10 hours 56 minutes ago by Aja Goare - Q2 News

BILLINGS - At least one homeless person dies each month in Billings, and the bone-chilling winter temperatures play a large part.

The homeless who have died were remembered on the front lawn of the Yellowstone County Courthouse on Friday for the 21st annual Homeless Vigil.

About 100 people attended the vigil with luminaries in hand.

Friday is the longest day and shortest night of the year, marking the start of winter, the hardest time to survive for the homeless.

Health is a major factor in homelessness, RiverStone Healthcare officials said, as those without a home tend to die 30 years earlier on average than the typical life expectancy.

Clarence Salley, RiverStone's case manager for homeless health care, pointed to exposure as a huge factor contributing to poor health.

And once these individuals have been afflicted by poor health, they generally cannot afford to seek treatment.

RiverStone's Healthcare for the Homeless program has helped more than 2,100 people in the last year.

During the vigil, RiverStone's CEO John Felton said the community should use the term "people experiencing homelessness," not "homeless people."

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Candlelight vigil sheds light on dimming life expectancy of homeless

PHILADELPHIA (Tribune News Service) He went to war with a Marines regiment known as the Cannon Cockers, an artillery unit that rained explosive shells on the enemy in Iraq.

He didnt stay long less than three months in 2008. But Bradley Stone claimed he had been fully disabled by post-traumatic stress disorder and was taking medication as part of his mental health treatment.

Its clear he struggled with alcohol. And on the license for his second marriage, he listed his occupation as disabled veteran.

In a patch of woods not far from his Pennsburg, Pa., home on Tuesday afternoon, police found Stone dead of self-inflicted cutting wounds a gruesome end to a manhunt that began after he killed his ex-wife and five of her relatives in Montgomery County on Monday.

On Tuesday, service-veteran friends of Stone struggled to make sense of the killings. None condoned them. At the same time, they said, Stone was a man who suffered.

He saw war, said Seth Howard, 27, a Marines veteran who served in Iraq. How are you supposed to be healthy after that?

Howard stood at Vets for Vets, a nonprofit center located almost across the street from Stones house in Pennsburg. He said the two often talked about their combat experiences.

Stone, friends said, was a Marine through and through, a family man who happily lent a hand to shovel snow and a former sergeant who struggled with stress disorder and with physical injuries from carrying heavy backpacks in Iraq.

Vietnam veteran Clyde Hoch, 68, said he and Stone werent close, but he considered the younger man a pretty decent guy.

You cant condemn someone until you understand what they went through, he said.

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Fellow vets, friends of slaying suspect struggle to make sense of killings

He went to war with a Marine regiment known as the Cannon Cockers, an artillery unit that rained explosive shells on the enemy in Iraq.

He did not stay long - less than three months in 2008. But Bradley Stone claimed he had been fully disabled by post-traumatic stress disorder and was taking medication as part of his mental-health treatment.

It is clear that he struggled with alcohol. And on the license for his second marriage, he listed his occupation as "disabled veteran."

In a patch of woods not far from his Pennsburg home Tuesday afternoon, police found Stone dead of self-inflicted cutting wounds - a gruesome end to a manhunt that began after he killed his ex-wife and five of her relatives in Montgomery County on Monday.

On Tuesday, service veteran friends of Stone's struggled to make sense of the killings. None condoned them. At the same time, they said, Stone had suffered.

"He saw war," said Seth Howard, 27, a Marine veteran of Iraq. "How are you supposed to be healthy after that?"

Howard was at Vets for Vets, a nonprofit center close to Stone's house in Pennsburg. He said the two often talked about their combat experiences.

Stone, friends said, was a Marine through and through, a family man who happily lent a hand to shovel snow, and a former sergeant who struggled with stress disorder and physical injuries from carrying heavy backpacks in Iraq.

Vietnam veteran Clyde Hoch, 68, said that he and Stone were not close, but that he considered the younger man "a pretty decent guy."

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After Iraq, a life unraveled

A new plan approved by the state will allow Highland Hospital the creation of a Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facility unit, opening the first part of January 2015.

Hospital officials said the unit will include 24 beds for youth residents and allow for the integration of children and adolescents back into the community.

State regulators approved the plans in August 2008, to break ground for the four-story, 72,500-square-foot building in September 2008, according to the Associated Press.

The project increased the number of beds from 58 to 80, and the first floor of the new facility will provide the child and family outpatient services.

The plan for the unit was to create short-term intensive outpatient care for children and adolescents. Using the expertise of the hospitals team, child and adolescent psychiatrists, therapists, professional and para-professional staff, the proposal is to develop services using the Sanctuary Model of care that can be entered from a variety of starting points as a step down between impatient and outpatient/community care, or as a direct entrance point for those children and adolescents for whom this level of care is most appropriate.

