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Top Hill Staffer Dead in Apparent Suicide

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/WJLA TV

Photo Credit: AP Photo/WJLA TV

Ryan Loskarn, the former chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander who was charged with possessing and distibuting child pornography last month, was found dead in his home in Maryland of an apparent suicide, law enforcement officials said Friday.

“At approximately 12 p.m. yesterday, Carroll County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to a private residence in the 6900 block of Kenmar Lane for a report of an unconscious male, believed to be deceased,” the sheriff’s office reported Friday morning. “Family members reported finding 35-year old Jesse Ryan Loskarn unresponsive in his basement where he’d been residing with family since this past December.

“The preliminary investigation indicates that Loskarn may have taken his own life, and his body has since been transported to the State Medical Examiner’s Office for Autopsy.”

The Maryland state Medical Examiner said later Friday that Loskarn’s death by hanging, initially reported by Politico, had been ruled a suicide.

Loskarn’s parents, Chuck and Gay Loskarn, issued the following statement Friday: “We loved our son very much, and we’re devastated by his death. Please respect our privacy at this difficult time and let us grieve in peace. Pray for him, his family and friends.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Top Hill Staffer Dead in Apparent Suicide


Financial World Rattled by String of Suicides

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Photo Credit: Shutterstock; Linkedin; Zumapress.com

Photo Credit: Shutterstock; Linkedin; Zumapress.com

The financial world has been rattled by a rash of apparent suicides, with some of the best and brightest among the finance workers who have taken their lives since the start of the year.

A majority of the eight suicides of 2014 have been very public demonstrations, which has suicide-prevention experts puzzled.

“Jumping is much less common as a method for suicide in general, so I am struck by the number that have occurred in recent months in this industry,” said Dr. Christine Moutier, chief medical officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Moutier also discounts the location of the act as being the driver behind the reason for the suicide.

“The suicide-research literature doesn’t help very much with the question of why the method of these suicides is so out in the open,” she added.

Read more from this story HERE.

Financial World Rattled by String of Suicides

CIA Official Dies in Apparent Suicide

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Photo Credit: Wikimedia

Photo Credit: Wikimedia

A senior CIA official has died in an apparent suicide this week from injuries sustained after jumping off a building in northern Virginia, according to sources close to the CIA.

CIA spokesman Christopher White confirmed the death and said the incident did not take place at CIA headquarters in McLean, Va.

“We can confirm that there was an individual fatally injured at a facility where agency work is done,” White told the Washington Free Beacon. “He was rushed to a local area hospital where he subsequently died. Due to privacy reasons and out of respect for the family, we are not releasing additional information at this time.”

A source close to the agency said the man who died was a middle manager and the incident occurred after the man jumped from the fifth floor a building in Fairfax County.

Many agency employees are known to work under stressful conditions and high stress is considered a part of the profession, for the three general types of employees: Intelligence analysts and support personnel, technical services operators, and members of the clandestine services, the agency’s elite spying branch.

Read more from this story HERE.

CIA Official Dies in Apparent Suicide

High Doses of Antidepressants Appear to Increase Risk of Self-Harm in Young Adults

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Photo Credit: Steve Snodgrass / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: Steve Snodgrass / Creative Commons

Children and young adults who start antidepressant therapy at high doses, rather than the “modal” [average or typical] prescribed doses, appear to be at greater risk for suicidal behavior during the first 90 days of treatment.

A previous meta-analysis by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of antidepressant trials suggested that children who received antidepressants had twice the rate of suicidal ideation and behavior than children who were given a placebo. The authors of the current study sought to examine suicidal behavior and antidepressant dose, and whether risk depended on a patient’s age.

The study used data from 162,625 people (between the ages of 10 to 64 years) with depression who started antidepressant treatment with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor at modal (the most prescribed doses on average) or at higher than modal doses from 1998 through 2010.

The rate of suicidal behavior (deliberate self-harm or DSH) among children and adults (24 years or younger) who started antidepressant therapy at high doses was about twice as high compared with a matched group of patients who received generally prescribed doses. The authors suggest this corresponds to about one additional event of DSH for every 150 patients treated with high-dose therapy. For adults 25 to 64 years old, the difference in risk for suicidal behavior was null. The study does not address why higher doses might lead to higher suicide risk.

Read more from this story HERE.

High Doses of Antidepressants Appear to Increase Risk of Self-Harm in Young Adults

Washington Assisted Suicide Law Leads to Over 100 Deaths in 2013

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Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

A government report shows that 173 people asked for, and received, medication doses high enough to induce death in 2013. It estimated that 119 people died as a result of those medications, though 159 total patients died.

