cemetery

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Japanese Dying to Get Into Highrise Cemeteries

High-tech facilities in demand as traditional grave prices top $100,000

(Newser) - High-tech, high-rise cemeteries are sprouting across Japan as a shortage of land drives up prices in ground-level graveyards. The cemeteries, typically five or six stories high, store the dead in urns which can be retrieved by robots and delivered to mourning rooms by visiting family members with a swipe of...

Arlington Mix-Up Creates Another Unknown Soldier

Unidentified remains found in plot listed as vacant

(Newser) - Arlington National Cemetery has buried an unknown soldier for the first time since 1984 because of bungled paperwork. Workers burying a service member in Grave 449 in 2003 found human remains in the ground when paperwork had marked the plot as vacant. The plot was left unmarked until recently when...

Hanged Census Worker Was Naked, Bound: Witness

Kentucky assailants used duct tape, gagged Bill Sparkman

(Newser) - A part-time US Census worker found hanging in a rural Kentucky cemetery was naked, gagged and had his hands and feet bound with duct tape, said an Ohio man who discovered the body two weeks ago. "The only thing he had on was a pair of socks," Jerry...

In Tough Times, Families Reselling Burial Plots

Cemeteries report brisk sales of late

(Newser) - People struggling with bills and other earthly concerns are unloading burial plots at a fast clip. One Florida cemetery made as many “buybacks” in the first half of this year as in all of 2008, another in Ohio reports a similar spike, and ads are plentiful on funeral property...

Jacko Crypt Drives Up Plot Prices

New addition to the neighborhood sending Forest Lawn prices skywards

(Newser) - Michael Jackson has sent property prices soaring for the graves surrounding his final resting place, a sales rep at Forest Lawn cemetery in Glendale tells TMZ. The cemetery has hiked the price of plots near the late singer's tomb as much as $3,000 from the usual $7,000 since ...

Honor Kennedy By Fixing Arlington
 Honor Kennedy  
 By Fixing 
 Arlington 
OPINION
Aug 29, 2009 3:06 PM CDT

Honor Kennedy By Fixing Arlington

(Newser) - Ted Kennedy will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery today, but for many soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan the wait for an Arlington burial is a lot longer, writes Mark Benjamin at Salon. Kennedy himself once intervened for a Massachusetts family who was told they’d have to wait...

Desperate for Cash, People Sell Grave Sites

Final resting place is just another asset for the down-and-out

(Newser) - When she got sick, Debbie Jenkins lost her job, both her houses, and burned through her savings. Living in an unheated garage and still unable to pay rent, she discovered her last remaining asset: two cemetery plots. She posted them on Craigslist, declaring they “MUST SELL!!!” It’s...

Sleep With Marilyn: Wife Selling Hubby's Crypt Above Monroe

(Newser) - A former Beverly Hills resident is about to get a rude awakening when he's evicted from his crypt above Marilyn Monroe so his wife can sell it, reports the Los Angeles Times. Elsie Poncher says her hubby was a "helluva nice guy," but she needs the money to...

Babies' Graves Vanish From Ill. Cemetery

(Newser) - Police declared the whole of Burr Oak cemetery in the Chicago suburbs to be a crime scene last night, after hundreds of families reported empty or missing graves, including an entire section of the cemetery called Babyland, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Relatives will be barred from the site for about...

Jackson Family Holds Cemetery Vigil

(Newser) - Michael Jackson's family held a quiet vigil beside his casket last night before the singer is interred today, reports the Times of London. Jackson's sister La Toya, brother Randy and daughter Paris were spotted at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park soon after Jackson's casket was transported there for a private...

Funeral Biz Reels as More Opt for Cheaper Cremation

Recession takes a toll on pricey burials

(Newser) - It's sometimes said that death is the only recession-proof industry, but current trends seem to prove that axiom wrong, CNN writes. Funeral homes across the country are reporting a decline in profits—not because fewer people are dying, of course, but because more people are opting for cremation and scrimping...

Final 'Green' Frontier: Cemeteries

Increasingly popular embalming- and casket-free option freaked locals out

(Newser) - As the green movement contemplates the afterlife, more funeral directors are seeing demand for a sendoff without the embalming and sturdy coffins of traditional burials, the Wall Street Journal reports. Natural burials won't necessarily put funeral directors out of business: Yes, simple shrouds are available, but so is a $300...

Cemetery in Mumbai Won't Bury Terrorists

Gunmen 'cannot be called Muslim,' says graveyard trust

(Newser) - A Muslim graveyard has refused to bury nine gunmen who terrorized Mumbai over three days last week, leaving at least 172 people dead and wreaking havoc at some of its most famous landmarks. The shooters, whose bodies are unclaimed thus far, are not true followers of the Islamic faith, according...

Lost Coffins Remain Part of Katrina's Legacy

(Newser) - Louisiana is still finding coffins displaced by Hurricane Katrina three years on, the Wall Street Journal reports. Katrina and Rita moved 1,500 bodies from their resting places in the state's swampy south, where floating coffins during floods have long been part of local folklore. Hundreds remain unidentified, and they...

Sahara Yields Ancient Cemetery
 Sahara Yields Ancient Cemetery 
Aug 15, 2008 2:13 PM CDT

Sahara Yields Ancient Cemetery

Find shows desert was once lush, green, populated

(Newser) - Explorers hunting for dinosaur bones have found a Stone Age cemetery deep in the Sahara desert, National Geographic reports. The team of paleontologists discovered bones from two separate ancient human cultures that lived in the region as long as 10,000 years ago, when monsoon rains turned parts of the...

Die-Hard Cubs Fans to Get Final Waiting Place

Long-suffering fans can wait an afterlifetime for pennant win

(Newser) - When the last living Cubs fan to have seen his team win the World Series passed away in April at age 106, fans willing to wait a lifetime realized a lifetime may not be long enough. One is now preparing the field of their dreams in a Chicago cemetery, the...

Stonehenge Reveals Itself: It's a Cemetery

Scientists find remains from 3,000 to 2,500 BC, before the familiar stones went up

(Newser) - Before Stonehenge was Stonehenge, it was a cemetery, the New York Times reports. Around the time the first monumental rocks were installed in 2500 BC, the last of an estimated 240 human burials took place at the English site. Researchers say it was likely the burial ground of a ruling...

Holiday Cheer Visits the Dead
Holiday Cheer Visits the Dead
Dec 23, 2007 2:12 PM CST

Holiday Cheer Visits the Dead

But cemetery officials aren't crazy about new trend

(Newser) - Across the country, cemeteries are starting to look a lot like front lawns, the New York Times reports. Christmas trees, lights, garlands, and even free-standing Santas surround the dead. “The shopping, the dinners, the parties—you escape all that,” said one decorator. “It’s comforting.” But...

An Earth-Friendly Plot Twist
An Earth-Friendly Plot Twist
Nov 26, 2007 2:41 PM CST

An Earth-Friendly Plot Twist

Green cemeteries are on the rise

(Newser) - US funeral homes each year put nearly 1 million gallons of embalming fluid into the ground along with the departed, wrap them in tons of metal and concrete—and charge a fortune for it. All of which makes “green burial” a sensible and fast-growing alternative, the Chicago Tribune reports....

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