Free Republic

Each year around 50,000 people die in New York, some alone and unseen. Yet death even in such forlorn form can cause a surprising amount of activity. Sometimes, along the way, a life’s secrets are revealed. They found him in the living room, crumpled up on the mottled carpet. The police did. Sniffing a fetid odor, a neighbor had called 911. The apartment was in north-central Queens, in an unassertive building on 79th Street in Jackson Heights. The apartment belonged to a George Bell. He lived alone. Thus the presumption was that the corpse also belonged to George Bell. It...

The sidewalk vendors of Times Square sell cheap metal signs bearing the image of Spider-Man, no doubt unaware that the superhero’s co-creator walks right past them every day, completely unrecognized. Then again, only a handful of people in the world would recognize Steve Ditko, the mysterious 84-year-old artist who, with writer Stan Lee, dreamed up the wall crawler back in 1962. ...When The Post knocked on his door, Ditko — who turns out to be a owlish man with wisps of white hair and ink-stained hands, wearing large black glasses and an unbuttoned white shirt with a white tee beneath...

Reclusive author J.D. Salinger took legal action today over what he says is a copycat of his seminal work, The Catcher in the Rye, the Associated Press reports. Salinger’s lawyers filed suit in Manhattan federal court to recall the book 60 Years Later, thought to be a Catcher sequel by pseudonymous writer John David California. Salinger’s lawyers maintain that he retains sole rights to the Holden Caulfied character, and that in regards to any sequels, Salinger has “decidedly chosen not to exercise that right.”

He's been confined to a wheelchair for 20 years. Now a paraplegic man is walking again. And his doctors call it a miracle. CBS13 went to Manteca to find out how a spider bite helped get him back on his feet. "I closed my eyes and then I was spinning like a flying saucer," explains David Blancarte. A motorcycle accident almost killed David 21 years ago. At the time he might have wished he was dead. "I asked my doctor, "sir what happened?' I can't feel my legs," said David. Ever since, David's been relying on his wheelchair to get...

The former home of Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett, who died in July, has attracted huge interest from potential buyers undeterred by the reclusive singer's patchy home improvement efforts. Dozens of people have viewed the 1930s house in Cambridge, England, which in the delicate words of the estate agent "provides an excellent opportunity for sympathetic improvement and updating." The walls are painted a patchwork of pink, orange, brown, blue, turquoise and lavender, while cheap wooden shelves cling precariously to the walls of every room. Barrett's decorating has done little to deter people from taking a look, with 40 viewings last...

Grigory Perelman a no-show for his Fields Medal.Four mathematicians were today due to collect gold medals and glory in Madrid, Spain, having been declared winners of the 2006 Fields Medals — referred to as the 'Nobel prizes' of mathematics. But only three turned up. Grigory Perelman, a reclusive Russian mathematician who was widely expected to be one of this year's winners (see 'Maths 'Nobel' rumoured for Russian recluse'), was indeed honoured at the opening ceremony of the International Congress of Mathematicians. But after a round of applause, president of the International Mathematical Union John Ball said "I regret that Dr...