The hospital says the need for more than 1,000 youth in the Mountain State is real. The services include acute psychiatric hospitalization, group residential care and psychiatric residential treatment facilities.

This is the largest number of children being served out of region for any region of the state, officials said.

The hospital plans to utilize the new unit for programs that otherwise don't have the opportunity to be used to their fullest extent, including RAD and GAP programs, based on a Sanctuary Model (safety, loss, emotions and future).

Referrals to both programs will be accepted from anywhere; typically, they originate from within the hospital, West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources or other behavior health providers.

The program managers will receive referrals, review with the treatment teams and physician, and provide the referring agency with a response to the placement request within 25 hours.

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Highland Hospital sees expansion in psychiatric treatment facility

by Brenna Ehrlich 8 hours ago

When you think of giant novelty checks you probably think of lottery winners or game show contestants smiling like lunatics. You probably dont think of widespread protests and social unrest.

On Monday (Dec. 15), however, a novelty check scrawled on a mattress conveyed just that as Columbia University students continued their fight against the way the school handles allegations of sexual assault.

A refresher: Protests started on Columbias campus this September when Emma Sulkowicz started carrying a mattress around the school as part of a performance art piece titled Carry That Weight a piece that also served as a protest against the fact that her alleged rapist is still on campus after both the school and police failed to bring him to justice.

Sulkowiczs piece sparked a movement, culminating in a National Day of Action, according to Buzzfeed, during which college students around the world carried mattresses for a day in solidarity.

At the days end, 28 Columbia students one for each student that signed a Title IX complaint against the university for how it handles sexual assault left mattresses on the street outside University President Lee Bollingers house.

The result of this protest? A $471 fine for the organizations involved to cover removal of the mattresses. Although feminist group UltraViolet offered to pay the fine, the students instead took the opportunity to make another statement, according to Jezebel, dropping off a mock-check scrawled on a mattress in the presidents office today. After doing so, they read the following letter:

Dear President Bollinger,

On October 29th, hundreds of students gathered in the pouring rain to protest Columbia Universitys treatment of survivors of sexual and dating violence. Student activists and survivors organized the rally with Carry That Weight, an organization committed to ending violence on campuses. We marched with mattresses to your house, chanting Rape culture is contagious, come on Prezbo, be courageous! We left 28 mattresses on your doorstep, representing the 28 students who filed a Title IX complaint against Columbia, and delivered a list of 10 demands. After months of inaction, we hoped you would take this opportunity to finally step up and address our urgent concerns.

Instead, you threw our mattresses in a dumpster and slapped us with a fine for $471. The mattresses are a symbol of the burdens that survivors struggle to carry with them each day on this campus. This response makes your priorities abundantly clear: You value the reputation of this institution over the safety of your students, and would rather throw out survivors pain than acknowledge the harm your administration has caused. President Bollinger, you are making us pay for the trauma that we have endured. This is reprehensible.

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These Mattress-Carrying Students Were Fined For Making A Mess During Their Anti-Rape Protest See How They Paid

December 14, 2014 1:59 PM

Christmas Without Cancer volunteers delivering gifts to the Ellis family. (Credit: Bill Figel, Figel Public Relations LLC)

I was a fan of WBBM Newsradio 780 long before joining the staff as a...

(CBS) Christmas came early Sunday for a west suburban family gearing up for another round of cancer treatment for their five-year-old son.

Chris Ellis will check in to the hospital tomorrow for a week-long clinical trial for his stage four neuroblastoma that will leave him highly radioactive.

But his mother Danielle wont have to worry about buying and wrapping the familys gifts because volunteers with the group Christmas without Cancer have taken care of that for them.

Gerri Neylon came up with idea 11 years ago while working as a nurse in the oncology department of Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn.

That first year, she asked friends and family to donate gifts and gift cards to a young woman she met in the hospital who was diagnosed with cancer while pregnant. The response was three vans full of donations.

Ellis family clockwise: Ted, Danielle, Chris and Maria. (Credit: Bill Figel, Figel Public Relations LLC)

Since then, Neylon has set up a website for her non-profit, http://www.christmaswithoutcancer.org, and it has delivered gifts to 12 families in the last week alone.

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Christmas Comes Early For Five-Year-Old Suburban Kid With Cancer

Courtesy photo Fairy Godmother Project (FGP) volunteer Olivia Douglass, contract specialist with F/A-18 and EA-18G Program Office (PMA-265), prepares a meal for donation. Since the formation of the Southern Maryland chapter in spring 2013, FGP volunteers have donated and delivered more than 300 meals to support local families dealing with pediatric cancer.

