At the 2015 Paris summit, world leaders pledged to take steps to avoid catastrophic climate change. This November in Bonn, Germany, U.N. negotiators will be back, working out the details of how to cut emissions of planet-warming gases. It is the first conference since President Donald Trump said the United States would withdraw from the agreement. That leaves questions about the direction of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. As VOA’s Steve Baragona reports, the answer is not straightforward.
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From: MeNeedIt

Australian lawmakers in the state of Victoria will debate a bill to allow medically assisted dying, a highly controversial issue fraught with arguments over who, if anyone, should be able to decide the timing of his or her own death.

Victoria’s lower house of parliament passed legislation October 20 that would allow what the bill calls “voluntary assisted dying.” The 47-37 vote came after contentious debate that lasted more than 24 hours.

Once the bill was passed, Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters he was “very proud” of the vote.

“We have taken a very big step towards giving many, many Victorians the dignity and compassion they have been denied for far too long,” Andrews said.

The vote in the upper house, the 40-member Legislative Council, is  also expected to be close. Australian reports said 19 members of the upper house supported the bill, 11 were thought to oppose it, and the votes of the remaining 10 were uncertain.

Those who oppose assisted dying — including the Roman Catholic Church, as well as the Melbourne Anglican Diocese, in the area affected by next week’s vote — urge the medical community to concentrate on developing better palliative care. The term means making a patient as comfortable as possible when an illness cannot be cured.

Setting boundaries

Five nations have legalized assisted dying: Belgium, Canada, Columbia, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

Assisted death usually involves issuance of prescription for drugs that will end life at the time and place of the patient’s choosing. Most patients eligible for it are terminally ill and near death.

But patients in other circumstances have argued that they, too, should be able to choose assisted dying, including psychiatric patients and elderly people in good health who feel that they have completed their lives and are ready to go.

In 2014, Belgium became the first nation to expand access to assisted dying to include terminally ill children, although not those with psychiatric disorders. It does allow mentally ill adults access to that option, although not all doctors are keen on granting it.

The Associated Press reported that, in Belgium, the mental illnesses most common among people who request euthanasia are depression, personality disorder and Asperger’s syndrome. Belgians with dementia can also request the medications used for assisted dying.

In addition to the countries that allow assisted dying, which is defined as hastening the process for a patient who is already dying, assisted suicide — death for someone who is not terminally ill — is legal in Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Canada, and six U.S. states plus Washington, D.C.

Most of those places do not grant foreigners permission to apply for assisted suicide, but Switzerland does, which has led to a growing number of people traveling to Switzerland to seek it — an act given the macabre nickname “suicide tourism.”

A study of “suicide tourists” from 2008 to 2012, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, said 611 people went to Switzerland, mostly to Zurich, in those four years to seek help in ending their lives. Forty-four percent of those cases were from Germany, and 21 percent were from Britain. Twenty-one of those people were from the United States.

Forty-seven percent of those foreign patients cited neurological diseases as the reason they wanted to end their lives; 25 percent cited rheumatic or connective tissue diseases. Only 3 percent to 4 percent cited mental illness.

Selective process

In none of the places where assisted dying is legal are all requests for assistance granted.

A Netherlands-based study published in 2015 in the Journal of the American Medical Association noted that the rates of requests granted between 1990 and 2011 ranged from 32 to 45 percent.

And issuance of a prescription for the drugs used in assisted death does not always mean the patient will use them. In the U.S. state of Oregon, only about a third of the people issued permission to end their lives end up using the prescription to do so.

In the Victorian parliament, the legislation would set the legal age for assisted dying at 18 and above, and the illness the patient suffers from must be “causing suffering that cannot be relieved in a manner that is tolerable to the person.”

Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating voiced disapproval of the measure the day it passed in the lower house. He called the vote a “truly sad moment for the whole country.” He said he hoped the upper house would reject the bill, or in his words, “beat this deeply regressive legislation.”

The current Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has said he has reservations about assisted dying but will not stand in the way of the Victorian parliament.
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From: MeNeedIt

Things are weird, as usual, in Key West.

A pair of Vikings push a stroller full of stuffed chimps down Duval Street. A man with a ponytail swallows a steel sword. People dressed only in body paint and glitter wander and jiggle from bar to bar.

Fantasy Fest, one of Key West’s major tourist draws of the year, is in full swing. And that’s a relief for Florida Keys business owners trying to weather the economic storm that hit after Hurricane Irma battered the middle stretch of the tourism-dependent island chain.