In 2008, voters in Washington supported the patient-assisted suicide law, which went into effect in 2009. The law allows terminally ill patients who are expected to die six months or sooner after the diagnosis to be prescribed medication to end their lives. Two witnesses, including a non-relative, must be present when the medication is used.

According to Margaret Dore of Choice is an Illusion, a group opposed to “death with dignity” laws, “the new report is important for what it doesn’t say.”

“When Washington’s law was passed, it was sold as a completely voluntary act in which ‘only’ the patient would be allowed to take the lethal dose,” Dore told LifeSiteNews. “The act doesn’t actually say that, but that’s how it was sold.”

The government’s report reveals that in only two percent of cases was the prescribing physician present as the patient took the deadly drugs. Dore says because of this there’s a grave risk of abuse by family members.

Read more from this story HERE.

Washington Assisted Suicide Law Leads to Over 100 Deaths in 2013

One Person Commits Suicide Every 40 Seconds: WHO

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Photo Credit: AFP / Pedro Ugarte

Photo Credit: AFP / Pedro Ugarte

One person commits suicide every 40 seconds — more than all the yearly victims of wars and natural disaster — with the highest toll among the elderly, the United Nations said Thursday.

In its first report on suicide, the UN’s World Health Organisation blamed intense media coverage when celebrities kill themselves for fuelling the problem.

“Suicide is an amazing public health problem. There is one suicide every 40 seconds — it is a huge number,” said Shekhar Saxena, director of WHO’s mental health department, at the presentation of the report in Geneva.

“Suicide kills more than conflicts, wars and natural catastrophes,” he said. “There are 1.5 million violent deaths every year in the world, of which 800,000 are suicides.”

Some of the highest rates of suicide are found in central and eastern Europe and in Asia, with 25 percent occurring in rich countries, the report says.

Read more from this story HERE.

One Person Commits Suicide Every 40 Seconds: WHO

Brittany Maynard, The 29-Year-Old With Brain Cancer, Has Committed Suicide

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Photo Credit: LifeNews

Photo Credit: LifeNews

By Steven Ertelt.

Brittany Maynard, the cancer patient who received national attention over her plan to kill herself under Oregon’s assisted suicide law on November 1 has taken her own life. That’s despite the fact that cancer patients and pro-life groups have tried to talk her out of the decision.

The Portland Oregonian newspaper first reported that Brittany died Sunday afternoon after taking her own life with legally-prescribed lethal drugs. People magazine confirmed her death an hour later in a news report.

“Goodbye to all my dear friends and family that I love. Today is the day I have chosen to pass away with dignity in the face of my terminal illness, this terrible brain cancer that has taken so much from me … but would have taken so much more,” Brittany wrote on Facebook. “The world is a beautiful place, travel has been my greatest teacher, my close friends and folks are the greatest givers. I even have a ring of support around my best as I type …. Goodbye world. Spread good energy. Pay it forward!”

Her death comes despite her decision last week to postpone her suicide — with Maynard telling CBS that it “doesn’t seem like the right time now” to end her life.

“I still feel good enough and I still have enough joy and I still laugh and smile with my family and friends enough that it doesn’t seem like the right time right now,” Maynard said late last week in that interview. “But it will come, because I feel myself getting sicker. It’s happening each week.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Compassion and Choices

Photo Credit: Compassion and Choices

Family, friends of Brittany Maynard say goodbye on social media

By KGW.com Staff.

Many posts on social media said that Brittany Maynard, a terminally ill woman who moved to Oregon to take advantage of the state’s doctor-assisted suicide law, has died.

Sean Crowley, spokesman for the nonprofit advocacy group Compassion & Choices, told KGW he could not confirm Maynard’s death out of respect for the family’s privacy. Maynard reportedly joined Compassion & Choices, which is advocating for death-with-dignity laws in several states.

Maynard was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. She moved with her family to Oregon so she could legally kill herself with lethal medication prescribed under theOregon Death With Dignity Act.

Read more from this story HERE.

Brittany Maynard, The 29-Year-Old With Brain Cancer, Has Committed Suicide

Report Finds VA Clinics ‘Missed Opportunities’ To Prevent Vietnam Vet’s Suicide

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

A newly released government investigation has found that three Veterans Affairs health clinics “missed opportunities” to prevent a Vietnam veteran’s suicide, with failures ranging from “communication breakdowns” to completely ignoring his “multiple suicide risk factors.”

