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DENVER (AP) — The remains of at least 189 decaying bodies were found and removed from a Colorado funeral home, up from about 115 reported when the bodies were discovered two weeks ago, officials said Tuesday. Political Cartoons View All 1211 ImagesAuthorities responding to an “abhorrent smell” entered the funeral home’s neglected building with a search warrant Oct. 4 and found the decomposing bodies. Colorado has some of the weakest rules for funeral homes in the nation with no routine inspections or qualification requirements for funeral home operators. There’s no indication state regulators visited the site or contacted Hallford until more than 10 months after the Penrose funeral home’s registration expired. State lawmakers gave regulators the authority to inspect funeral homes without the owners’ consent last year, but no additional money was provided for increased inspections.

Persons: Fremont Sheriff Allen Cooper, Jon Hallford, ”, Carie, Leon Kelly Organizations: DENVER, FBI, Fremont Sheriff, Associated Press, America Statehouse News Initiative, America Locations: Colorado, Penrose , Colorado, Fremont, Hallford, El Paso County

PENROSE, Colo. (AP) — Authorities are investigating the improper storage of human remains at a southern Colorado funeral home that performs “green” burials without embalming chemicals or metal caskets. The investigation centers on a building owned by the Return to Nature Funeral Home outside Colorado Springs in the small town of Penrose. Under Colorado law, green burials are legal but state code requires that any body not buried within 24 hours must be properly refrigerated. Under Colorado law, green burials are legal but state code requires that any body not buried within 24 hours must be properly refrigerated. The Return to Nature Funeral Home was licensed in Colorado Springs in 2017.

Persons: PENROSE, Joyce Pavetti, “, ”, Pavetti, Ron Alexander, Paul Saito Kahler, Hallfordhomes, Amy Beth Hanson, Mead Gruver, Matthew Brown, Jennifer Farrar Organizations: —, Deputies, Investigators, Fremont County Sheriff’s, . Navy, Nature, Pikes, Colorado, Hallfordhomes, Colorado Springs, Associated Press Locations: Colo, Colorado, Colorado Springs, Penrose, Fremont County, Fountain , Colorado, Fremont, Helena , Montana, Cheyenne , Wyoming, Billings , Montana, New York

☆ Aid agencies call for end to mass graves after Libya floods
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-15 | by ( Emma Farge | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/3] Displaced people receive food aid from private schools and parents from east of Libya, in the aftermath of the floods in Derna, Libya September 15, 2023. A torrent washed away whole districts of Derna, a city in eastern Libya, on Sunday night after two dams collapsed. A U.N. report published on Thursday said that over 1,000 bodies in Derna and over 100 bodies in Albayda had been buried in mass graves after the floods on Sept. 11. "Bodies are littering the streets, washing back on shore and are buried under collapsed buildings and debris. He warned that unexploded ordnances, common in some parts of Libya, posed a risk for those involved in recovering the dead.

Persons: Omran, Kazunobu Kojima, Cross, Bilal Sablouh, Emma Farge, Miranda Murray, Mark Potter Organizations: REUTERS, Rights, World Health Organization, WHO, International Committee, International Federation of, Red Crescent Societies, Regional, ICRC, Thomson Locations: Libya, Derna, WHO's, Albayda, Africa, Geneva, Benghazi

[1/5] People walk amidst the wreckage, in the aftermath of the floods in Derna, Libya September 15, 2023. "Bodies are littering the streets, washing back on shore and are buried under collapsed buildings and debris. Mohammad al-Qabisi, head of Derna's Wahda Hospital, said a field hospital was treating people with chronic illnesses needing regular attention. Thursday's U.N. report said more than 1,000 bodies in Derna and over 100 bodies in Al Bayda, another coastal city which was hit by flooding, had been buried in mass graves. The ICRC sent a cargo flight to Benghazi, eastern Libya's largest city, on Friday with 5,000 body bags.

Persons: Omran, DERNA, Bilal Sablouh, Ibrahim al, Mohammad al, Nouri Mohamed, Derna's, Kazunobu Kojima, Derna, Thursday's U.N, Al Bayda, I've, Ahmed Bayram, Saad Rajab Mohamed al, Martin Griffiths, Ahmed Elumami, Ayman al, Laila Bassam, Emma Farge, Gabrielle Tetrault, Farber, Nayera Abdallah, Mark Heinrich, William Maclean, Edmund Blair Organizations: REUTERS, WHO, World Health Organization, Reuters, Derna's, Organization for, International Committee, Cross, International Federation of, Red Crescent Societies, ICRC, Norwegian Refugee Council, Danish Refugee, Thomson Locations: Derna, Libya, U.N, GENEVA, Libyan, Africa, Geneva, Libya's Tripoli, Libya's, WHO's, Al, Benghazi, Susah, Beirut

☆ Nearly 2 million excess deaths followed China's sudden end of COVID curbs - study
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-25 | by ( Bernard Orr | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The study by the federally funded Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle was taken from a sample of mortality data published by some universities in China and internet searches. It found an estimated 1.87 million excess deaths from all causes occurred among people over 30 years of age between December 2022 and January 2023, and were observed in all provinces in mainland China except Tibet. In the study, researchers performed statistical analysis using information from published obituaries and data from searches on Baidu, a popular Chinese internet search engine. "Our study of excess deaths related to the lifting of the zero-COVID policy in China sets an empirically derived benchmark estimate. The World Health Organization says there have been 121,628 COVID deaths in China, out of a total global toll of almost 7 million.

