Free Republic

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...

NAPA, Calif. (AP) - California wine country was reeling after a huge warehouse fire wiped out millions worth of rare vintages. No one was seriously injured in the fire, the cause of which was still under investigation, and the losses weren't expected to put a big dent in the state's multibillion-dollar wine industry. But for some, the potential loss of years of effort and hope spelled big trouble. "It is a terrible thing," said Gary Lipp, who suspects that most of his 2003 cabernet sauvignon and all of his 2004 pinot noir are gone. Lipp and Brooks Painter, both wine...