More Than 34,000 Male Veterans Treated for Military Sexual Assault

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Photo Credit: familymwrMore than 85,000 veterans were treated last year for injuries or illness stemming from sexual abuse in the military, and 4,000 sought disability benefits, underscoring the staggering long-term impact of a crisis that has roiled the Pentagon and been condemned by President Barack Obama as “”shameful and disgraceful.”

A Department of Veterans Affairs accounting released in response to inquiries from The Associated Press shows a heavy financial and emotional cost involving vets from Iraq, Afghanistan and even back to Vietnam, and lasting long after a victim leaves the service.

Sexual assault or repeated sexual harassment can trigger a variety of health problems, primarily post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. While women are more likely to be victims, men made up nearly 40 percent of the patients [34,000] the VA treated last year for conditions connected to what it calls “military sexual trauma.”

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Fishermen Found Guilty, Although Court Agrees Subsistence Salmon Fishing is Religious

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Photo Credit: Alaska PublicNearly 50 fishermen were cited for illegal salmon fishing last June. Half of them pled not guilty and have been fighting it in court ever since.

In recent weeks, the fishermen had been waiting to hear a decision on whether they have the religious right to subsistence fish, even during state closures.

The trial resumed May 20 in Bethel and the fishermen packed into the courtroom with some people left standing in the hallway. It was a trial by judge and Judge Bruce Ward, in a gentle voice, said the court found that the state’s need to restrict King salmon supersedes the fishermen’s right to religious practice.

“The court wants all parties to know that this was a very difficult decision to make,” Ward said. “This was not easy.”

The fishermen were challenging the state based on a free exercise clause of the Alaska constitution, arguing that subsistence fishing is a religious practice and that when they fished last summer during closures, they were practicing their religion.

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Alaska Volcano’s Ash Prompts Flight Cancellations

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Photo Credit: APAn Alaska volcano eruption is prompting regional airlines to cancel flights to nearby communities, including a town that reported traces of fallen ash.

Pavlof Volcano released ash plumes as high as 22,000 feet over the weekend, according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory. Clouds obscured the volcano Monday, but U.S. Geological Survey scientists said seismic instruments at the volcano show continuing tremors.

“Seismically, it’s been pretty steady over the last 12 hours,” geologist Chris Waythomas said late Monday morning.

The abrasive ash has not risen enough to threaten international air traffic passing over the volcano-rich Aleutian arc, Waythomas said. Ash emissions have gone high enough, however, to affect flights of some smaller planes.

Anchorage-based regional carrier Penair has canceled a dozen passenger and cargo flights to several remote communities since Sunday afternoon. The communities include Sand Point, which reported a dusting of ash Sunday.

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UPDATE: Oklahoma Tornado: 240 Injured, 24 Dead, ‘Horrific’ Damage (+video)

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Photo Credit: APBy LAUREN EFFRON and DEAN SCHABNER. At least 20 of the 51 people killed by a devastating monster tornado that ripped through Moore, Okla., were children, the Oklahoma Chief Medical Examiner said this evening, as searchers picked through the rubble of schools, homes and businesses leveled by the storm.

Officials said they expect the total number of deaths to rise overnight as first responders continue to look for survivors. Two elementary schools were in the path of the tornado, but the medical examiner did not specify what school the deceased students attended.

Desperate parents stood around what was left of the devastated Plaza Towers Elementary School, many of them sobbing, as rescuers worked to help pull out school children and faculty.

“I know there’s a number of dead children from that school,” Oklahoma City Police spokesman Sgt. Gary Knight said.

Authorities said Briarwood Elementary School in Moore received a “direct hit” from the storm and was also destroyed, with its roof and walls blown off. Read more from this story HERE.

Authorities lower death toll to 24; number of injured hits 240, including 60 kids

Rescuers searched frantically for survivors Tuesday as the death toll from the massive tornado that leveled suburban Oklahoma City was dropped to 24.
The sharp decline from the original fatality list of 51 names was likely caused by double counting of victims, authorities said.

“We have got good news. The number right now is 24,” said Amy Elliott, chief administrative officer at the Oklahoma City Medical Examiner’s Office. She blamed the earlier high estimate on the large amount of “chaos” in the wake of the twister.

All but three of the bodies recovered have been identified and are being returned to their families, she said.

The number of injured was placed at 240, with 60 of them being children.

The National Weather Service gave a preliminary ranking of EF4 to the twister, meaning it is the second-most powerful type of tornado, with winds up to 200 mph. Read more from this story HERE.

Vermont Passes Law Allowing Doctor-Assisted Suicide

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Photo Credit: ReutersVermont on Monday became the fourth U.S. state to end legal penalties for doctors who prescribe medication to terminally ill patients seeking to end their own lives.

The law, which includes a number of safeguards over the next three years as the state adapts, marked the first time a U.S. state has used the legislative process to make assisted suicide legal. Oregon and Washington have similar laws passed through ballot measures and a Montana court authorized the practice in 2009.

“Vermonters who face terminal illness and are in excruciating pain at the end of their lives now have control over their destinies. This is the right thing to do,” said Governor Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, who signed the law on Monday.