The unnamed sixty-something patient, who had previously attempted suicide in 1989, shot himself in the head in 2013. He’d been receiving treatment for chronic shoulder, neck and back pain; osteoarthritis, degenerative discs in his lower back, low bone density and a variety of nerve conditions exacerbating pain and weakness in his neck and back, and had had cervical spine surgery in the fall of 2012.

The patient bounced around from clinic to clinic beginning in 2011, when the VA reassigned him from his usual primary care clinic to one nearer his home. A year later he requested another transfer, and another six months after that.

He was also diagnosed with PTSD related to his service in Vietnam, depression, anxiety, “intermittent explosive disorder,” bipolar depression, steroid-induced mood disorder and alcohol abuse.

According to the investigation, “the patient was generally compliant and motivated for MH [mental health] treatment and medication management; he rarely cancelled an appointment.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Report Finds VA Clinics ‘Missed Opportunities’ To Prevent Vietnam Vet’s Suicide


Utah Family Who Killed Themselves in Fear of the Apocalypse Overdosed on Drugs

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utah homeBy Associated Press. A Utah couple and their three children who were found dead in their home last fall overdosed on drugs after the parents told friends and family they were worried about the apocalypse, authorities said Tuesday.

Police also found old letters written by the mother to a Utah inmate serving time for killing family members in the name of God, slayings chronicled in the 2003 Jon Krakauer book “Under the Banner of Heaven.”

Benjamin and Kristi Strack and three of their four children — ages 11, 12 and 14 — were found dead in September in a locked bedroom of their Springville home. All five were in a bed, with the kids tucked into the covers around their parents.

At a news conference Tuesday, Springville Police Chief J. Scott Finlayson said investigators have concluded their probe and determined the family members died from drug toxicity from either methadone, heroin or a combination of drugs, including those found in cold medicine.

Authorities determined the parents committed suicide. The younger two children’s deaths were ruled homicides, although Finlayson said there were no signs of a struggle. (Read more about the Utah family HERE)

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Utah Family That Killed Themselves Showed Troubling Signs According to Family

By Associated Press. Benjamin and Kristi Strack often talked about the apocalypse and wanting to leave the evil they saw in the world, but friends and family thought that meant they would one day move somewhere remote and live off the grid. . .

There were troubling signs before the five bodies were found in a locked bedroom of their Springville home in September. The couple had struggled with drugs, as well as legal and financial problems. They also had been close friends with a Utah prison inmate serving a life sentence for killing family members in the name of God, slayings chronicled in the 2003 Jon Krakauer book “Under the Banner of Heaven.”

Investigators determined the parents committed suicide, Springville Police Chief J. Scott Finlayson said at a news conference called Tuesday at the conclusion of the investigation. The younger two children’s deaths were ruled homicides, although Finlayson said there were no signs of a struggle.

The manner of death for the 14-year-old, Benson Strack, was undetermined. (Read more from this story HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Utah Family Who Killed Themselves in Fear of the Apocalypse Overdosed on Drugs

After Encouraging a Friend to Commit Suicide, High School Student Charged With Manslaughter

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suicideA King Philip Regional High School senior has been indicted for involuntary manslaughter, allegedly for urging a friend to commit suicide. She then raised money for mental illness in the name of her friend.

Michelle Carter, 18, of Plainville was indicted as a “youthful offender” by a Bristol County grand jury, and was arraigned in New Bedford Juvenile Court.

She is accused of urging Conrad Roy III, 18, of Fairhaven and Mattapoisett to kill himself, which he did while idling a truck last July in the parking lot of a Fairhaven Kmart. Authorities said he died of carbon monoxide poisoning . . .

Police went through Roy’s cellphone and allegedly found a number of text messages from Carter, right up until the time he died, when she allegedly urged Roy to go through with the suicide, according to court documents.

Fairhaven police Detective Scott Gordon said in a police report: “Not only did Conrad tell Carter in several of his texts prior to his death that he was scared and didn’t want to leave his family, she continued to encourage him to take his own life, and when he actually started to carry out the act, he got scared again and exited his truck, but instead of telling him to stay out of the truck … Carter told him to ‘get back in.’” (Read more about the girl who encouraged friend to commit suicide HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

After Encouraging a Friend to Commit Suicide, High School Student Charged With Manslaughter

A Veteran Commits Suicide Every 65 Minutes: Paws4Warriors Attempts To Provide Relief [+video]

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Paws4Warriors4-PRINTHow many of these soldiers could be assisted by forming a bond with their own service dog? Common sense and multiple studies show service animals have a tremendously positive impact on the recovery and happiness of those individuals in need. Service dogs are now even provided for many prisoners, yet soldiers are denied service dogs en masse upon their return.

