Headlines for Tuesday, November 17, 2009

2009 Military suicide rate already eclipses last year
At the Pentagon today, The Army’s Vice Chief of Staff, General Peter Chiarelli, said today that the number of soldiers who killed themselves in 2009 has already caught up with those who chose to end their lives in all of 2008.  

“The Army has reported 140 active duty suicides – which is equivalent to our total in 2008, with a month and a half remaining in the year. This is horrible. And I do not want to downplay the significance of these numbers in any way. But I believe we are making progress – in fact since March the general trend line, with the exception of a couple of months, has been down.”

More and more Army personnel have committed suicide each year since 2004, and last year, the suicide rate in the Army was even higher than that in the civilian population. And the 140 deaths General Chiarelli reported today include only those on active duty – not the 71 others who killed themselves after their tour ended.

Single mom-soldier confined to base, may face criminal charges for failure to deploy
The  US military put an infant into foster care after his mother refused deployment to  Afghanistan. Specialist Alexis Hutchinson did not show up for her flight because she did not have anyone to care for her 10 month old son. Hutchinson was arrested and her son briefly placed in temporary care 10 days ago.  She has since been released but is confined to her Georgia base. Her son has been sent to stay with his grandmother until other plans for his care can be made. Her civilian attorney says she was told by a superior that despite the circumstance – she was required to deploy and that her son could be placed in foster care. An Army spokesperson says they would not deploy a single parent with no one to care for their child – an investigation is ongoing.

NATO to send more troops into combat in Afghanistan
Speaking at gathering of the NATO parliament today in Edinburg, the Secretary General said today that the alliance will order “substantially more troops” onto the battlefield in Afghanistan in the coming weeks. Anders Fogh Rasmussen said: "In a few weeks, I expect we will decide, in NATO, on the approach, and troop levels needed, to take our mission forward." He added that he is “confident it will be a counter-insurgency approach, with substantially more forces," and promised a "new momentum" propelling NATO’s mission in Afghanistan.

Colorado classifies medical marijuana taxable property, orders dispensaries to add tax
In Colorado, Governor Bill Ritter says he will order medical marijuana dispensaries to pay sales tax. Governor Ritter’s announcement follows yesterday’s decision by the state Attorney General that medical marijuana is legally considered personal property – not a prescription. A spokesperson for the Governor says that the tax is expected to generate some 15 million a year in revenue.

University of Illinois grad students on strike over tuition waivers
Graduate students at the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois are on their second day of a strike today – Mike Lehman has more.

Hundreds of classes were called off again today at the University of Illinois and major class buildings were completely shut down.  The Graduate Employees Organization – or GEO – is on strike to protest the University’s refusal to protect the existing policy of making graduate education affordable for all qualified students with tuition waivers for graduate employees. As of yet, the University refuses to guarantee tuition waivers in the new contract with the GEO in writing.  Leighton Christiansen is a graduate student at the Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences and says that the dispute is not new.

Graduate students teach a quarter of the classes at the University of Illinois, and they’re the lowest paid educators on campus. The two sides are continuing negotiations today.   Mike Lehman, FSRN, Urbana, Illinois.