Bucket list trip

The festivities have not disappointed Gary Gates from Buffalo, New York, who planned this “bucket list” trip 10 months ago with six friends.

“We were coming whether there was a hurricane or not,” the former NFL cameraman said. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this. To come down here and actually see people dressed in all kinds of costumes — or no costumes at all — was something that I needed to see.”

Gates flew into Key West and has not left during its annual 10-day festival of costume parties and parades, so he has not seen the devastation that lingers more than a month since Hurricane Irma made landfall Sept. 10 about 20 miles north of the city.

​Middle Keys hit hardest

The mostly residential middle stretch of the island chain took the brunt of the hurricane’s 130-mph winds. The area is almost entirely brown, with debris piled alongside the highway and mangroves stripped bare. A stranded boat was christened the SS Irma with spray paint and offered “free” to drivers passing by.

But at opposite ends of the 120-mile-long island chain, tourist attractions in Key Largo and Key West escaped significant damage.

Dolphins Plus Bayside was ready for visitors three days after Irma’s landfall, but business has been down by half compared to last fall, said Mike Borguss, the third generation in his family to run the Key Largo attraction.

Some staff now live with friends or in temporary trailers parked outside their damaged homes, but the dolphins swim up to the water’s edge to check out new people toting cameras, and an adjacent hotel property is open for weddings and other events that had to be canceled elsewhere in the Keys because of Irma, said Art Cooper, Borguss’ cousin and curator at Dolphins Plus Bayside.

“The water’s pretty, the weather’s beautiful and we wish you were here,” Cooper said.

​Tourism down significantly

Scott Saunders, president and CEO of Fury Water Adventures, estimated tourism in Key West has been about a third of what it was at this time last fall, even though the city’s hotels, restaurants, cruise ship operations and beaches quickly reopened after the storm.

“There’s no reason not to be doing everything we did last year,” Saunders said before one of his fleet’s sunset cruises. “We should be having that tourist base down here, but we haven’t had any.”

Jodi Weinhofer, president of the Lodging Association of the Florida Keys and Key West, blames news coverage of Irma, but not the hurricane itself, for the downturn.

“There was over a $100 million worth of negative press,” Weinhofer said.

Tourism big business in Keys

Tourism is a $2.7 billion industry in the Keys, supporting 54 percent of all jobs in the island chain, according to Monroe County’s Tourist Development Council.

Some jobs have been lost to Irma. Last week, Hawks Cay Resort on Duck Key, about 35 miles northeast of Irma’s landfall, let go 260 workers amid ongoing repairs. The Islamorada Resort Company said its four properties in the Middle Keys will be closed for renovations over the next six months.

But up and down the island chain, bars, marinas and mom-and-pop establishments able to reopen have been hiring laid-off workers and keeping people from moving away, Daniel Samess, CEO of the Greater Marathon Chamber of Commerce.

About 70 percent of roughly 35 hotels and motels in the Middle Keys are open, though those rooms mostly are filled by displaced residents and state and federal recovery workers. Officials plan to provide alternative housing and open those hotel rooms fully to tourists within the next two months, Samess said.

Final sweeps for debris in some parts of the Keys are scheduled Sunday, which also is the finale for Fantasy Fest. So far, the amount of broken tree branches and remnants of homes and belongings wrecked by Irma could fill over 133 Goodyear Blimps, according to Monroe County officials.

The cleanup will help create a good impression for visitors to Key West long before they arrive in the southernmost city in the continental U.S., said Key West Mayor Craig Cates.

“It’s a scenic cruise in your car coming down, and it’s very important that they get it cleaned up,” he said.
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From: MeNeedIt

The latest movie adaptation of Steven King’s terrifying book “IT” brought in a record $123 million in its opening weekend. But in real life, there’s nothing fun about being scared, so why do people flock to scary movies, and around Halloween, haunted houses and participate in other frightening activities? New research has the answer. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

The ever expanding field of consumer technology just got several dozen new specimens, showcased at the Netherlands’ first Consumer Electronics Show. None are expected to spectacularly change our lives … but at least some of them may prove to be truly useful. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

Laws criminalizing consensual gay sex have been scrapped in about 25 countries in the last 20 years, but more than 70 nations still have such prohibitions, a U.N. expert said Friday in a first-of-its-kind report at the General Assembly.           

