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With so much attention given to the violent bombings in Boston, Virginia Tech is remembering a terrible tragedy of its own today. It's been six years since shooter Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and injured 17 on the Virginia Tech campus, and then shot himself to death. Today, his victims are being remembered in a series of events.

In the chaos and mayhem that followed the Boston Marathon bombing, many people were frantic to learn the fate of friends and loved ones who were either in the race or watched it from the sidelines.

There was a 7 percent surge in housing starts last month, the Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development report.

As The Associated Press notes, the pace of construction — 1.04 million starts, at an annual rate — is the fastest in nearly five years and is another sign that the housing sector continues to recover from its 2007-08 crash.

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

There's been a strong earthquake, with an estimated magnitude of 7.8, in southeastern Iran near the border with Pakistan, the U.S. Geological Survey reports.

The temblor was centered about 53 miles east southeast of the small city of Khash. According to USGS, it was about 9.4 miles deep.

Good morning, here are our early stories:

-- Boston Marathon Explosions: Latest Developments.

-- NPR.org Hacked; 'Syrian Electronic Army' Takes Credit.

-- Strong Earthquake Shakes Iran, Near Pakistan Border.

Boston hospitals always staff up their emergency rooms on Marathon Day to care for runners with cramps, dehydration and the occasional heart attack.

But Monday, those hospitals suddenly found themselves with more than 100 traumatized patients — many of them with the kinds of injuries seen more often on a battlefield than a marathon.

Like most big-city hospitals these days, Tufts Medical Center runs regular disaster drills, featuring simulated patients smeared with fake blood.

The Two-Way, NPR.org and some of NPR's Twitter accounts were hacked late Monday by an organization that's said to support Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime, as this statement from NPR reports:

In a case considered pivotal to the future of science and medicine, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court seemed skeptical Monday about a claim that human genes can be patented.

Contending that genes can be patented are the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, which see patents as the keys to new scientific exploration. On the other side are doctors, patients and many scientists, who see gene patents as an attempt to monopolize and block future exploration in the new universe of genetics.

Even as the shock and horror of the deadly explosions at the Boston Marathon had yet to subside Monday, people were turning to online tools to check on the safety of their friends and family who were at the event. The latest estimates of the casualties include more than 3 dozen people injured, with two dead.

As has been the case in previous calamities, Google and the Red Cross helped to connect people with runners, spectators, and volunteers who were at the race.

Here are several tools that came into use today:

During a short statement to the country, President Obama promised to find out who perpetrated a bombing attack at the Boston Marathon this afternoon.

"We still do not know who did this or why," Obama said. "And people shouldn't jump to conclusions before we have all the facts. But make no mistake — we will get to the bottom of this. And we will find out who did this; we'll find out why they did this. Any responsible individuals, any responsible groups will feel the full weight of justice."

Obama also offered Boston the full support of the American government.

Monday's explosions in Boston have led to heightened security elsewhere, with New York, Washington and Los Angeles among the cities taking action within hours of the blasts.

"We're stepping up security at hotels and other prominent locations in the city through deployment of the NYPD's critical response vehicles until more about the explosion is learned," Paul J. Browne, the deputy commissioner of the New York Police Department, .

Once every decade, the literary magazine Granta publishes an issue called "Best of Young British Novelists," with short excerpts from the novels of 20 emerging authors. In the past, the list of names has proved unusually prescient, with authors such as Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis and Zadie Smith featured before they were widely read.

People near the finish line of the Boston Marathon described horrific scenes of the chaos that followed two loud explosions in quick succession this afternoon, sending spectators rushing away from the scene in panic as others lay bloodied and wounded on the ground.

One witness, Aaron Michael told member station WGBH that he heard first one explosion and then another.