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☆ The global synthetic drugs crisis has hit West Africa, where people are digging up human bones to make a drug called 'kush'
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-05 | by ( Rebecca Rommen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Cemeteries are bolstering their security measures because gravediggers are stealing human bones to make powerful synthetic drugs, local journalists told Business Insider. AdvertisementA vendor sells daily necessities at a market in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Feb. 21, 2024. Formaldehyde also has euphoric properties, says the National Library of Medicine, which explains why kush users could be raiding Freetown's cemeteries. JOHN WESSELS | Getty ImagesJalloh noted that the use of synthetic drugs was not unique to Sierra Leone. ReutersIn 2015, BI's Erin Brodwin covered the rise of these synthetic drugs, marketed as "spice," "K2," "black mamba," or "crazy clown."

Persons: —, Sierra, Julius Maada, Michael Cole, Sally Hayden, JOHN WESSELS, Cole, Mabinty Magdalene Kamar, Abdul Jalloh, HUGH KINSELLA CUNNINGHAM, Thomas Dixon, Jalloh, Salifu Kamara, kush, BI's Erin Brodwin, Brodwin, tranq Organizations: Service, Business, Xinhua News Agency, Getty, Anglia Ruskin University, The Irish Times, National Library of Medicine, Politico, Sierra, Sierra Leone Psychiatric Teaching Hospital, Police, Getty Images Local, Salone Times, BBC, Freetown Police Force, National Drug Agency, NPR, Guardian, Disease Control, Prevention, Reuters, Financial Times Locations: Freetown, African, Sierra Leone, West Africa, Mabinty, Waterloo , Sierra Leone, kush, New York City, New York, Kensington, North Philadelphia

☆ The history of the Paris catacombs, the city's underground tunnels of death home to over 6 million corpses
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-26 | by ( Elias Chavez | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

The Paris catacombs were constructed after mass gravesites started to pollute the soil and leech smells. The catacombs were originally the site of limestone mines used during the Roman Empire. It took almost 30 years to move 6 million corpses into the catacombs. AdvertisementMass graves had been in use for centuries in Paris, reaching a point where some graves held 1,500 bodies at a time. Years of population boom, plagues, and wars overwhelmed Paris cemeteries.

Persons: gravesites, — Organizations: Service Locations: Paris

☆ Adventures on Dublin’s Culinary Trail
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-15 | by ( Tom Downey | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Irish have helped perfect, perhaps even invent, the pub as we know it. Storied Dublin locales like Gravediggers and Mulligans keep that tradition alive. The Irish culinary legacy, on the other hand, is still being rediscovered and refined. Some talented foreign chefs have also made Dublin their home. These days, there’s a fine range of sophisticated, even surprising, Dublin food to complement all that Guinness, poitín (a traditional distilled spirit) and whiskey.

Persons: Patrick Guilbaud — Organizations: Dublin, Guinness Locations: Dublin, —

[1/2] Palestinians gather at the site of Israeli strikes on houses in Bureij in the central Gaza Strip,November 2, 2023. The White House said on Wednesday there were "no plans or intentions" to put U.S. troops on the ground in Gaza. As the debate gains momentum, Gaza health authorities say more than 9,000 people have been killed in the 25-mile-long strip of land, home to 2.3 million Palestinians. Any entity that seeks to exert authority in post-war Gaza would also have to contend with the impression among Palestinians that it is beholden to Israel. Israel expects a long war but says it has no interest in re-occupying Gaza.

Persons: Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa, Antony Blinken, Mahmoud Abbas, Aaron David Miller, Miller, Jordan, Blinken, We're, Benjamin Netanyahu, Washington’s, Joe Biden, U.N, Antonio Guterres, Dennis Ross, Ross, Israel, Matt Spetalnick, Steve Holland, Humeyra Pamuk, Simon Lewis, Michelle Nichols, Heather Timmons, Grant McCool Organizations: REUTERS, Rights, Hamas, United Nations, Palestinian Authority, West Bank, U.S . Middle, U.S, HAITI U.S, Israeli, . Security, Washington Institute for Near East, United Arab, Carnegie Endowment, International Peace, Thomson Locations: Bureij, Gaza, Washington, Palestinian, Israel, U.S, IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, HAITI, Iraq, Afghanistan, United Nations, Lebanon, Haiti, Kenya, Egypt, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco

On Tuesday an Israeli strike at the Jabalia refugee camp in north Gaza killed dozens of people according to hospital authorities, leaving a moonscape of craters. In Khan Younis, Farida Abu Azzam was taking her husband to hospital for his cancer treatment. In a shelter for displaced people in a U.N. school in Khan Younis, Salwa Najar stood by her son Majed's bedside, wiping his face. A cousin had taken them to Hilal Hospital in Khan Younis, the biggest city in the southern part of the tiny enclave. "Gaza hospitals are crowded with injured people who are filling the hospital beds," she said.

