Burials

There are 36 Presidents buried in 17 states and Washington, D.C. Richard Nixon is the only one buried in California. Although seven of them have presidential libraries, only five of them are buried there. A chronological review of Presidents, through Nixon, and particulars about their gravesites: Number of Presidents Buried by State More Presidents are buried in Virginia, New York and Ohio than any other state. A quick look at where presidents are buried, and how many there are, by state.

Not too long ago, my siblings scattered my mother's ashes in woods near the family house of more than 50 years. Two years earlier, she had scattered my father's ashes over the same ground. A friend aptly put it, "You've just advanced to third base. " The event got me thinking about whether cremation would be what I want when I die. Given my utter rejection of organized religion and faith itself, would it matter? My mother used to say in her pragmatic way, "Once you are dead, the body is of no significance; let efficiency be your guide.

Coroner's investigators unearthed skeletal remains Wednesday from a shallow grave in Canyon Country, where the man who killed the wife of Los Lobos singer Cesar Rosas had led authorities. Forensic experts said they will conduct an autopsy and compare dental records today to determine whether the bones are those of Sandra Rosas, who was murdered by her half-brother Gabriel Gomez.

Angry protests against Afghan President Hamid Karzai erupted Friday at the burial of his government's chief peace negotiator, who was killed this week by a suicide bomber posing as a Taliban envoy. The daylong funeral observances for Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former president, brought Afghanistan's capital to a near-standstill, with some of the heaviest security in recent memory. Police and soldiers in armored vehicles patrolled the streets, checkpoints dotted major boulevards and traffic circles, and a large part of central Kabul was blocked to all but foot traffic.

An Iranian lawmaker vowed today to examine allegations that dozens of unidentified people killed in the recent post-election unrest were secretly buried in the country's largest cemetery last month. The reformist website Norooznews.org on Friday cited an unnamed employee of the capital's Behesht Zahra cemetery as saying that 44 unidentified corpses were buried under heavy security July 12 and 15. Majid Nasirpour, a reformist lawmaker who serves on parliament's Social Affairs Committee, filed a request for an inquiry into the mass burial allegation, the website Parlemannews.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has agreed to return the remains of about 1,702 American Indians to tribal elders for proper burials. The agreement marks one of the largest repatriations of Indian remains under a 1990 federal law. University chancellor James Moeser agreed Tuesday to return the remains within 30 days and also to erect a memorial and set aside an area where the bones of Indians were burned and their ashes scattered between 1965 and 1967, the Associated Press reported.

The stricken Italian town of Sarno prepared to bury today dozens of residents killed in the mudslides that have submerged swaths of the south. Most of the 116 people known to have died in the disaster came from the town, as did the 22-year-old man found alive Friday after three days neck-deep in rubble. "The most beautiful thing is to be alive," Roberto Robustelli told Italian TV on Saturday from his hospital bed, his bloodied and bruised face swaddled in bandages.

Funeral arrangements for Anna Nicole Smith are under way, but she won't be buried until at least Tuesday, said Richard Milstein. Milstein was appointed to make decisions for Smith's next of kin, her 5-month-old daughter Dannielynn. On Thursday, Broward Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin gave Milstein the right to choose Smith's burial site. Milstein chose to bury Smith next to her son in Nassau, Bahamas. Smith died of still undetermined causes Feb.

Fireworks exploded over the mining town of Butte as the body of motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel arrived for a funeral expected to draw thousands. Knievel will be remembered in a service today as his hometown celebrates the life of the legendary stuntman who sped motorcycles over the local mine dumps as a boy. Knievel died Nov. 30 in Clearwater, Fla. He was 69.

BACKGROUND: On Thanksgiving View looked at the life of Marine Sgt. Joseph Trujillo, of Deming, N.M., who was 20 when a land mine exploded near him in Vietnam. He was listed as missing in action until November, when his remains were repatriated and identified--and loved ones made plans to bury him. UPDATE: Joseph Trujillo was buried on Friday at Arlington National Cemetery. Although 26 years had passed since he disappeared, the pain of his death was fresh for those whose lives he touched.

The century-old Buddhist temple is for sale. The asking price for its gilded columns and marble stairs is $1.1 million. But the cost to a blighted corner of this city and to the area's Japanese American community is not as easily estimated. Indeed, during this Obon season — when Buddhists remember the dead — the decision to abandon the landmark Fresno Betsuin Buddhist Temple balances two basic tenets of the faith: honoring ancestors and accepting the impermanence of all things.

