Around the world
DESECRATED: Vandals desecrated the grave of movie star Marlene Dietrich, Berlin police said. Dietrich died May 6, 1992, in Paris at age 90 and was buried at Berlin's Fridenau Cemetery at her wish. Monday is her birthday. The movie star turned her back on Nazi Germany in the 1930s and became a U.S. citizen in 1939. She sang for American troops as they fought her countrymen. Many Germans branded her a traitor.
HONG KONG: China will disband Hong Kong's legislature and may scrap any law that runs contrary to the colony's constitution under Chinese rule, officials in Beijing and Hong Kong said Monday. "This is an inevitable outcome of China's recovery of its sovereignty over Hong Kong," a Chinese government spokesman in Beijing said. Citing the colony's provisional constitution - the Basic Law - the spokesman said Hong Kong's legislative assembly and municipal councils would be disbanded after 1997, when the colony reverts to Beijing rule.
TRUCE ENDS: Just 16 minutes after a three-day Christmas truce ended on Monday, the Irish Republican Army launched a mortar bomb attack on a rural police station that injured two people. British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd condemned the attack and warned of a security crackdown against the guerrillas if they failed to endorse an Anglo-Irish peace plan.
Across the nation
ACTOR DIES: Veteran actor Jeff Morrow, whose acting credits range from Shakespeare to cult science fiction films, died Sunday in Los Angeles after a long illness at age 86. Morrow got his start on Broadway, appearing in 23 productions including "Billy Budd" and "Romeo and Juliet." In Hollywood in the 1950s, Morrow appeared in "The Robe" (1953), with Richard Burton and Jean Simmons, in "Captain Lightfoot" (1955) with Rock Hudson, and with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in "Pardners" (1956). Morrow is perhaps best known for his performances in several genre sci-fi films that have achieved cult status.
SIEGE: A man armed with a pistol walked into a Wal-Mart in Macon, Mo., fired a shot into the ceiling and ordered everyone out but his ex-wife. About three hours later, the man handed the gun to the woman and police stormed in. Deryl Eugene Denny, 43, was in custody Monday. The Missouri Highway Patrol said charges were pending. Denny held a 38-year-old Wal-Mart employee near the lay-away department as officers negotiated over a telephone and coaxed him to give the gun to her, police said.