Nine-year-old Antonia Candelaria, who died along with six other children when Monday’s twister tore through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, was due to be buried at a local church.

Her funeral is the first of three due to be held in the next two days for children who drowned at Plaza Towers, which was directly hit by the storm.

In total, 24 people were killed and as many as 13,000 homes damaged or destroyed.

“She was a beautiful young lady on the inside and out,” said an obituary for Antonia published in The Oklahoman newspaper. “She had her own most special and beautiful way of looking at the world. She could find the positive, good and joy in everything.”

Read the rest of the story here. 

Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said his office will seek to have the teen certified as an adult.

Ricardo Portillo, 46, was refereeing a youth soccer match on April 27 when he called a foul against the 17-year-old goalie. After issuing the goalie a yellow card, the teen responded by punching Portillo “in the rear jaw area with a closed fist,” according to court documents.

Witnesses told police Portillo was struck in the face as he was writing notes about the yellow card he had just issued.

Doctors at Intermountain Medical Center later told investigators that Portillo suffered a traumatic brain injury, court records state.

Portillo remained in a coma for a week before he died. An autopsy determined he died “as a result of injuries related to the blow to his head,” according to court records.

When my grandmother died last week, I struggled with how to tell Adi about it. Our pediatrician said that kids don’t understand the permanence of death until they’re six or seven, but I felt I owed Adi some kind of explanation as to why someone who used to play with her, someone who Adi knew was in her family, wasn’t there anymore.

This wasn’t the first time someone in the family has died since Adi was born. My mother in law died only six months ago — but she lived in Colorado. While Adi had met her and knew of her existence, her absence didn’t register. At Adi’s age, airplane rides are more exciting than anyone we might see when we land. I explained her death to Adi more as an explanation as to why my husband was crying. Even then I didn’t really mention death, just that daddy was sad because he couldn’t see or talk to someone he loved anymore.

But the death of my grandmother, Adi’s great-grandmother,  isn’t just my loss, it’s Adi’s loss too. The explanation I ended up giving was that great-grandma had to go to heaven and that even though we couldn’t go to her house and see her anymore doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you.

This explanation worked until a couple of days ago, when we took Adi to the zoo. We used to have a pet degu (it’s like a large Chilean mouse) that Adi liked. When it died of old age, I gave Adi a similar explanation. The degu had to go to heaven but he loves you. The zoo happened to have degus and even though our degu died months ago, Adi noticed them and was very happy to see “her degu” again. Since I told Adi that the degu went to heaven, she is now under the impression that heaven is the Mouse House at the Bronx Zoo. I hope she isn’t expecting to see my grandmother running around in an enclosure next time we go.

To add to the confusion, since we’re Jewish, I had to explain why my mom’s house was packed with people bringing food, why the rabbi kept talking, and why everything was happening all at once. Jews do things quickly. It’s only one week later and  everything all finished and it’s back to business as usual. Adi had a very overwhelming and very over-stimulating week. It’s been a challenge to get her back on her normal schedule.

At two, Adi isn’t going to remember this in the long term. There’s no need to scare her about death.

Adi also hasn’t been to the cemetery yet. She’s been there before, when we all went on the anniversary of my grandfather’s death, but she was only an infant when he passed and doesn’t remember him. To her the cemetery visit was just a bunch of people standing around staring at a gray square of concrete with a name on it. She actually spent most of her time there trying to steal the stuff people left as mementos on other graves. There were a lot of golf balls. I tried to return them all.

Apologies to any of our dearly departed who were left with the wrong golf ball. It’s hard to tell a toddler who just sat through a long car ride that she can’t play with a bunch of balls laying around on the ground.

When I do take her to the cemetery I’m not sure what I’m going to tell her. Maybe something along the lines of “this is where we can go to remember great-grandma”? Great-grandma is in that hole now and she’s not coming out is probably not a good thing to say. I’ll figure it out I guess.

P.S. My grandmother, Sarah Vortreflich Samith, was amazing. She was a chicken farmer turned union organizer turned stock market expert. She played blackjack, could hold her scotch better than you, and didn’t take crap from anyone. RIP.