Persons: Mohammed Al, Masri, Nasr, Khan Younis, Israel, Farida Abu Azzam, Akram al, Qara, Salwa Najar, Majed's, Najar, puffy, Nahed Abu Taeema, Nidal al, Angus McDowall, Philippa Fletcher Organizations: REUTERS, Reuters, Turkish Friendship, Hospital, Nasser Hospital, Thomson Locations: Gaza, Israel, Hamas, Khan, Egypt, Khan Younis

☆ Israel's Gaza Bombardment Fills Cemeteries as the Living Flee Homes
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-12 | by ( Oct. | At A.M. | ) www.usnews.com time to read: +6 min

The main Martyrs Cemetery in Khan Younis was already nearly full long before the latest bout of warfare brought new pressure for grave sites. Like many other Gaza cemeteries, a "Burial is prohibited here" sign hung on its fence. We have to bury them in random areas scattered around between the houses or in empty lots donated by landlords," said Adel Hamada, a volunteer helping with burials at Khan Younis in southern Gaza. CONSTANT BURIALSThe Samour family was killed on Wednesday night when a strike hit their house in Khan Younis. In Khan Younis, a group of people stood atop the debris remaining from the destruction of a house by an airstrike.

Persons: Nidal, Khan Younis, Adel Hamada, Gravediggers, morgues, Abdelaziz al, peeped, Fabrizio Carboni, Hanan al, Attar, Nidal al, Angus McDowall, Nick Macfie Organizations: Hamas, Shifa, International Committee Locations: GAZA, Gaza, Israel, U.N, Khan, Gaza City, morgues

Persons: Khan Younis, Adel Hamada, Gravediggers, morgues, Abdelaziz al, Abu Mustafa, peeped, Fabrizio Carboni, Hanan al, Attar, Nidal al, Angus McDowall, Nick Macfie Organizations: Hamas, REUTERS, Shifa, International Committee, Thomson Locations: GAZA, Gaza, Israel, U.N, Khan, Gaza City, morgues

☆ Israel, Hamas at war: Latest Updates
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

* The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was in touch with both Hamas and Israel about the hostages. * "There are no wreaths left in Israel anymore," said one of the many volunteers working to prepare funeral flowers for more than 1,200 Israelis killed since Hamas gunmen burst into Israel. [1/6]Israeli soldiers patrol following a mass-infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, in Sderot, in southern Israel, October 11, 2023. INTERNATIONAL REACTION* Initial U.S. intelligence reports show that key Iranian leaders were surprised by the unprecedented attacks on Israel by Hamas, according to a source. INSIGHTS/EXPLAINERS* How a secretive Hamas commander masterminded the attack on Israel.

Persons: Israel, Fabrizio Carboni, I'd, Mohammaalal, gravediggers, Violeta Santos Moura, Pope Francis, Antony Blinken, Blinken, Jordan, Mahmoud Abbas, Tayyip Erdogan, Ursula von der Leyen, Mohammed Deif Deifly, Amir YaronYaron, Janet Yellen, I'm, Stephen Farrell, Gerry Doyle, Andrew Cawthorne, Lisa Shumaker, Michael Perry Organizations: Red, Hamas, Israel, Committee, ICRC, REUTERS, Saudi, Big, West Bank, Palestinian, Airlines, Norwegian Air, Dutch KLM, Air, Bank of Israel, . Treasury, Thomson Locations: Gaza, Israel, U.S, Egypt, huddling, U.N, Palestinian, Tel Aviv, Beeri, Sderot, EU, Jerusalem, Air France, Saudi Arabia

☆ Volunteers reinforce gravediggers at main Israeli military cemetery
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

JERUSALEM, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Volunteers helped gravediggers at Israel's main military cemetery on Wednesday as burials began for soldiers slain in the assault on Israel by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip. Using shovels and a mechanical digger, they scooped out earth to prepare plots for the soldiers' final resting place at Mount Herzl National Cemetery. Ori Kirzon, a 29-year-old ultra-Orthodox Jew, said he came to Mount Herzl at 6:30 a.m. with other volunteers to lend a hand. It is sometimes likened to the U.S. Arlington National Cemetery. At a tree-lined section of Mount Herzl, dozens of silent mourners watched a funeral unfold.

