Free Republic

U.S consumer prices barely rose at all in May, the fourth straight month of mild inflation and a sign that the Trump administration’s tariffs have not raised prices on American households. The consumer price index, the government’s main inflation indicator, 0.1 percent compared with a month earlier, the Department of Labor said Wednesday. Core prices, a measure that excludes volatile food and energy prices, also climbed just 0.1 percent. Compared with a year ago, consumer prices are up 2.4 percent. Core prices have risen 2.8 percent. Economists had forecast prices would rise 0.2 percent, matching the tame inflation figure reported...

The new regime in Damascus, under President Ahmad al-Sharaa, does not rule out the possibility of transferring to Israel the remains of Israeli spy Eli Cohen, Lebanon's Al-Akhbar newspaper reported Friday morning, quoting Arab diplomats. Cohen was hanged in Syria in 1965. In an article written by the paper’s editor, Ibrahim al-Amin, it was claimed that intensive security talks have recently been taking place between Israel and Syria. The author noted that Damascus has expressed a willingness to reveal the burial sites of Israeli soldiers who went missing in Syria during the First Lebanon War in 1982. .....

DURING 15 years of confinement in psychiatric institutions in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, Dimitri Gerasimenko was starved and repeatedly beaten. The indignities did not end with his death five years ago at the age of 30.Staff at the ramshackle asylum 50 miles from Bishkek, the capital, have never told his mother Raisa, 65, how he died. All her attempts to retrieve his remains have been met with prevarication, compounding her grief. “First I was asked for money if I wanted the body back,” she said. “Then I was told Dimitri had been sent to a medical academy. When...

For education and discussion only. NEW ORLEANS -- Army medical officials in San Antonio confirmed Thursday that Fort Sam Houston used seven human bodies donated to a medical school to conduct land mine tests on the post. Brooke Army Medical Hospital officials told KSAT 12 News that the cadavers were blown up in tests for protective footwear against land mines in January 2003. The bodies were donated to the medical school at Tulane University in New Orleans, which were then sold to the Army for between $25,000 and $30,000. Tulane University officials said they sold the cadavers to a company...

A leading medical firm has quietly recalled hundreds of human tissue products destined for transplants around the nation that were supplied by a North Carolina body parts broker believed to have a tainted history. The broker used an unsterile embalming room to carve up dozens of corpses to procure tissue, a Raleigh funeral home director said Tuesday. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration shut down the body broker on Friday, but refuses to say how many people may have received potentially risky tissue. It is the second scandal in less than a year in the booming tissue transplant industry. Cadaver...

The search warrant executed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation at MedCure Inc headquarters here on November 1 is sealed, and the bureau and the company declined to comment on the nature of the FBI investigation. But people familiar with the matter said the inquiry concerns the manner in which MedCure distributes body parts acquired from its donors. MedCure is among the largest brokers of cadavers and body parts in the United States. From 2011 through 2015, documents obtained under public-record laws show, the company received more than 11,000 donated bodies and distributed more than 51,000 body parts to medical...

Consumer sentiment improved slightly in late April from earlier in the month but remained deeply depressed, weighed down by widespread concerns over inflation, tariffs, and a historic drop in confidence among Democrats. The University of Michigan’s final reading of its Consumer Sentiment Index rose to 52.2 in April, up from a preliminary estimate of 50.8 but down from 57.0 in March. It marked the fourth consecutive monthly decline and the lowest final reading since July 2022. The Expectations Index, which measures sentiment about the economy in the months ahead, fell to 47.3 in April, down from 52.6 in March. The...

A Palestinian Arab source in the Gaza Strip told Kan News on Wednesday that Hamas has managed to locate the body of the head of Hamas's militant wing Mohammed Deif under the ruins from the strike that killed him in the al-Mawasi area in July. According to the source, the terror organization has already covertly buried the terrorist in a secret location without announcing it publicly. Hamas believes that if Israel learns of the location of Deif's grave, the IDF will exhume him and take his body as a bargaining chip in a hostage deal. Another reason for Hamas's secrecy,...

The New York City Department of Health has scrapped a requirement that fetuses aborted at or after 24 weeks be considered “human remains” and sent to funeral homes for burial or cremation. The 24-week mark is generally considered the point of potential viability to survive early birth and until the rule change, it was mandatory to send such late-term aborted fetuses to funeral homes for burial or cremation. Medical facilities will now instead be allowed to dispose of the “conceptus” — the term used by the health department — on premises, as is the case for earlier term aborted fetuses,...