By Donna Cipolloni

NAS Patuxent River Public Affairs

They dont have wings and they dont wave wands, but the volunteers with Fairy Godmother Project are no less magical to the families they assist at a time when help is most needed.

The mission of Fairy Godmother Project is to ease the burden of everyday life for local families who have a child in treatment for a form of pediatric cancer by providing things like cooked meals, house cleaning, lawn care, gas cards, grocery cards or a much-needed parent or family night out.

Imagine what those things would mean to you if you were traveling every day to a treatment center hours from home because there is no local pediatric oncology treatment facility here, said Vicki Quade Hoffman, chapter coordinator of the Southern Maryland Fairy Godmother Project. Parents are missing work and struggling to raise their other children as normally as possible while watching a child fight for their life. We provide day to day support that allows them to better focus on their family.

Hoffman became involved with Fairy Godmother Project through its executive director and her friend, Andrea McConnell, who cofounded the organization in her Virginia community.

I knew it was something I wanted to bring to Southern Maryland, said Hoffman, full-time mom and former teacher.

Using social media to spread the word, a general interest meeting was held in March 2013 and just two months later, the groups initial fundraiser raised over $5,000, enabling them to begin supporting their first family. Embraced by the local community, they went on to raise more than $18,000 and were quickly supporting four families.

It was October 2013 when we were devastated by the loss of our first godchild to this awful disease, Hoffman said. Were still serving the other three families.

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Fairy Godmothers in Southern Maryland

The U.S. Supreme Court is grappling with how employers should treat pregnant workers like Peggy Young, who sued UPS after the parcel company forced her to take unpaid leave rather than accommodate a doctors recommendation that Young lift no more than 20 pounds.

Its a question many other countries settled long ago.

Take Germany. And a law called Mutterschutz Gesetz, or The Maternity Protection Act.

It works like this: As soon as a woman discovers shes pregnant, she tells her employer. The employer automatically modifies the workers job duties so she can continue to work without harming herself or her pregnancy. Women in physical jobs may be transferred to desk jobs for the during of their pregnancies, for instance, or prohibited from lifting heavy loads.

Then, six weeks before the due date, the pregnant worker goes out on paid leave. That paid leave extends eight weeks after delivery. The worker cannot be fired during her pregnancy and up to four months after delivery. She continues to accrue vacation time during paid leave. And, when shes ready to return to work, her employer must guarantee her her same job, or a similar one at the same pay.

Peggy Young, meet Berit Rougier.

Rougier, 46, is a physical therapist and the mother of four children who lives in Trebur, just outside of Frankfurt. When she became pregnant with her first child in 1993, she told her employer as soon as she herself found out, at about six weeks. (Many American workers dont disclose their pregnancy until their third month.)

Her employer modified her work duties, asking that she not work with heavier patients. Rougier voluntarily continued to do so until her belly got in the way, she said.

If I worked for UPS in Germany, they would have had to give me another job where I wouldnt have to lift heavy things. Or theyd have had to give me paid leave, said Rougier, whos been following Peggy Youngs case, said in a Skype interview. I think its sad that people are under such pressure, and they cant enjoy being pregnant and having a family, and having a job.

During another pregnancy, Rougier worked part-time doing administrative work for Mitsubishi Motors, but received all the benefits of a full-time worker. Though she didnt need work accommodations, she said her bosses continually told her she could go home with pay anytime she wasnt feeling well which she never did and called to ask how she was feeling after the baby was born.

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Whats fair treatment for pregnant workers? The U.S. isnt sure. Other countries are

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama on Tuesday will press Congress to approve US$6.18 billion (S$8.08 billion) in emergency funding to help fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and prepare US hospitals to handle future cases.

Most of the request is aimed at the immediate response to the disease at home and abroad.

But the package also includes US$1.5 billion in contingency funds - money that could become a target if lawmakers decide to trim the bill.

"That is the part of the package that is most at risk," said Sam Worthington, president of InterAction, an alliance of US non-governmental aid groups.

While lawmakers recognise that the United States had to take action to arrest the deadly disease, some are wary of giving the administration leeway in investing money in public health systems in West Africa.

"I think there is less understanding of the need to stay in it for the long run and to build the capacity of countries to ensure this doesn't happen in the future," Worthington said in an interview.

The worst Ebola outbreak on record has killed at least 5,987 people since March, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The Obama administration came under fire in September after a series of missteps with a man who travelled to Dallas from Liberia and later died of Ebola. Two nurses contracted the disease while caring for the man.

Screening and treatment procedures have since been tightened.

There are no current US cases, and stories about the outbreak have faded from headlines.

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Obama to urge Congress to loosen purse strings for Ebola fight

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