In the News

Islamist extremists are attempting to radicalise prisoners by deliberately getting custodial sentences or gaining jobs in jails, according to the Prison Officers Association (POA).

 

The warning comes as the justice secretary, Michael Gove, has ordered a review of how the prison and probation service tackle the radicalisation of offenders. The review will include an investigation into Muslim preachers radicalising inmates, according to the Sun.

 

But Glyn Travis, assistant general secretary of the POA, told the Guardian the problem of radicalisation was “far wider than imams”, and accused the justice secretary and the head of the National Offender Management Service (Noms) of “burying their heads in the sand” over the situation.

 

“The probe has to have a far wider reach,” he said. “We have concerns that Islamist extremists are deliberately getting custodial sentences in order to target vulnerable prisoners.

 

“They are often clever and well educated and can brainwash young people.”

Although legalised euthanasia is widely accepted amongst Belgian doctors and politicians and a pet cause of the media, many medicos still have misgivings. This week a group of psychiatrists, psychologists, philosophers and others published a letter in De Morgen, a Flemish newspaper, asking the government to remove the option for euthanasia on the basis of psychological suffering alone. 

 

This is probably the first time that a professional group has pushed back against the ever-widening circle of eligibility for euthanasia. The trigger for the letter was two vivid documentaries in the English-speaking media. The first, which appeared on the Australian SBS network, showed a doctor euthanizing an elderly woman without seeking a consultation with a psychiatrist, as he is supposed to do under current legislation. For the first time in the history of the legislation, the euthanasia commission decided to press charges. The second documentary was a video produced by The Economist about a 24-year-old woman suffering from severe depression who applied for euthanasia.

A Texas mom has filed a lawsuit against a hospital over its decision to discontinue providing life-sustaining treatment to her son, calling it "in the best interest of the patient."

 

Evelyn Kelly sued Houston Methodist Hospital over the case of his son Christopher Dunn, 46, who has been confined in the hospital for two months after a mass of tissue was found in his pancreas. The non-cancerous mass has affected his small intestine, liver and kidneys, according to Christian News Network.

 

Dunn worked as a sheriff's deputy but had no insurance when he was hospitalised. He's on a ventilator but can communicate with hand gestures or moving his head.

 

Last Nov. 13, J. Richard Cheney, head of the hospital's bioethics committee, wrote a letter to Kelly and Dunn to say that "the committee has decided that life-sustaining treatment is medically inappropriate for Chris and that all treatments other than those needed to keep him comfortable should be discontinued and withheld."

A male student who identifies himself as a female has now been allowed access to the girls' locker room in a public high school in Chicago.

 

According to Christian News, the student began identifying himself as a female almost two years ago. The Township High School District 211 previously denied his request to be allowed access to the girls' locker room, citing the need to preserve the privacy of female students. District officials offered a private location for him to change instead.

 

However, the student rejected their offer and contacted the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which filed a federal complaint with the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education.