A brief look at the stories making headlines in the Russian-language press

For one child, death looks like a black building with a yellow roof; for another it is a bearded face flanked by the Grim Reaper with a scythe; and a third sees it as a gym packed with masked men.

The main building of the historic Bolshoi Theater will close on July 1 for a long-anticipated reconstruction.

Former President Leonid Kuchma cut short a vacation at a Czech spa to return to Kiev after the death of a close ally, former Interior Minister Yury Kravchenko, and he joined other one-time colleagues to bid a final farewell at a funeral this week.

The presidents of Estonia and Lithuania have refused invitations to attend May ceremonies in Moscow celebrating the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Two policemen were killed in a clash with gunmen who were carrying a detailed hit list of law enforcement officers in Dagestan, police said Monday.

Authorities have seized three Chechen rebels who were planning a large attack on a regional administration building, the military said Tuesday.

90,000 Women MOSCOW (MT) -- Some 90,000 women serve in the armed forces, and they mostly serve as doctors and communications officers, the Defense Ministry said on International Women's Day on Tuesday. That means women account for 7.5 percent of the 1.2 million people in the military. ""I express gratitude to all women who are engaged in sometimes difficult military service,"" Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said in Saturday's issue of the military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda, or Red Star. In his congratulations, published on the paper's front page, he also said, ""Like nature, a woman is before all a source of new life, love and kindness."" 4 Women Killed MOSCOW (MT) -- The bodies of four women who had been stabbed to death were found Tuesday in an apartment in southwestern Moscow, Interfax reported. The bodies were found at 16 Ulitsa Kedrova at around 1 p.m., the city prosecutor's office told Interfax.

Representatives of an independent commission investigating alleged corruption in the United Nations oil-for-food program in Iraq wrapped up six days of meetings Saturday with Russian officials, the Foreign Ministry said.