Persons: Thomas Peter, cremations, China's, COVID, Bernard Orr, Lincoln Organizations: REUTERS, Rights, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Baidu, Health Commission, Global, World Health Organization, National Bureau of Disease Control, Prevention, Global Times, Thomson Locations: Beijing, China, Rights BEIJING, U.S, Seattle, Tibet

☆ Rising costs, declining demand, massive consolidation and government scrutiny: the death industry is changing, maybe for good
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-03 | by ( Madison Hall | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

More and more Americans are choosing to move away from the traditional burial process after they die. As the 2022 NFDA Cremation & Burial Report explained, "Typically, cremations cost 40% less than funerals with burials." As of 2022, the aquamation process, also known as alkaline hydrolysis, is legal in 24 states and legislation to legalize it is circulating in several other states. But while these two innovative funeral homes offer their price lists on their websites, they are not required to. The potential rule change is also being monitored by the Funeral Consumers Alliance, which has been pushing for the change for decades.

Persons: Jack Mitchell, cremation's, Mitchell, Sara Williams, Hunter Beattie, Beattie, aquamation, Spade, that's, We're, Williams Organizations: Service, Federal Trade Commission, Director's, Public Religion Research Institute, Kaiser Family Foundation, Census Bureau, Consumers Alliance, Directors, FTC Locations: Wall, Silicon, North Carolina, aquamation, Washington

The data was deleted from a provincial government website just days after it was published on Thursday. The number of cremations in the eastern province of Zhejiang rose to 171,000 in the first quarter of this year, the website said. That was 72,000 more cremations, a roughly 70 percent increase, than had been reported in the same period last year. In February, China said the official death toll in the mainland since the start of the pandemic was 83,150 — a remarkably low number that independent researchers have said is not credible. Since then, the government has released only weekly or monthly death tolls that, when added up, raise the overall total to about 83,700.

Persons: epidemiologists Locations: China, Beijing, Zhejiang

☆ China fails to release cremation data from late 2022 when its Covid-19 outbreak raged
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-16 | by ( Simone Mccarthy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

A review of the past 10 years of ministry data shows the annual figure of cremations was consistently included in the fourth quarter data report – until now. China has faced criticism of its data transparency throughout the pandemic, including how it counts Covid-19 deaths. In January, a top WHO official accused China of “under-representing” the severity of its Covid outbreak, and repeated the agency’s critique of Beijing’s “narrow” definition of what constitutes a Covid death. At that time, Chinese health officials only listed those Covid patients who succumbed with respiratory failure and pneumonia as having died of Covid. It’s not clear if China plans to release the national data on cremations at a later date.

Persons: cremations, Yanzhong Huang, Covid, ” Huang, Hector Retamal, China’s, “, bode, It’s Organizations: Hong Kong CNN, China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs, Council, Foreign Relations, Ministry, Civil Affairs, CNN, Getty, WHO, Covid, World Health Organization Locations: Hong Kong, China, New York, Shanghai, AFP, Wuhan, Communist, “

☆ ‘Young people are going to teach us to die better’: How ‘human composting,' already legal in 6 states, could help the planet
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Natasha Piñon | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

The 31-year-old is a client of Return Home, a Seattle-area human composting facility. The first five people to sign up for Return Home's pre-planning services were under age 35, according to CEO Micah Truman. Human composting is legal in six states and countingOn a rapidly warming planet, the somewhat fringe concept is inching toward the mainstream. Human composting, also called "natural organic reduction," is now legal in six states and counting. Detractors are increasingly voicing their concernsNina Schoen first learned about Recompose in 2017, two years before human composting was even legal in Washington.

☆ Former Colorado funeral home owner sentenced to 20 yrs for selling body parts
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( John Shiffman | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Jan 3 (Reuters) - A former Colorado funeral home owner was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on Tuesday for defrauding relatives of the dead by dissecting 560 corpses and selling body parts without permission. Sheoperated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity,Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. "Hess and Koch used their funeral home at times toessentially steal bodies and body parts using fraudulent andforged donor forms," prosecutor Tim Neff said in a court filing. The federal case was triggered by a 2016-2018 Reuters investigative series about the sale of body parts in the UnitedStates, a virtually unregulated industry. But selling body parts such as heads, arms and spines –which is what Hess did – for use in research or education is notregulated by federal law.

CNN —More than 50 children are among 135 people killed in Sunday’s bridge collapse in India’s Gujarat state, according to a list of victims published by state authorities on Wednesday. Rescue workers conduct search operations after a bridge across the river Machchhu collapsed at Morbi in India's Gujarat state on October 31, 2022. A shoe lies near a damaged suspension bridge in Morbi, India, November 1, 2022. Mourners take part in a funeral procession while carrying the coffins of victims who died after a bridge across the river Machchhu collapsed at Morbi in India's Gujarat state on October 31, 2022. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the site of the deadly bridge collapse in western India on Tuesday.

☆ ‘I’ve always wanted to be a tree’: Human composting starts to catch on
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( Evan Bush | Evan Bush Is A Science Reporter For Nbc News. He Can Be Reached At Evan.Bush Nbcuni.Com. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

The bill took cues from Washington state, where lawmakers in 2019 became the first in the U.S. to legalize human composting and where a nascent industry is growing. Four Washington state funeral facilities are now licensed to perform natural organic reduction, according to Rob Goff, the executive director of the Washington State Funeral Directors Association. California’s law will give regulators with the state’s Cemetery and Funeral Bureau until 2027 to create regulations for a human composting program. The know-how behind human composting began in ranchers’ fields. Human composting could instead help soils sequester carbon and provide nutrients for plant life.

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