Rachel Figueroa-Levin is a soapmaker, cofounder and educator at Urban Babywearing, a hyperlocal Inwood blogger and organizer, a political/life/religion/parenting satirist, and all around trouble maker.  She is also the creator of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Spanish-speaking alter ego @elbloombito.  You can reach her via twitter @Jewyorican. 

The controversy follows a widely published photo showing Ahmadinejad embracing Chavez’s mother at the funeral of the late Venezuelan president.

Iranian papers on Tuesday cited clerics from the religious center of Qom who described the contact as “forbidden” and inappropriate behavior and “clowning around.”

Iran’s strict Islamic codes prohibit physical contact between unrelated members of the opposite sex.

The conservative clerics also condemned Ahmadinejad’s condolence letter to Venezuelans in which he called Chavez a “martyr” who will be resurrected and who will return to Earth along with Jesus Christ and Imam Mahdi, a 9th century saint revered by Shiite Muslims.

In Venezuela, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other world leaders arrived in Caracas for president Hugo Chavez’s funeral. The Iranian president said he will greatly miss the charismatic leader. Also, Venezuelan officials announced that Hugo Chavez’s body will be embalmed and displayed at a military museum after his funeral. Acting President Nicolas Maduro is expected to take office on Friday after the funeral comes to an end. In Mexico, authorities arrested a babysitter and her ex-boyfriend for the murder of a two year-old American kid in Puerto Vallarta. The couple is accused of raping and drowning the toddler in the family’s vacation home.

The funeral at a military academy where Chavez has been lying in state began with Venezuela’s national youth orchestra singing the national anthem, led by famed conductor Gustavo Dudamel. A government-allied congressman later belted out cowboy songs from Chavez’s native Barinas state.

The streets outside took on a carnival atmosphere, with military bands launching into marches and an expanse of supporters wearing the red of Chavez’s socialist party. Street vendors sold paper replicas of the presidential sash, which many people in the line slipped over their shoulder.

Throngs watched the ceremony on huge monitors under the blazing sun, with some complaining of a lack of bottled water and bathroom facilities. A line to see Chavez’s body stretched 1 ½ miles (2 kilometers), was halted as the funeral got under way.

In the funeral hall, more than 30 political leaders including Cuba’s Raul Castro and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stood at attention before Chavez’s flag-draped coffin. Many of them were welcomed by Nicolas Maduro, the vice president who will later be sworn in as interim president. The glass-topped coffin, which has been open since Wednesday, was shut for the funeral.

U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks, a New York Democrat, and former Rep. William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts, represented the United States, which Chavez often railed against even as he sold the country billions of dollars in oil each year. The Rev. Jesse Jackson was called on to speak, and television cameras also captured Hollywood star Sean Penn in attendance.

“It is a great pain for us because we have lost a friend,” Ahmadinejad said upon his arrival at the airport overnight. “I feel like I have lost myself, but I am sure that he still lives. Chavez will never die. His spirit and soul live on in each of our hearts.”

Venezuela announced Thursday that it would embalm Chavez’s body and put it on permanent display, a decision that touched off strong passions on both sides of this deeply divided country, which Chavez ruled for 14 years before succumbing to cancer on Tuesday, at the age of 58.

RELATED: Venezuela’s exiles have been good for South Florida’s economy

Most of the normally traffic-choked streets of Caracas were empty, with schools and many businesses shuttered. The government also prohibited alcohol sales. Many Venezuelans, particularly Chavez supporters, said they were caught up in the pomp and circumstance of the past few days, and flattered to be the subject of world’s attention.

“This is historic …I have never seen anything like it,” said Edila Ojeda, a 57-year-old janitor. “He was a world leader recognized internationally. I am speechless. It is impressive.”

Others said they were put off by what they saw as excess, particularly the plan to put Chavez’s body on display.

“He was a president, and I would say not a good one. Not a hero,” said Gloria Ocampos, a retired office manager. “He should be buried, just like any other president. They are treating him like he was the father of the country … It’s crazy.”

