CUMBERLAND, R.I.—The Rhode Island Department of Health says it was not able “to definitively confirm or refute the presence of Santa” in a young girl’s home after she requested to have a partially eaten cookie and a couple of gnawed-on carrot sticks tested for DNA to see if Santa Claus is real. The department said […]
STROUDSBURG, Pa.— A criminology graduate student facing first-degree murder charges in the November slayings of four University of Idaho students is not expected to fight extradition at a hearing Tuesday in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested last week at his parents’ home. Bryan Kohberger, a 28-year-old doctoral student and teaching assistant at Washington State University, […]
APPLETON, Wis.—A Washington state man has been charged in the 1988 slaying of a Wisconsin woman after he was identified using “familial DNA searching” to examine records of people who may be related to the suspect. Gene C. Meyer, 66, is charged with first-degree murder and first-degree sexual assault with use of a dangerous weapon […]
More than six decades after a boy was found dead in a box in Philadelphia, investigators have identified the child with the help of DNA, police announced Tuesday. In what would come to be known as the “Boy in the Box” case, the child was discovered wrapped in a blanket inside a cardboard box on […]
A family in Fort Worth, Texas, has been reunited with their daughter who was kidnapped as a baby more than five decades ago thanks to a DNA match from the ancestry service 23andMe, the family announced Sunday. Melissa Highsmith was just 22-months old in 1971 when she was allegedly abducted by a woman who was […]
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says the NHS will be prioritised in spending decisions when the government addresses a black hole of up to 50 billion pounds ($57 billion) in public finances. Plans to relax rules around changing the DNA of crops and livestock raise concerns for animal welfare. Oxbridge universities are admitting fewer private school students […]
PHOENIX—A judge is mulling an Arizona death row prisoner’s request to have fingerprint and DNA tests conducted on evidence from the two 1980 killings for which he is scheduled to be executed next month. A lawyer for Murray Hooper said at a hearing Wednesday that her client is innocent, that no physical evidence ties him […]
Texas public schools will soon be sending students home with DNA and fingerprint identification kits in an effort to help parents identify them in case of an emergency. Approximately 3.8 million students in Texas are expected to bring home a kit, ABC13 reported, with some schools set to begin distributing them as early as this week. The decision comes […]
Authorities in Pennsylvania have identified a set of human remains as those of a Wilkes-Barre teenage girl who went missing more than 50 years ago, state police said. In an Oct. 4 press release, Pennsylvania State Police said the remains were discovered in Luzerne County on Nov. 17, 2012, by people digging for relics in […]
HOUSTON—Authorities say newly tested DNA evidence helped them make an arrest in the killings more than eight years ago of a family, including two boys, who were shot in their suburban Houston home. Feng Lu, 58, who had long been considered a suspect in the case, was arrested on Sunday by police in San Francisco […]
