BEIRUT

Journalist escapes violence that claims more lives in Syria

A wounded British photographer. Paul Conroy, who had been trapped in the besieged Syrian city of Homs was spirited safely into Lebanon on Tuesday in a risky journey that killed 13 rebels who helped him escape the relentless shelling and gunfire.

Meanwhile, a Syrian diplomat stormed out of an emergency U.N. meeting amid renewed calls for a cease-fire to deliver humanitarian aid. A top human rights official said a U.N. panel’s report concluded that members of the Damascus regime were responsible for “crimes against humanity.”

The United Nations said the death toll in the 11-month uprising against authoritarian President Bashar Assad was well over 7,500, and activists reported more than 250 dead in the past two days alone.

Tunisia’s president offered the Syrian leader asylum as part of a negotiated peace, an offer Assad will almost surely refuse.

WASHINGTON

Report: Some 9/11 victims’ remains ended up in landfill

Partial remains of several 9/11 victims were incinerated by a military contractor and sent to a landfill, a government report said Tuesday in the latest of a series of revelations about the Pentagon’s main mortuary for the war dead.

The surprise disclosure was mentioned only briefly, with little detail, in a report by an independent panel that studied underlying management flaws at Dover Air Force Base mortuary in Maryland. A 2011 probe found “gross mismanagement” there, but until Tuesday there had been no mention of Dover’s role in handling 9/11 victims’ remains.

Air Force leaders, asked about the 9/11 matter at a news conference, said they had been unaware of it until the head of the independent panel, retired Army Gen. John Abizaid, held a Pentagon news conference Tuesday to explain his panel’s findings.

NAIROBI, Kenya

Helicopters bring supplies to disabled cruise ship

Helicopters ferried food, phones and flashlights Tuesday to more than 1,000 passengers and crew stuck aboard a disabled cruise ship that was being towed to the Seychelles Islands through waters prowled by pirates.

The stricken liner, the Costa Allegra, a sister ship of the cruise liner that capsized off Italy last month, is expected to reach the tropical paradise on Thursday.