The government gave national and international media no direct access to the funeral, a measure of the strict control with which Chavez and his top lieutenants have controlled the country for years. On Thursday, Foreign Minister Elias Jaua appealed to local media not to publish critical political analyses “which could be a provocation for a pained people.”

Following the funeral, National Assembly Speaker Diosdado Cabello was to swear in Maduro as interim president, as Chavez desired, despite complaints by the opposition that Cabello is the rightful holder of that post under the constitution. Cabello announced that the swearing-in will be held at the same military academy complex where Chavez’s body is lying in state. Normally, presidents in Venezuela are sworn in at the National Assembly.

In announcing the opposition boycott, spokesman Angel Medina said that Maduro’s ascension is “a violation of the constitutional order.”

“Venezuelans should walk along the path of constitutionality. Today, more than ever we reject that they use the name of the president of the republic, who today is being buried, for political ends,” he said. Critics believe Venezuela’s 1999 charter stipulates that the speaker of the National Assembly take power in the event of a presidential death.

The constitution says elections must be held within 30 days of Chavez’s March 5 death, though the government has not set a date. Maduro has announced he will be the candidate of Chavez’s ruling socialist party against likely opposition candidate Henrique Capriles, and many expect him to ride the wave of emotion following Chavez’s death to victory.

RELATED: No moment of silence for Hugo Chavez before Mets-Venezuela game either

Friday’s funeral promises a climax to three days of ceremony that have followed Chavez’s death, and Venezuelan media were filled with commentary about the outsized place the late leader held on the world stage. Jaua said countries from Cuba to China to Iran had declared days of national mourning for Chavez, highly unusual for the leader of another country.

For many Chavez supporters, and the political insiders he left behind, the task ahead will be continuing the president’s political movement beyond his death.

Maduro announced Thursday that the late president’s body will be embalmed and forever displayed inside a glass tomb at a military museum not far from the presidential palace from which he ruled. Analysts said the perpetual display was meant to keep Chavez’s power structure alive, long after his death at age 58.

“Nicolas Maduro and his government are building an aura that makes it very difficult, I would say, that in the future, the opposition tries to promote an alternative to the government,” said Oscar Valles, a political analyst at the Metropolitan University in Caracas.

Heart-broken supporters were clearly in favor of the effort.

“We must think about the future and how we are going to guarantee the continuity of the revolution,” said Rolando Tarazon, a street vendor who was waiting with his wife to see Chavez’s body lying in state at the military academy late Thursday.

Chavez was particularly beloved by the poor, whose lot he championed. But critics say he left his successors a monumental task, with inflation of more than 20 percent a year, and public debt quadrupling to more than $100 billion. Crime is endemic and Chavez’s chaotic management style has been blamed for a breakdown in infrastructure, particularly in the key oil industry.

Yet for some lined up to see Chavez’s body early Friday, the road ahead meant keeping the late leader’s legacy alive.

“Chavez, we swear to you, we’ll vote for Maduro!” they chanted.

RELATED: Venezuelans in U.S. react to Chavez’s death, while a nation awaits an uncertain future

Thousands of mourners lined up outside the military academy where Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez lay in state to pay their respects. The U.S. is expected to send a delegation to the state funeral planned for Friday. And in Mexico, some are outraged over the cost of President Enrique Peña Nieto’s official photo –$29,000.  In Brazil, a famous soccer player accused of ordering his pregnant girlfriend’s brutal killing faces sentencing today. Bruno Fernandes admitted during the trial he knew about the killing but he denies ordering it. The people in the Falkland Islands are getting ready for this Sunday’s referendum on whether they would like to remain British. the vote comes at a time when relations between Argentina and Britain have worsened over the territory.

Did a 15-year-old’s death really strike a chord nationally because she had, a week before, been to our nation’s capital performing at the inauguration festivities? No, that wasn’t it — nor did her story hit a nerve because of where she died.

The typical woe of victims in the rough parts of town is that their stories don’t get reported in as much detail as those who die in a nicer parts — the neighborhoods that, when people are frightened, have the clout to make those in power listen to their demands that something to be done to quell the violence.