Persons: gravediggers, Ori Kirzon, Mount Herzl, God, Ronen, Theodor Herzl, Herzl, Dan Williams, Angus MacSwan Organizations: Volunteers, Mount Herzl National, Reuters, Mount Herzl Military, REUTERS, U.S . Arlington National Cemetery, Thomson Locations: Israel, Gaza, israel, Mount Herzl, Jerusalem

☆ Israel, Hamas at War: Live Updates
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-11 | by ( Oct. | At P.M. | ) www.usnews.com time to read: +5 min

CONFLICT* Addressing American Jewish community leaders at the White House, U.S. President Joe Biden called the Hamas attack on Israel "the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust." * The UN Security Council will meet on Israel, Gaza on Friday. INSIGHTS/EXPLAINERS* How a secretive Hamas commander masterminded the attack on Israel. The fighting between Israel and Hamas is the latest in seven decades of war and conflict. INTERNATIONAL REACTION* Initial U.S. intelligence reports show that key Iranian leaders were surprised by the unprecedented attacks on Israel by Hamas, according to a source.

Persons: Benjamin Netanyahu, Benny Gantz, Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, I'd, Mohammad al Najjar, gravediggers, Mohammed Deif, Pope Francis, Israel, Amir Yaron, Janet Yellen, I'm, Stephen Farrell, Gerry Doyle, Andrew Cawthorne, Lisa Shumaker, Michael Perry Organizations: Reuters, Hamas, Jewish, White House, UN Security, Big, Saudi, Bank of Israel, . Treasury Locations: Israel, Gaza, Egypt, Tel Aviv, Beeri, Saudi Arabia

☆ Israel, Hamas at war: Live updates
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Oct 11 (Reuters) - Israel has formed an emergency unity government, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sitting in a war cabinet with centrist former defence minister Benny Gantz. * Hamas militants holding Israeli soldiers and civilians hostage have threatened to execute a captive for each home in Gaza hit without warning. * "There are no wreaths left in Israel anymore," said one of the many volunteers working to prepare funeral flowers for more than 1,200 Israelis killed since Hamas gunmen burst into Israel. [1/9]Israeli soldiers patrol following a mass-infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, in Sderot, in southern Israel, October 11, 2023. INSIGHTS/EXPLAINERS* How a secretive Hamas commander masterminded the attack on Israel.

Persons: Benjamin Netanyahu, Benny Gantz, I'd, Mohammad al Najjar, gravediggers, Violeta Santos Moura, Pope Francis, Israel, Antony Blinken, Tayyip Erdogan, Ursula von der Leyen, Mohammed Deif, Biden, Amir Yaron, Janet Yellen, I'm, Stephen Farrell, Gerry Doyle, Andrew Cawthorne, Lisa Shumaker, Michael Perry Organizations: Hamas, ICRC, REUTERS, Big, Saudi, Bank of Israel, . Treasury, Thomson Locations: Israel, Gaza, huddling, U.N, Egypt, Palestinian, Tel Aviv, Beeri, Sderot, EU, Jerusalem, Saudi Arabia

☆ Russia Targets Kyiv and Lviv in Overnight Strike: Live Updates
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-20 | by ( Victoria Kim | Cassandra Vinograd | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

On a sloping hillside, two men who died hundreds of miles apart were buried next to each other. Bohdan Didukh, 34, was killed by a mine last week on the front lines of the Zaporizhzhia region of southern Ukraine, where the first stages of Ukraine’s counteroffensive have begun. Image Olena Didukh, lower center, and Oksana Didukh, right, the wife and mother, respectively, of Ukrainian soldier Bohdan Didukh, mourn during his funeral in Lviv, Ukraine. Image Grave diggers following the burial of Bohdan Didukh and Oleh Didukh. Credit... Brendan Hoffman for The New York TimesAt the cemetery, Olena Didukh, the wife of Bohdan Didukh, fainted momentarily, overwhelmed by grief and the afternoon sun.

Persons: Bohdan Didukh, Oleh Didukh, Peter, Paul, Olena, Oksana Didukh, Brendan Hoffman, Olena Didukh, Kateryna Havrylenko, “, ”, Daria Mitiuk Organizations: Paul Garrison Church, The New York Times, Catholic Locations: LVIV, Ukraine, Ukrainian, Lviv, Russia, Zaporizhzhia

☆ Digging Up Old Graves to Make Room for Newly Fallen Soldiers
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-19 | by ( Megan Specia | Brendan Hoffman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For close to 15 months, the bodies of fallen soldiers have steadily filled up a hillside military cemetery in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. Now, the old, unmarked graves of those killed in past wars are being exhumed to make way for the seemingly endless stream of dead since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And they said they were bracing for more deaths as the fighting grew more intense during Ukraine’s counteroffensive. Among the settlements reclaimed, she said, was the village of Piatykhatky, confirming Russian reports over the weekend. While the recapture of Piatykhatky, in the Zaporizhzhia region, is evidence that Ukraine’s forces continue to advance, it is not a significant military breakthrough.

