The shootings, separated by a thousand miles, underscore an amazing question for the whole country: How can America put so many children at risk of death by gunfire?

More broadly, the shooting underscores two fundamentally different views of the uneasy truce that has held in southern Lebanon for the past two weeks.

Monday's brutal shooting of a Salvadoran human rights leader underscores the persistent threat of right-wing death squads, and the courage needed to defy them.

Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said the shooting underscored the need for greater gun control efforts in the schools and community.

The shooting underscores the danger that employees of small stores face in tough neighborhoods, particularly during odd hours.

But the shooting in Cite Soleil underscored how the general enthusiasm for the new force appears to be waning as signs of arbitrary behavior by officers have increased.

Sterling Johnson, special narcotics prosecutor, said the shooting underscored the ruthless violence of gangs that sell crack.

Mr. Colville said the shootings further underscored the need to move the Kosovars from camps near the border to new camps in the south and west of Albania.

The shooting underscored the dangers in undercover buy-and-bust operations, which are a staple of police efforts to crack down on the illegal drug trade.

Advocates of abortion rights say the shooting underscores the need for passage of a bill now pending in Congress that would make it a Federal crime to obstruct entrance to a clinic.