Blog

There are 1.3 million torture survivors living in the United States. More than 35,000 adult and child torture survivors reside in San Diego County. Most were tortured because of their religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, political viewpoints or defense of human rights. Since 1997, Survivors of Torture, International has served and cared for more than 2,000 men, women and children who have fled from over 80 different countries where torture is prevalent. As the only accredited...

Humans of New York uploaded this photo of a gay teen to Facebook last Friday with the heartbreaking quote "I'm homosexual and I'm afraid about what my future will be and that people won't like me." The comments are an outpouring of love and support for the boy. But this one from Hillary Clinton stands out: To read more of Michael Langenmayr's article, please click here.

Fueled by the opioid-abuse crisis, the medical community is on the cusp of major change in how it treats chronic pain, a first-ever Pima County opioid symposium was told Friday. Chronic pain is the most common pre-existing condition leading to an opioid overdose, state data show. And unresolved trauma, which is a major risk factor for substance-use disorders, is also a characteristic in some chronic-pain patients, Dr. Bennet Davis of the Integrative Pain Center of Arizona told those in...

Grab a coffee, sit back and enjoy the read – it’s a long one! I want to let you know up front that this article is written purely from the heart and has not been critiqued for publication. This was done intentionally as this is the authentic me. Recent events of hatred amongst different groups in the US is what sparked me to write this. I'm writing this because I have NEVER understood how a person could feel such disdain for someone that they don’t even know personally, but as of late I...

“With all the stories of heroism and tragedy in the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Harvey, one group of people have been left out of sight and out of our hearts: the incarcerated men and women in our federal correctional facilities. While Texas and Florida authorities safely relocated most of the inmates in the state prisons, the men and women who were locked in our federal prisons were not so fortunate. The Federal Bureau of Prisons stated it did not intend to evacuate its facilities in the...

“The death penalty is costing the cash-strapped state of Louisiana tens of millions of dollars a year. But there’s one state employee who’s massively profiting off its continued existence. Hugo Holland’s fingerprints are on the bulk of Louisiana’s recent death sentences. He’s been hired by over a dozen district attorneys to prosecute death penalty cases at a rate that pays him more than Governor John Bel Edwards. Holland spent two decades as an assistant district attorney at the Caddo Parish...

"The front-desk clerk told him that he needed to show identification in order to reserve a room. Rodriguez-Juarez handed over the only thing he had — a Mexican voter ID card. Six hours later, he was lying on the bed, watching TV, when he heard a knock at the door. He opened it. Three agents from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement were waiting for him. When asked, Rodriguez-Juarez admitted that he wasn’t authorized to be in the United States. He’s currently being held at the immigration...

My name is Rebekah Couch and I am a former teen mother of five children, the youngest child being my only clean & sober pregnancy allowed to remain in my care. I am a survivor of multiple sexual assaults and was afflicted with untreated mental health issues as an adolescent. My destructive journey began with self-medicating and illegal activities in Jr. High and a daily cocaine addiction by the age of fifteen that eventually advanced to methamphetamine abuse. My addiction and criminal...

"A new initiative by the National Parks Service seeks to designate sites for their historic significance in the Reconstruction era. It's a bold and vital move for an agency that has only recently begun to seriously address the racial complexities of the Civil War. During the restive years following the Civil War, the Era of Reconstruction —often referred to as the nation's Second Founding or the first Civil Rights Movement—America saw a virulent backlash from white supremacists in response...

Boston, MA On Boston’s “Methadone Mile,” the city’s opioid users cluster around a few-block-stretch, where they find some support, and a sweeping range of treatment services. They are also out of sight of the rest of the city. Michael Young, 40, stands on the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard. On his left, cars whir past; on his right, about two dozen people line up along the chain link fence overlooking Boston’s Interstate 93, some drifting in and out of...

"Boys aren't meant to even cry, but I can assure you I've seen plenty of them do it - and I've even been to that point myself," Wally Newman, a farmer for over 40 years, says as he vows to do his bit to tackle the high suicide rates in rural WA. Financial stress, remoteness, loneliness and isolation are the factors that see more people taking their own lives in the country than in metropolitan WA. Topping a national average, suicide is the leading cause of death for West Australians aged...

"Loneliness is hazardous to your health—and more psychologists and doctors are calling for a public-health campaign to fight it. “This has been underappreciated in the past,” says Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, “but cumulative data over hundreds of studies with millions of participants provides robust evidence of the importance of social connections for physical health and risk for premature mortality.” Social isolation,...