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• At St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Newtown, a service for first-grader James Mattioli had not concluded when mourners began arriving for the funeral of little Jessica Rekos, the first of eight to be held in the coming days at the church. Several more sets of funerals and visitation hours were set throughout town Wednesday.
• Students went back to classes the day before, except for those at Sandy Hook Elementary, where a lone gunman armed with a military-style assault rifle slaughtered the children, six adults and himself by the time Friday's massacre ended. He also killed his mother at her home.
• Pupils at Sandy Hook, which serves kindergarten through fourth grade, will resume classes in a formerly shuttered school in a neighboring community after the winter break, the Connecticut Post reported.
• "It's definitely better than just sitting at home watching the news," sophomore Tate Schwab said outside Newtown High School. "It really hasn't sunk in yet. It feels to me like it hasn't happened."
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• ANTAKYA, Turkey (AP) -- Syrian rebels are closely monitoring the regime's chemical weapons sites but don't have the means to seize and secure them, their newly elected military commander told The Associated Press.
• Gen. Salim Idris, who defected from the Syrian army in July, said he is "very afraid" a cornered Syrian President Bashar Assad will unleash such weapons on his own people.
• Syria is said to have one of the world's largest chemical arsenals. Earlier this week, Syria's U.N. ambassador said the regime would not use such weapons under any circumstances. However, recent U.S. intelligence reports indicated the regime may be readying chemical weapons and could be desperate enough to use them.
• Idris, a 55-year-old German-trained electronics professor, was chosen earlier this month as chief of staff by several hundred commanders of rebel units meeting in Turkey.
• With the election of Idris and a 30-member military command center, Syria's opposition hopes to transform largely autonomous groups of fighters into a unified force. The reorganization came after Syria's political opposition won international recognition this month as the sole representative of the Syrian people.
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