Labpups.com and Paws4Warriors.org have now teamed up to offer some immediate relief for many of those veterans that have been denied service dogs by the Administration.

Buried deep in the woods, and yet in city limits, Labpups.com has multiple lineages of non-hyper Family Labradors that have been three decades in the making. They also have a ten acre farm, complete with state of the art kennels, horseback riding, three houses consisting of 11 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, and a full garden.

Veteran Dominic Davila, after being severely injured by an IED under his Humvee, spent years in the hospital, recovering from loss of limb, TBI and other complications caused by the sudden detonation. Dominic knows only too well what his own service dog meant to him during the dark hours of recovery.

Wanting to give a hand up to fellow soldiers, he has founded Paws4Warriors, a non-profit (status applied for) organization located in Charlotte, NC in order to facilitate raising and matching service Labradors with wounded veterans.

The farm will provide temporary shelter for many veterans, allowing them to stay and participate in the training of their own Labradors, while volunteering to clean kennels and participate in activities such as horseback riding, gardening, or just talking around the fire pit.

While Labpups.com will donate everything possible to this ambitious program, including their lineages, training, and some land, Paws4Warriors has a need for immediate funding for handicap access ramps, buying out the mortgage, supplies for Labradors and veterans, and a host of other items. They have started an Indiegogo campaign, to commence on April 6th at 2:30 pm Eastern time, and are attempting to raise enough funds to take the over the entire farm within the next 40 days. They need your help.

Paws4Warriors can’t spill the beans yet on the first approved recipient, but that in itself will be another amazing story.

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A veteran commits suicide almost once an hour. Check out the links below to help stop these tragedies:

Paws4Warriors FB https://www.facebook.com/paws4warriors?fref=ts
Labpups.com FB https://www.facebook.com/LABPUPSDOTCOM?fref=ts
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/paws-4-warriors/x/10437783

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

A Veteran Commits Suicide Every 65 Minutes: Paws4Warriors Attempts To Provide Relief [+video]

Bill to Legalize Assisted Suicide in Alaska Scheduled for Public Comment

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AssistedA bill to legalize doctor-prescribed suicide in Alaska has been scheduled for public testimony, via teleconference, on Thursday, April 9 at 3 p.m. House Bill 99, sponsored by Anchorage Democrats Rep. Harriet Drummond, Rep. Andy Josephson and Rep. Max Gruenberg, would permit doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to patients for the purpose of suicide.

Opponents of the practice believe that patients – including those with terminal illness – need proper care, not destruction.

Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz, who leads 30,000 Catholics across Southcentral Alaska, strongly opposes the bill, saying it is not about granting people a so-called “right to die,” but pushing “doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to kill people.”

“In a state with a suicide rate twice the national average, we are now proposing that it should be legal in some instances,” Archbishop Schwietz told the Catholic Anchor. “What kind of message does this send to our youth? In their young minds, they look at life without the practical experience that comes from age. They may view their situation as equally depressing or as terminal as someone with an illness. They see no way out. ‘If it’s okay for those who have no hope of regaining their health to kill themselves, why can’t I?’”

The proposed Alaska bill is part of a national drive by an outside group called Compassion & Choices, formerly the Hemlock Society. To date, doctor-prescribed suicide is legal in Oregon, Washington, Vermont and Montana.

In a press release on her HB 99, Drummond lauded the Oregon law in particular, which has resulted in over 300 deaths since 1998.

Access Alaska, a disability advocacy group in Anchorage, posted a strongly worded rebuttal to doctor-prescribed suicide shortly after Drummond introduced HB 99.

“What looks to some like a choice to die begins to look more like a duty to die to many disability activists,” Access Alaska posted to its Facebook page. “If the values of liberty dictate that society legalizes assisted suicide, then legalize it for everyone who asks for it, not just the devalued old, ill and disabled. Otherwise, what looks like freedom is really only discrimination.”

The post was a quotation from Diane Coleman, president and CEO of Not Dead Yet¸ a national disability rights group that opposes doctor-prescribed suicide. (See “Bill to Legalize Assisted Suicide in Alaska Scheduled for Public Comment”, originally posted HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Bill to Legalize Assisted Suicide in Alaska Scheduled for Public Comment

California Assembly Approves Right-To-Die Legislation

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brittany-maynard-terminally-ill-cancer-patient-twitterAfter nearly a quarter-century of efforts in California to afford terminally ill patients the right to end their lives with a doctor’s help, state lawmakers and the governor may be on the verge of granting the dying that authority.