And in many places around the world, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people live in “a crucible of egregious violations” of human rights, enduring violence and discrimination, said Vitit Muntarbhorn, the U.N.’s first independent expert investigating violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation. The world body’s Human Rights Council appointed him last year, in a move that met significant opposition amid deep international divisions on gay rights.

Addressing a U.N. General Assembly committee for the first time Friday, Muntarbhorn noted “a global trend toward decriminalization of consensual same-sex relations.” At least five countries — Belize, Lesotho, Mozambique, Palau and Seychelles — have scrubbed such laws in the last five years.

“The gaps are, however, ubiquitous,” Muntarbhorn added.

Besides the dozens of countries where it’s a crime — sometimes punishable by death — for people of the same gender to have sex, some countries also have criminal laws aimed at transgender people.

While some laws are rarely applied, they still fuel other forms of discrimination, Muntarbhorn said. He called for reforming all criminal laws against same-sex relations and for establishing more anti-discrimination laws.

Muntarbhorn’s job became a flashpoint last year, when African nations tried to stop his work. They questioned its legal basis and said the U.N. was delving into national matters and prioritizing LGBT issues over discrimination based on race or religion.

A proposal to suspend Muntarbhorn ultimately lost a General Assembly vote, 77-86, with 16 abstentions.

His work has continued to face headwinds. Few countries have responded when contacted about alleged rights violations, Muntarbhorn said, adding that all details of the communications were confidential.

“Precisely because this mandate was so heated, so caustic, from the beginning, my humble intention during this year was to calm the situation through quiet engagement,” said Muntarbhorn, a Thai law professor who has served in other U.N. posts. He’s resigning as of Tuesday, citing illness in his household.

His successor is to be named in December.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

In 2015, 92 million Americans used prescription opioids to alleviate or manage pain, with 11.5 million reporting they misused them. Now more than ever, patients are seeking alternative treatments to avoid using potentially addictive pain pills. VOA’s Elizabeth Cherneff introduces us to a Washington doctor who is helping people manage their pain and combat their addictions.
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From: MeNeedIt

Paul Coles’ journey to becoming one of the 2.5 million Americans addicted to prescription opioids began with painkillers prescribed for injuries suffered during an IED attack in Iraq. The physical scars healed, but emotionally Coles suffered. He had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and couldn’t stop using drugs. 

“It got to the point I would take three times the lethal dose of heroin and cocaine, load it into a syringe and shoot it up, trying to shut my body down,” Coles said. “I would sit there and say, ‘God if you are out there, just kill me.’”

Time after time, he cheated death. But he couldn’t escape the law. Coles found himself handcuffed, arrested and jailed on charges of felony drug possession. Yet what seemed to be a new low would turn into a lifeline.

From the moment Judge Jeri Beth Cohen looked at Coles, she knew he needed help. 

“My feeling is that opioid addiction is a terminal illness: You’re either going to end up in prison or you’re going to end up dead,” Cohen said.

“I’m seeing more and more cases,” she said. “These are young men and women between the age of, I guess, 21-30. It’s a largely Caucasian population,” she added.

​One judge, two courts, one team

Coles’ case is one of hundreds Cohen has seen during the unfolding prescription opioid and heroin epidemic in South Florida. Inside her courtroom, with graphic photos of what drugs can do to the body, she surrounds herself with professional caseworkers on the frontlines of how America’s criminal justice system handles the boom in opioid abuse.

Miami-Dade County launched the nation’s first drug court in 1989. Today there are 3,000 U.S. drug courts serving 136,000 people. But a report by Physicians for Human Rights claims few communities have adequate treatment facilities and the criminal justice objectives of drug courts often overrule the medical need of the patient.

Cohen’s drug court gives people the chance to beat their addictions, stay out of prison while eventually getting their felony drug charge expunged from the record if they complete the year-long program. 

Like Paul Coles 75 percent of Drug Court graduates remain arrest-free at least two years after leaving the program. 

Miami-Dade County launched its first drug court when the community was facing a previous drug crisis. The approach then did not address people’s addictions, rather it was focused on jailing them for criminal conduct.

“There was a crack cocaine epidemic just like we’re looking at this opioid and heroin epidemic right now. People coming into criminal court in large numbers were taking a plea or going to jail, getting out and getting rearrested,” Cohen said.

Today there’s a stream of people in drug court struggling with addiction to a multitude of prescription pain pills and heroin. Cohen, regarded as one of the top drug court judges in the country, uses a holistic approach.

