| Infidelity can add to grief for spouses of Alzheimer's victims
A life-shattering disease, Alzheimer's may be cruelest to the devoted spouses who watch their partners slip away from them into dementia. That agony is compounded when patients embrace new romances with fellow nursing home residents.
Few may want to contemplate the problem, but many will encounter it, particularly as the 78.2 million American Baby Boomers age, live longer and flood the nation's residential care centers in coming years.
The family of former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor cast a rare spotlight on this sensitive situation last week when Scott O'Connor told an Arizona television station that his 77-year-old father, John, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's 17 years ago, had fallen in love with a female resident of his Phoenix nursing home.
Chapter One: The Death of a Boss
The last days of Jesse Marvin Unruh were a fitting end to the life of a great American political boss: drinks, stories, and friends and family mourning, not only for the boss but for themselves. He was dying of prostate cancer, having refused to permit his prostate to be surgically removed. Unruh spoke to several people about this decision, including family and friends. A radical prostatectomy might have saved him but he dreaded that it would leave him impotent, taking him out of a game that was very important to him, the game of sex, played over and over again, with many, many women. Impotence in sex, politics, or anything else was unacceptable to this domineering man, who had raised himself from Texas sharecropper poverty to becoming, at the height of his power, the single most influential politician in California, first as an assemblyman, then as state assembly speaker, and finally as state treasurer.
MP's niece held over sex game killing: 'This is the best thing that could have happened to me'
Barely five years ago Jessica Davies appeared destined for great things. Bright, charismatic, and possessed of film star good looks, she was working as a fashion model and, in the words of one friend, could have easily made it to the top. She was privileged too. Her father was a wealthy banker and her uncle is the Labour MP Quentin Davies, who defected from the Conservative Party in the summer. Scroll down for more .
More cash to tackle alcohol misuse
Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon yesterday announced plans for a sharp rise in the Scottish Government's budget to tackle "the greatest public health challenge facing Scotland" - alcohol misuse. The government claims the budget is to go up by 150%, to £25m. This money is to go to alcohol and drugs action teams, but it is to be ring-fenced to ensure it can only be spent on alcohol. .
Teen Court: peer pressure and punishment
The judgment of one's peers can be crucial to a teenager.Peer pressure, many say, is why they choose to drink alcohol. They gain acceptance and approval from their friends, or people they want to make their friends.But then, if they get caught and sent to Teen Court, their peers must sit in judgment of them for breaking the law.Teen Court, a deferment program under the auspices of Coconino County Superior Court, is for first-time, non-violent petty offenders who have already pleaded guilty to an offense like disorderly conduct, shoplifting, or underage consumption.Teen Court is run almost entirely by high-schoolers: Juniors and seniors act as prosecution and defense, jury, even bailiff and court clerk. A "real" Coconino County judge sits in on the trial-like proceedings, providing guidance and an authorized signature that gives the sentences weight.At this past week's session, three of the four cases on the docket were for underage drinking, an offense Flagstaff police have said is the most common among juveniles.AN APOLOGY TO TEAMMATESThree girls took the stand Wednesday to accept their punishment for drinking at a large party police busted in September.
Father of boy who was killed in crash suing Oil City VFW club
Alan E. Zinz claims the establishment was negligent when it served a driver involved in the accident alcohol. As a case involving the 2006 death of a Cooperstown teen moves closer to trial, a related case also is moving through the court system. The father of the boy who died after being struck by a vehicle driven by Jerry E. McCollum, 40, of Townville is suing an Oil City club where he says McCollum was drinking alcohol the day of the crash. Alan E. Zinz, the administrator of the estate of Shawn A. Zinz, is suing the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 464 in Oil City, claiming the club was negligent when it served McCollum alcohol on May 23, 2006. But the club claims in a response to the lawsuit that McCollum was not served alcohol at the Relief Street establishment that day.
County Lines for Friday, Nov. 16, 2007
Lompoc
Teen killed in rollover identified
The teenager killed Tuesday afternoon when a van rolled over on Highway 1 at Santa Lucia Canyon Road has been identified as 17-year-old Jovany Herrera of Lompoc, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department.
Five others, including a 1-year-old girl, a 17-year-old girl and three 17-year-old boys, were sent to local hospitals for treatment of their injuries.
Herrera was one of four people ejected from the vehicle.
The group was traveling in a 1992 Ford Aerostar southbound on Highway 1 when, for unknown reasons, the driver lost control, California Highway Patrol Sgt. Lorraine Krolosky said.
The 17-year-old girl was reportedly driving the van at the time.
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