Funeral home accused of atrocious conditions

Funeral home accused of atrocious conditions

WASHINGTON — A funeral home that helps handle veterans awaiting burial at Arlington National Cemetery left corpses in an unrefrigerated garage, hallways and on makeshift gurneys, according to a former embalmer who has given his photographs and notes to authorities, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

Steven Napper, a retired Maryland trooper who worked at the funeral home for nine months, said he saw as many as 200 corpses not properly cared for while working at National Funeral Home in Falls Church, Va., from May until he quit in February. National Funeral Home also embalms and stores bodies for four other funeral homes in the D.C. region that are all part of Houston-based Service Corporation International, the world’s largest funeral services conglomerate.

Pa. man, 73, accused of killing wife of few weeks

JEROME, Pa. — A 73-year-old western Pennsylvania man was charged with killing his 73-year-old wife after authorities said he was upset by her decision to end their marriage of just a few weeks.

Relatives found the body of Ruth Anne Henderson-McTonic on the back porch of her home Friday, police said. She had been shot twice in the chest with a .22-caliber firearm.

William McTonic, of Jerome, is charged with homicide. He was arrested in nearby Somerset after he was pulled over by police Friday and is in the Somerset County Jail.

Conemaugh Township police chief Pete Barclay said the couple had been married for only a few weeks and were living in different residences.

Dubai Chechen leader’s ally behind assassination

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The assassination of a Chechen renegade — the first reported political killing in this glitzy city — was masterminded by a close ally of Chechnya’s president, Dubai authorities said Sunday, calling on Russia to untie “the knot of this crime.”

The allegation could have broad implications for President Ramzan Kadyrov, a former rebel now closely allied with the Kremlin and its campaign to quell a 14-year insurrection in Chechnya.

One of his bitter foes, Sulim Yamadayev, was gunned down March 28 outside a residential complex along Dubai’s shoreline.

His slaying was the latest assassination targeting Chechen renegades in and outside of Russia.

Report: Mid-Atlantic has potential for wind energy

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The breezes blowing across the shallow waters of the mid-Atlantic coast, including North Carolina, hold some of the nation’s highest potential for harvesting wind energy, a new federal report says.

Wind over waters less than 100 feet deep could supply at least 20 percent of the electricity needs of most coastal states, the Interior Department report says. Erecting wind turbines in shallow water would be cheaper and easier than in deep water.

The federal government has jurisdiction over waters more than three miles offshore. N.C. House and Senate bills introduced last month laid out rules for commercial wind farms inside that boundary.

Mexico’s death cult protests shrine destruction

MEXICO CITY — About 200 worshippers marched Sunday to protest the government’s destruction of “Death Saint” shrines, saying Mexico’s fight against drug cartels has veered into religious persecution.

“We are believers, not criminals!” the protesters chanted as they marched from a gritty Mexico City neighborhood to the Metropolitan Cathedral downtown.

At shrines, chapels and small churches across the country, tens of thousands of people worship the Death Saint, which is often depicted as a robe-covered skeleton resembling the Grim Reaper.

McCartney, Starr reunite to promote meditation

NEW YORK — An all-star concert on meditation brought Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr together for their first performance together in seven years.

The reunion of McCartney and Starr, the surviving members of The Beatles, was the highlight of the “Change Begins Within” concert Saturday night. The event was at Radio City Music Hall to benefit the David Lynch Foundation, which aims to teach at-risk youth meditation techniques.

McCartney and Starr last performed together in 2002 at the Concert for George, which honored former Beatles George Harrison at London’s Royal Albert Hall a year after Harrison’s death.

Combined dispatches