Students return to class amid tight security

Students returned to school in the shattered Connecticut town of Newtown for the first time since a gunman’s rampage killed 26 people in an elementary school, altering the gun control debate in Washington and forcing a retailer to pull guns from shelves.

Sandy Hook Elementary, where 20-year-old Adam Lanza gunned down a score of 6- and 7-year-olds and six adults last Friday, will remain closed. It is an active crime scene, with police coming and going past a line of 26 Christmas trees, one for each victim, decorated with ornaments, stuffed animals and balloons in the school colours of green and white.

When Sandy Hook students go back to school, it will be at the unused Chalk Hill School in nearby Monroe.