Supporters of the practice are hoping Vermont’s law will lend momentum in other states, such as Connecticut and New Jersey, that have considered similar legislation. A bill legalizing the practice failed in Massachusetts last year.

The law allows physicians to prescribe death-inducing medications, which terminally ill patients wishing to commit suicide could then administer to themselves. It limits the prescriptions to residents of the state.

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Senate Investigators: Apple Sheltered $44 Billion from Taxes

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Photo Credit: ReutersSenate investigators accuse Apple of wiring together a complicated system to shield billions of dollars in international profits from both U.S. and foreign tax collectors.

A report released ahead of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s inaugural Capitol Hill appearance Tuesday alleges the tech giant took advantage of numerous U.S. tax loopholes and avoided U.S. taxes on $44 billion in offshore, taxable income between 2009 and 2012 — a characterization Apple flatly rejects.

The bipartisan Senate probe also charges for the first time that Apple’s long established foreign entities, based in Ireland, don’t actually have tax-resident status there or anywhere else. The company conducts most of its international business in the European country to take advantage of lower tax rates, according to the congressional report.

Despite the findings, lawmakers behind the inquiry did not describe Apple’s tax conduct as illegal — but they sharply rebuked the Cupertino, California-based tech heavyweight on Monday for its tactics.

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House Passes Bill on Lying About Military Medals

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People who falsely claim they have received a military medal in order to obtain money or government benefits could face up to a year in jail under legislation that easily passed the House Monday.

The Stolen Valor Act, sponsored by Nevada Republican Joe Heck, is a second attempt by the House to revive a law on fraudulent claims to medals that was struck down by the Supreme Court in June last year. The legislation is identical to a measure that passed the House overwhelmingly last September but saw no Senate action before the last session of Congress ended. The vote Monday was 390-3.

The Supreme Court, in invalidating the Stolen Valor Act of 2006, ruled that while making false statements about receiving a military medal might be contemptible, such lies were protected by First Amendment free speech rights.

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Businesses Already Boosting Employee Premiums, Co-Pays for Obamacare

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner Already hit with cost increases to cover minor Obamacare demands, businesses are boosting employee payments through higher insurance premiums and doctor visit co-pays in advance of the bulk of the health reform law’s rules taking effect Jan. 1.

A sweeping survey of several hundred U.S. businesses by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans found that their costs have already jumped because of a rule requiring them to cover employees’ children up to age 26.

To prepare for the full impact of Obamacare, said the foundation, employers are implementing “diverse cost-management initiatives.” Some 43 percent are boosting premiums, 34 percent are increasing employee dependent coverage costs, and 31 percent are raising co-pays or “out-of-pocket limits.”

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New Weapon in the Terror Tool Kit? Encryption Software Blocks all Eavesdropping

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Photo Credit: APA cheap new encryption technology for mobile phones completely blocks eavesdropping, even from warrant-wielding law enforcement agents – raising fears the technology could fall into the hands of terrorists or criminals.

The software poses a growing problem that U.S. law enforcement agencies call “going dark” – the spread of communications technologies that cannot be intercepted even with a warrant because agencies lack the technical capabilities.

But experts say the feds’ proposed solution to get around the blackout – by legally mandating the insertion of “back doors” into such software to allow eavesdropping – creates an opening which could be exploited by hackers, online criminals or cyberspies.

The issue is not unique to the United States. Intelligence and counter-terrorism officials in the United Kingdom are concerned about the new mobile phone application, called Seecrypt, according the London Mail on Sunday.

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Evangelical Weakness in Gay Boy Scouts Debate Could Hurt GOP

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Photo Credit: tedeytanSigns of waning evangelical power in the nation’s culture wars and in Republican policy — and some unexpected challenges for GOP candidates — loom as the 103-year-old Boy Scouts of America gears up for a definitive vote this week on whether to welcome openly gay youths into the organization’s ranks.

If the BSA delegates gathering just outside Dallas vote to admit gays, it will reinforce the growing notion that evangelical Protestants and their conservative Catholic allies no longer can muster their troops as they once did, in such battles as state referendums over same-sex marriage and the 1996 enactment of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

“There’s no lobby more vicious than the homosexual lobby, and the 65 to 80 million-member evangelical constituency provides no troops for the fight against that lobby,” said David Lane, president of Pastors & Pews and a leading religious right political organizer. “Evangelicals are playing checkers in a chess game.”

A prominent Mormon and board member of a national conservative political organization said privately said that his church, bruised from public relations battles with gay-rights activist groups, has been left holding the financial bag after other denominations failed to come through with promised aid in the fight for Proposition 8, California’s voter initiative against same-sex marriage. The Mormon church has moved on to other battles in the cultural wars rather than take on the gay-rights activists.

After floating a plan to end the 3.9 million-member group’s ban on gays, BSA leaders have crafted a compromise that would allow openly gay Scouts to participate but maintain the ban on adult gay Scout leaders. Even that move sparked adamant opposition from some Christian leaders, especially those who ally with the Republican Party.

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