The remains of the last known victim of the Green River Killer have been identified as a Washington State teen – though investigators say there may still be other unsolved cases linked to the infamous murderer. The partial remains were identified as belonging to Tammie Liles, of Everett, the King’s County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) announced. “With this identification, there are no other unidentified remains associated with the Green River Case,” the sheriff’s office said. The incomplete set of bones and teeth were first discovered in 2003, when serial killer Gary Ridgway – known as the Green River Killer – led...

MADISON, Wis. -- Monday morning, the first American spacecraft to land on the moon since the last Apollo mission in 1972 will launch from Cape Canaveral, and one longtime Madison resident will be on it. Paul Wertsch and his wife Kay Heggestad always loved space. "Kay especially was a Star Trek person," Paul said. "We went down to Cape Canaveral, watched a lot of rockets." In fact, Paul remembers watching the first ever moon landing with Kay by his side. "She and I were both medical students, and we were doing a rotation up in Rhinelander, Wisconsin," Paul said. "I...

Human remains have been found in the wreckage of the Titan submersible on Wednesday, the Coast Guard announced. This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

The FBI and US Attorney’s Office misled a judge who issued a warrant for a controversial raid on a Beverly Hills safety deposit company that uncovered $86 million in cash and millions more other assets, according to a new report.A senior FBI agent recently testified that central to the plan, and not disclosed to the judge, was the permanent confiscation of the contents of every box that contained at least $5,000 in cash or goods, the Los Angeles Times reported.The alleged disclosure failure came out in FBI documents and agent depositions in a class-action lawsuit by box holders at U.S....

Almost three weeks after the remains of Brian Laundrie were found at a Florida nature reserve, a woman is continuing to scour the site for additional bones — spending five hours a day sifting through the swamp with a stick, according to a report. A TikTok user with an account called chroniclesofolivia posted video of the unidentified woman at the Carlton Reserve, where she has spent the past 10 days searching for additional remains from Laundrie, the Sun reported.

PACOLET, S.C. (WSPA) – An investigation is underway after a child’s remains were found in the wall of a home in Pacolet on Saturday. Spartanburg County Coroner Rusty Clevenger said his office responded Saturday night to the home, located on Milliken Street, regarding possible remains being found within a wall of a residence. Clevenger said the house was being remodeling when the remains were found. In his 30 years as the Spartanburg County Coroner, Clevenger said this is unlike anything he’s ever seen. “It does shock the conscience of most people,” Clevenger said. “I would say 99.9% of the people,...

During the construction of London's massive "super sewer," archaeologists discovered something unusual in the mud: a 500-year-old skeleton of a man still wearing his thigh-high leather boots. The Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) announced this week that the skeleton was unearthed on the shores of the Thames, near a bend in the river downstream from the Tower of London. "By studying the boots, we've been able to gain a fascinating glimpse into the daily life of a man who lived as many as 500 years ago," said Beth Richardson, a finds specialist who analyzes artifacts at MOLA Headland, a consortium...

The remains of 63 infants or fetuses were found at a funeral home in Detroit on Friday, the Detroit Police Department said. The discovery came amid an expanding investigation, one week after authorities found the decomposed remains of 11 infants or fetuses at another — apparently unrelated — funeral home in Detroit. The discoveries have raised concerns about the handling and disposal of human remains by the city’s funeral homes, especially in cases of stillbirth. On Friday, the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs found “heinous conditions and negligent conduct” at the Perry Funeral Home. State authorities said on...

PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea made good on another promise to President Donald Trump by returning dozens of sets of remains of American GIs killed during the Korean War. But it expects something in return — a peace treaty, or something very much like it. Until that's on the table, real progress toward denuclearization will likely have to wait. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed in his summit in Singapore with Trump last month to resume returning remains. But the North chose the most symbolic day to actually turn over the first batch. Friday was the 65th anniversary...

OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea (CNN)An American military jet has left North Korea Friday after taking possession of what is believed to be the remains of US troops killed during the Korean War some 65 years ago, the White House said. North Korean officials handed over the probable remains on the anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended the conflict, which claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Americans, over 600,000 Chinese, 600,000 Korean soldiers and over a million Korean civilians

The remains of what are believed to be 24 American servicemen killed on a Pacific island during World War II have been returned to the U.S. for identification. The Pentagon says a U.S. military aircraft carrying flag-draped coffins arrived this week at Hawaii's Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.