But Ukrainian drag act Verka Serduchka, who came second at Eurovision in 2007, strongly backed Wurst.

"To be honest, at the start it did shock me a bit, but when I saw it, I thought: why not? A person wants to express himself," said Andriy Danilko, who performs as Serduchka.

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Austria's Conchita Wurst poses with the trophy after winning the Eurovision Song Contest in Cope …

"We need to be more compassionate. I hate when people are bullied," Danilko told Rossiya-1 television.

"She is kind. Don't be mean to her. She is an eccentric. An eccentric with a beard."

Flamboyant pop star Filipp Kirkorov, producer of Russia's Eurovision entry this year, even suggested Wurst's victory should make Russians reconsider homophobic views.

"Maybe this is a kind of protest against some of our views in Russia. Maybe we should have a think. Maybe we shouldn't have such a categorical attitude to people of different sexual orientations," he told Rossiya-1 television.

"In a way it probably is a challenge from Europe to us, but let's respect the winner. People don't judge a winner," Kirkorov said.