Jury selection in Boston Marathon bombing trial halted till Thursday

BOSTON (Reuters) - Jury selection for the trial of the accused Boston Marathon bomber will be postponed until Thursday due to the blizzard pounding the city, court officials said on Tuesday. A massive winter storm has dropped more than 14 inches (36 centimeters) of snow on Boston, with up to another foot of accumulation expected over the course of the day, according to the National Weather Service. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 21, is accused of killing three people and injuring 264 with a pair of homemade pressure-cooker bombs in the April 15, 2013, attack, as well as shooting dead a police officer three days later as he tried to flee the city. He faces the possibility of execution if convicted of the largest mass-casualty attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. Jury selection began at U.S. District Court in Boston three weeks ago, with the court planning to review some 1,350 candidates as it tries to find a panel of 12 jurors and six alternates. The death penalty is controversial in Massachusetts and extensively publicity regarding the attacks has made seat a jury challenging. (Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Doina Chiacu)