Loss and grief in the news today

For Poland, plane crash in Russia rips open old wounds

The plane went down in fog carrying the Polish president and first lady aboard, among other leading figures in Poland.

It was, in a sense, a nation colliding with its past: The aircraft ran aground on a patch of earth that has symbolized the Soviet-era repressions that shaped much of the 20th century, near the remote Russian forest glade called Katyn where thousands of Polish prisoners of war were killed and dumped in unmarked graves by Soviet secret police in 1940.

The toll cut a swath through Poland's elite. The 97 dead included the army chief of staff, the head of the National Security Office, the national bank president, the deputy foreign minister, the deputy parliament speaker, the civil rights commissioner and other members of parliament.

Also aboard the plane were war veterans and surviving family members of Poles killed by the Soviets. There was 90-year-old Ryszard Kaczorowski, Poland's last "president-in-exile" during the Soviet years. And Anna Walentynowicz, the shipyard worker whose dismissal in 1980 sparked the Solidarity union protests that eventually led to the collapse of Polish communism and made the symbolic first chink in the Berlin Wall.

And here in the US:

Mine Area Mourning After Missing Bodies Found

Search crews at the Upper Big Branch Coal mine discovered early Saturday the bodies of four missing miners from Monday's devastating explosion.

They started bringing out miners' bodies two at a time in ambulances past the state troopers' salute, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Axelrod.

"We did not receive the miracle that we prayed for," West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin said to reporters just after midnight, confirming that slim hope had turned to no hope for the four missing miners. "We have accounted for four miners that have been unaccounted for. We have a total of 29 brave miners we are recovering at this time."

The miners died in what appeared to be a methane gas explosion a thousand feet underground and several miles into the sprawling mine.

My thoughts and prayers go to the people affected by these terrible tragedies.