Turkish families bury miners as toll rises to 283

SOMA, Turkey (AP) - Turkish women sang improvised laments about the departed over freshly dug graves today, even as backhoes carved row upon row of graves into the dirt and hearses lined up outside the cemetery with more victims of Turkey's worst mining disaster. Rescue teams recovered another nine victims, raising the death toll to 283, with scores of people still unaccounted for, according to government figures. The disaster Tuesday has set off protests around Turkey and thrown Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's presidential ambitions off stride. Blackening his reputation further, one of Erdogan's aides was seen kicking a protester held on the ground by armed police.