The Rev. Michael Wenning, the retired senior pastor of Bel Air Presbyterian Church who presided at former President Reagan's 2004 burial service in Simi Valley, died Tuesday at his home in Mission Viejo, one week before his 76th birthday. The cause was leukemia and kidney failure, said his wife of 54 years, Freda. From 1995 to 2001, Wenning led Bel Air Presbyterian Church, where former President Reagan and his wife, Nancy, had worshiped for years. The pastor also made regular visits to Reagan's home and Century City office when the former president, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, stopped appearing in public.

A proposal to replace 835 oak, sycamore and walnut trees with 199,000 new interment spaces at a prominent Hollywood Hills cemetery near Griffith Park is at the heart of a controversy over the future of what little remains of the Los Angeles area's undeveloped wildlife habitat. Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks & Mortuaries wants to develop 120 acres of its grounds because its existing expanse of carefully manicured lawns has nearly run out of room for interments in grassy havens with names like "Ascending Dawn" and "Vale of Hope.

Reporting from San Diego -- To the tearful joy of military family members and the admiration of civilian onlookers, the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson returned to San Diego on Wednesday after a seven-month deployment that included the at-sea burial of Osama bin Laden. "It's like watching a piece of history float by," said Nicole Palazzolo, 29, of Port Huron, Mich., as she watched from San Diego's Harbor Island. "Those guys and girls, they're the real deal. If you don't believe me, ask Bin Laden.

Within hours of the raid on Osama bin Laden's Pakistani compound, the CIA had used 21st century technology to get "a virtually 100% DNA match" on the dead man. But something out of another century may come back to haunt Washington: the Al Qaeda leader's burial at sea. Conspiracy theorists on both the left and right were quick to insist that Bin Laden was either still alive or had been dead for years, pouncing on the government's decision to...

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson was sent to start  the air assault to topple the Taliban government in Afghanistan and bring Osama bin Laden to justice. Starting Oct. 7, 2001, the carrier launched 4,000 combat sorties, playing a key role in removing the Taliban grip on the Afghan capital, Kabul. Now the Vinson, whose home port is now San Diego, has played another significant role in the Afghanistan war: as the platform from which Bin Laden's body was buried at sea. The burial, Navy officials said, followed Muslim custom, with the body washed and placed in a white sheet.

Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop relinquished his claim on a burial at Arlington National Cemetery but also lashed out at Republicans who questioned whether he deserved the honor. President Clinton had granted an exemption in 1994 to allow Koop to be buried at Arlington.

The six adult children of singer James Brown have agreed with his partner, Tomi Rae Hynie, on where the entertainer will be buried, an attorney for the woman said Tuesday. Hynie's attorney, Robert Rosen, said the resting place was being kept confidential at the request of Brown's children. Rosen said the burial could take place in the "next few days." Brown died Christmas Day at age 73. His body is being kept in a confidential location, said Charles Reid, manager of the C.A.

Rosaleen Tallon kissed her three children good night and went to sleep feeling at peace. The terrorist responsible for the death of her brother, New York firefighter Sean Patrick Tallon, was dead. Her two boys and her little girl had been assured that the "bad man" behind the attacks that claimed their uncle was gone. But when Tallon awoke Monday to the news that Osama bin Laden had been buried at sea, she was stunned. That was one corpse she would like to have seen for herself, Tallon said, her fiery words underscoring the change this suburban science teacher has undergone in the last decade.

"The past is never dead. It's not even past," William Faulkner wrote in 1951, two years after winning the Nobel Prize for literature. It's one of his best-known lines, but I don't think I ever truly understood it until I came to Oxford. For more than three decades, since I first read "As I Lay Dying" as a high school senior, I regarded such a sentiment as a key to Faulkner's writing — which continues to resonate because it comes drenched in history, in the interplay of the past and present, the bitter weight of heritage, the understanding that we cannot be cut free of our roots — without quite realizing that it was also a key to his life . Without quite realizing, in other words, the extent to which it has to do with Oxford, the college town 85 miles southeast of Memphis where Faulkner was raised and where he lived and died and where he is buried, and where, beginning with his third novel, "Sartoris" (1929)