Persons: ” Hanna Malyar Locations: Ukrainian, Lviv, Ukraine, Russia, Piatykhatky, Zaporizhzhia

☆ A Million Bodies Are Buried Here. Now It’s Becoming a Park.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Corey Kilgannon | More About Corey Kilgannon | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The morgue trucks, loaded with plain, unmarked pine boxes, still arrive regularly by ferry to Hart Island, a potter’s field where the city has long buried its unclaimed dead. The island was once a penal colony, and it has been run since the 19th century by New York’s jail system, which used inmate gravediggers and kept it off limits until 2021, when the city transferred the island over to its parks department. Now, in a remarkable break with the decades-old policy of keeping Hart Island burials secretive and its graves unseen, the department is opening New York’s most forbidden place for public access.

Persons: gravediggers Locations: Hart, York’s

☆ Putin’s War Rhetoric Rallies Russia’s Border Towns, but Nerves Fray
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Evan Gershkovich | Photographs Nanna Heitmann Magnum For The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

PSKOV, Russia—A jackhammer pounded the frozen ground on a recent afternoon as gravediggers uncovered fresh soil to provide the resting place for the body of a Russian soldier killed in Ukraine. At the Vybuty village cemetery in the western region of Pskov, the digging, the men said, has become a near daily job.

☆ A Russian graveyard reveals Wagner’s prisoner army
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +18 min

The resting places were adorned with simple wooden crosses and brightly coloured wreaths that bore the insignia of Russia’s Wagner Group - a feared and secretive private army. The news agency matched the names of at least 39 of the dead here and at three other nearby cemeteries to Russian court records, publicly available databases and social media accounts. He said gravediggers told him the bodies had come from the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, close to Russia’s border with Donetsk region. According to Russian court documents, Kochas and another man burst into the apartment of an acquaintance while drunk in an attempted robbery. But he refused, so he’s a fool.”A Russian graveyard reveals Wagner’s prisoner army By Felix Light and Filipp Lebedev in Tbilisi and Reade Levinson in London Photo editing: Simon Newman Graphics: Fielding Cage Art direction: Eve Watling Edited by Janet McBride

☆ Premarket stocks: How the Fed could do a smaller rate hike and still upset markets
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

That will mark its seventh and final painful hike of the year, albeit a smaller one than the last four historically high three-quarter point increases. Investors will be paying close attention to these forecasts for clues about the path of rate hikes in the new year and beyond. Now the opposite is true, the dots have become a signal that interest rates will remain elevated into the future — spooking investors and Fed watchers alike. Back in December 2021, the Fed was only expecting rates to finish this year at about 0.9%. What else: Wednesday will also bring the Fed’s latest forecasts for the unemployment rate and gross domestic product (GDP) growth.

☆ UK strikes set to escalate as nurses prepare for ‘unprecedented’ walkout
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Anna Cooban | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

“It is pretty unprecedented,” Billy Palmer, senior fellow at Nuffield Trust, a health research firm, told CNN. While small pockets of nursing staff have walked out before, the country’s National Health Service has seen “nothing of this scale until now,” he added. ‘Enough is enough’Earlier this year, the RCN rejected an offer by the government to increase nurses’ pay by a minimum of £1,400 ($1,707) a year. Each additional 1% pay rise for nursing staff would cost the government around £700 million ($854 million), he added. Internationally, it is hard to compare UK nurses’ pay, given health care systems differ significantly between countries, but it falls somewhere in the middle of the range of comparable economies, Palmer said.

☆ Care homes group Orpea's revenue boosted by growth outside of France
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Following a decline between January and April, the group said the occupancy rate in its French retirement homes reached an average of 85.4% in the third quarter. This was an increase of 0.9 percentage points from the prior quarter, but down around 1.5 points on the year. In Orpea's largest region covering France, Benelux, Britain and Ireland, quarterly revenue increased by 1.6% organically. Meanwhile, Central Europe saw 5.3% organic revenue growth, Eastern Europe grew by 10.1%, and Orpea's smallest Iberia and Latin America region posted 17.7% growth. The first meeting with Orpea's unsecured debt holders will be held on Nov. 15, when the company will also present its transformation plan.

☆ Dead bodies are randomly mummifying in Portugal, baffling scientists and sparking a crisis in its graveyards
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Graveyards in Portugal are running out of space, partly because bodies aren't decaying as expected. Under local laws implemented to save space, bodies need to be routinely exhumed so that skeletal remains can be laid to rest in smaller containers. Scientists like Krap use facilities that have access to donated bodies to study decomposition, so-called body farms. A lasting effect on culture, and grief"This has a social impact, which is quite a big deal for my own country," Silva Bessa said. But, as Silva Bessa noted, for the Portuguese "it's quite the tradition to bury the bodies not to cremate them."

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