The state Assembly on Wednesday passed a bill that would allow physicians to prescribe life-ending drugs to the terminally sick. The End of Life Option Act, which the Catholic Church and others oppose, awaits final approval by the Senate — three months after that chamber passed a similar bill by a thin margin.

The fate of the legislation is likely to rest with Gov. Jerry Brown, a former Jesuit seminary student who has yet to articulate his position on the measure. Brown has expressed concern about it, based more on legislative procedure than his own beliefs.

Modeled after an Oregon law enacted in 1997, California’s aid-in-dying proposal generated passionate, often deeply personal, debate among lawmakers that cut across party lines. Their discussions touched on questions of morality and mortality; trust in doctors and God’s grace; and the right of the dying to determine their own fate versus protection for the elderly and vulnerable . . .

Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown (D-Rialto) opposed the measure, arguing that doctors may be too hasty in declaring patients terminal. She told lawmakers about her son, who was near death with an infection. Physicians urged her to let him go, and she refused. Nineteen days later, he came off life support and is now a husband and father. (Read more from “California Assembly Approves Right-To-Die Legislation” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

California Assembly Approves Right-To-Die Legislation

How Then Shall We Die? Alaskans Making Effort to Legalize Assisted Suicide

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Look-in-the-mirrorJohn Piper, a noted pastor, author, chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary among other accomplishments, has noted that “Death, by God’s design, is the physical mirror of the moral outrage of human rebellion against God.”

Predictably, an effort is underway across the country and again here in Alaska to legalize assisted suicide. As Alaska Family Council has noted previously, regardless of intentions, this is a dangerous and wrong path to take.

This coming Monday, January 11th at 5:30pm, Alaskans will have an opportunity to hear both sides of this issue at the second “Arguing Alaska” Debate Series. As was the case last time when I served on the debate panel regarding another issue, the event takes place at the Beartooth Theatre Pub and is being put on as a fundraiser for the nationally ranked University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolf Debate Team. I can personally attest to the quality of the program. It’s not something you want to miss.

Tickets are $15 and can be purchased HERE at the Arguing Alaska website.

The resolution being debated is “Alaska should allow terminally ill patients to end their lives with the assistance of a physician”

Again, if you are in a position to attend, I’d highly recommend it.

In the end, quite literally, as Christians, it boils down to the following question that Piper notes in his piece.

How Then Shall We Die?

“How then should we think about our rights with regard to death? Should life be in our control? Does it belong to us, to create or eliminate?

The apostle Paul did not leave us without help on this question. Whose are we? To whom do we belong? Who owns our body? He answers: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20).

These words were spoken to guide us in relation to our sexuality. But the principle holds for death. The more serious the consequences in regard to body and soul, the more firmly the principle holds. And death brings the greatest consequences to soul and body. It is the moment that sets the final destiny of both (Luke 16:26; Hebrews 9:27). Therefore, the principle holds at death: We are not our own.

Our bodies — their life, their death — belong to Christ. He bought them. They are not ours to dispose of as we will. They are his. And they exist for his will, and his glory.”

This life brings tremendous hardships at every stage of the journey but “The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” (Romans 8:18)

For those of us who have loved ones who have departed, there is no greater truth.

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

How Then Shall We Die? Alaskans Making Effort to Legalize Assisted Suicide

Suicide Rates for Middle Aged White Americans Skyrockets

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6697132255_c03c97f1a4The U.S. suicide rate has increased sharply since the turn of the century, led by an even greater rise among middle-aged white people.

Deadly Social Media ‘Craze’ Takes Aim at Teens

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Rina Palenkova was 17 in November 2015 when she posted a goodbye selfie moments before committing suicide.

GOP Lawmaker Commits Suicide After Sex Abuse Claims

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The lawmaker posted an odd Facebook post prior to the possible suicide.

CDC: Youth Suicide Skyrockets 70% Over Last Decade. Here’s Why.

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According to the Centers for Disease Control, youth suicide is in the midst of a precipitous and frightening rise.

Well-Known Gay Rights Lawyer, Environmentalist Burns Himself Alive… For a Protest

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A nationally renowned attorney for gay and transgender rights committed suicide at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.

What Ultimately Took Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain Wasn’t Mental Illness. It Was Something Worse

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Every human being must at some time confront the same disease that claimed Anthony, Kate, Robin, and every other person who takes his or her life.
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