“What I find is if we can get them stabilized on a drug like Methadone or a Suboxone, which blocks a high, then they’re able to start engaging and they’re much more able to focus on getting well.” she said. The goal of the drug court is to get people treatment, steering them away from prison time and hopefully reducing recidivism rates.

“You have to take many variables into account: trauma, untreated mental illness, the chronicity or severity of the drug usage and also what’s going on in the family. If you’re not developing a treatment plan with your treatment team based on an individual’s particular risk and needs, you aren’t going to be successful with that individual,” Cohen said.

The judge bemoans the system’s lack of compassion.

“People are treated really, really poorly,” she said. “In the jails, in the courts, even in treatment they’re treated poorly. If you have money, it’s easier to access care [but] it’s still hard.”

​Zero tolerance

For all her understanding, Cohen shows little tolerance for those not following the rules. She sentences some to community service hours while others go back to jail.

There are frequent drug screenings to make sure people stick with their sobriety. Those who don’t meet the court’s year-long requirements may be returned to a traditional criminal court to face felony drug charges.

“I don’t think that sick people should be in jail. I do the best that I can to help people get well within our system, to divert them out of jail, but yet hold them accountable,” Cohen said “I feel like I do my job and I feel like I do it well.” 

“If you don’t go into the program, that’s fine with me,” Cohen tells a young, opioid-addicted mother, handcuffed and dressed in orange prison suit. “I am not going to keep you here and I am going to have the state dependency court file a termination of parental rights. I will order them to do it,” Cohen stressed.

Family reunions

“The children in my court have been removed from their parents because they have severe and chronic drug addiction and have failed to get into treatment,” the judge said. Her formula is to get parents who are struggling with opioid addiction intensive drug treatment so they can regain custody of their children.

She said 60 percent of the parents who go through the program get their children back.

“It’s getting into true recovery, improving your relationships with your family, your spouse, your children and starting that long life-long journey to recovery,” Cohen said.
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From: MeNeedIt

American drug courts are taking a public health approach to help those addicted to prescription opioids and heroin. The goal is long-term recovery and allowing people to have their felony drug charges erased from their records if they complete the program. VOA’s Chris Simkins reports from Miami on how one judge is helping those struggling with opioid abuse.
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From: MeNeedIt

When kids go back to school, they usually talk about what they did during their summer vacation. The 15 and 16-year-olds who joined Summer RISE in Montgomery County, Maryland, have some unique stories about work in fire departments, non-profits, private businesses and many other workplaces. Faiza Elmasry tells us about one of the high schoolers who spent 3 weeks in the biology lab at a local college. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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From: MeNeedIt

The U.S. House of Representatives Thursday approved a $4 trillion fiscal 2018 budget blueprint, a major step forward toward the introduction of a Republican tax cut bill.

The measure narrowly passed (216-212) despite last-minute resistance from the ranks of Republicans.

House passage makes enactment of an eventual tax bill more likely in the Senate, although decisions on numerous thorny issues lie ahead.

Approval of the budget resolution was a victory for President Donald Trump and Republican congressional leaders, who have vowed to rewrite the tax code, a feat that has not been accomplished in more than four decades.

“President Trump has always made cutting taxes for hard-working American families, creating more jobs for American workers, and simplifying the rigged and burdensome tax code a priority, and he looks forward to further cooperation with Congress to advance the Administration’s pro-growth and pro-jobs agenda,” the White House said in a statement.

Democrats oppose plan

The Republican plan is opposed by Democrats, who contend it would benefit primarily the wealthy and corporations.

“The struggle Republicans had in passing the budget shows how uncomfortable many of them are with eliminating the state and local deduction. In the weeks ahead, Democrats will do everything we can to preserve it and work to defeat any tax proposal that favors the wealthy few over the middle class many,” Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Actress Ashley Judd says she escaped Harvey Weinstein’s sexual advances by making a deal.

She says she told him, yes, she would submit to him only after winning an Oscar in one of his movies.

Then she says she fled from his hotel room where, two decades ago, she had arrived as a young actress for what she thought would be a business meeting.

Appearing on Thursday’s “Good Morning America,” Judd says she remains of two minds about how she handled the confrontation. She says she feels ashamed. She also credits her snap decision as brilliant.

Judd was among the first of what has become dozens of women alleging sexual harassment or assault by Weinstein, who is now under criminal investigation for rape in London, New York and Los Angeles.
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From: MeNeedIt