But Hadiya was gunned down in a tough neighborhood — one about a mile from the Chicago home of Barack Obama, a president who has yet to acknowledge publicly that his hometown has gotten an international reputation for being a “Murder City.” The city recorded 550 homicides between January 2012 and the end of last month, so many that most of them have just become footnotes to Chicago’s interminable murder spree.

Obama’s South Side neighbors have pleaded with the president to come back and call for national action on inner-city violence. Yet their pleas have been ignored ever since last summer, when the city reached the milestone of having had more homicide victims through the first six months of the year than the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan in the same time period.

Also notable in the tale of this most recent child tragedy is that the teenager didn’t rocket to post-mortem attention because of the perennial complaint that victims of gun violence are only acknowledged when large numbers of them are killed by a single gunman. Hadiya was the only child to die after a gunman shot into a crowd of 12 students.

Now, you could make the argument that the national heartbreak was due to the same reason that seems to sort some victims of tragedy into the media spotlight, while leaving others in anonymity: beauty. As one Chicago newspaper put it: “City’s ugly violence now has a pretty face.”

But that’s only partially right. The rest of it is that Hadiya was as close to being as innocent as you can get.

Media accounts tell of a girl who had no brushes with the law or gang affiliations and was an honor-roll student attending a selective-enrollment college prep school. She was an athlete and a majorette in the school’s marching band, and a girl with dreams of a profession after getting in and making it through an elite university.

In short, she was the kind of bright child any one of us would be proud to parent or mentor, and it hurts to think of her getting shot in the back and dying in the middle of the street.

These are not bad impulses. They’re quite human and they’re the ones credited with turning the horror of the Newtown, Conn., school shootings into a rallying cry that mustered the political courage to look for measures that would prevent such a horror from ever happening again.

Unfortunately, those instincts won’t get us far enough in stemming the violence that rips struggling communities apart every day.

Until our hearts start aching for every disadvantaged at-risk child who becomes a victim to senseless violence — whether perfectly virtuous or not — our aspirations for safe communities will be sure to fall short.

Far too many of us have become too accepting of the steady stream of gun-related violence that happens in “bad neighborhoods,” “somewhere else” or only to “bad people.” It’s time to start believing that a harm to the least of us is every bit as tragic as a harm to the rest of us.

Esther Cepeda is syndicated columnist and an NBC Latino Contributor.

“Today our family loses a treasure: a son, brother, uncle and exceptional human being. Due to the indiscriminate use of arms paired with the irrationality of fear, we lost our beloved Rodrigo Díaz,” said older brother David Esteban Díaz during a Spanish-language funeral mass celebrated Thursday at Our Lady of the Americas Catholic Church in Lilburn, Georgia.

The family of Rodrigo Díaz pleaded to President Barack Obama and authorities to take action against violence. (Photo by Edgar Zúñiga)

“We join thousands of families [victims of gun violence]. Today was our Rodrigo’s turn, a happy and peaceful kid, who had to pay with his life the mistake of going to the wrong address instead of receiving simple guidance… we beg our president and other competent authorities to initiate urgent and efficient action so no more innocents die at the hands of people who use guns indiscriminately,” said Díaz during the mass reading a statement on behalf of his entire family.

Scores of friends hugged and comforted Díaz’s family as they shed tears before and after the funeral mass, which was filled with prayer, song, and a euology by Díaz’s girlfriend, Angie Rebolledo, fighting back tears.

Díaz told NBC Latino he’s “disappointed [Sailors] is out on bond because you can’t just shoot and ask questions later. Call police. They say he had no record. My brother didn’t either.”

Family and friends are planning a peaceful protest when Sailors appears in court.  A date is not currently set.

Díaz’s father, also named Rodrigo Díaz, told NBC Latino in Spanish that they fled the violence that plagued their native Colombia years ago adding he never thought a son of his would die at the hands of a gun in this country. Díaz Sr. said that despite this “I profoundly thank this country for opening its door to us and my son’s death does not change my respect for it.” Díaz Sr. said his son was a “wonderful person, full of life, intelligent, with many dreams and projects. He lived a happy life.”