Mental Hospital Fire Kills 37

An early-morning fire at a psychiatric hospital in the Russian city of Veliky Novgorod has killed at least 37 people, according to officials there. Tens of the facility's patients—the elderly, the mentally ill and the chronically institutionalized—were able to escape. An investigative committee is looking into how the blaze was started but said, “According to preliminary information, the cause of the fire was carelessness on the part of one of the patients.” Today’s fire is the latest in a series of blazes at mental hospitals around the country, including one in April that claimed 38 lives.