Bullying Leads to Suicide

This is a 14-year-old boy named Jamey Rodemeyer. He was bullied in school and even after he committed suicide, the bullying did not stop with his death. Jamey was found dead at his home on September 18. He had told his parents that he was being bullied while he was in middle school. He stopped talking about it, even though it continued on into high school. His favorite artist was Lady Gaga and she dedicated a song to Jamey at her concert. Jamey's sister went to a school dance and a Lady Gaga song came on and all his friends started chanting for Jamey. Then the bullies started chanting, 'Your better off dead!' and 'We're glad your dead!' and things like that, said Jamey's mother Tracy. Jamey was a contributor to an organization called "It Get's Better" which aims to give support to gay and lesbian youth who may be targets of harassment and discrimination. One of his last online posts discovered after his death, read, "I always say how bullied I am, but no one listens. What do I have to do so that people will listen to me?" Anonymous people posted on a site online where Jamey posted also called Formspring. They posted hateful things about him. "Jamey is stupid, gay, fat and ugly. He must die," read one response. "I wouldn't care if he died. No one would. So just do it. It would make everyone way more happier," read another. Police are currently investigating whether Jamey was the victim of harassment or hate crimes leading up to his suicide, but it's too early to tell if any charges will be filed.
This is terrible, and bullying has to stop. It leads to more suicide in teens everyday that it happens. Something needs to be done about bullying whether its made illegal or something else.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44684938/ns/today-today_people/t/gay-teens-parents-bullying-continued-after-his-suicide?GT1=43001  

Double Therapy Against Breast Cancer

Cancer experts have decided that double treatment, known as synchronous chemoradiation, could significantly cut the risk of tumors returning and also save lives among people with breast cancer. This disease currently kills 425,000 woman a year worldwide. This treatment is basically radiotherapy and chemotherapy together, instead of one or the other. They say that this treatment has limited side effects and does not harm patients' quality of life. It is said that it should be considered for use by all breast cancer doctors. This is the most common cancer among woman. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy are usually given after breast cancer surgery to kill any remaining cancer cells in the breast, chest wall or underarm area, and to try to reduce the risk of local cancer recurrence. Usually they are given chemotherapy first, followed by radiotherapy.

This sounds like a good idea based on the facts.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44660674/ns/health-cancer/#.ToFTvNR_Tng

A Dying Man

This is an amazing story and it really got to me. This husband and wife; Marshall and Tracy McClain; had been in church one day when a woman came in with her daughter named Alyssa and asked for someone to take care of her. Eventually the McClain's took her for a night and fell in love with her. Her mother signed over her parental rights and they kept Alyssa. Two years later Marshall began having health problems. He wanted to rush the adoption so that he could give Alyssa his name and also so she would inherit his benefits. Eventually, they found out that he only had a few days left to live. Their lawyer rushed to find Alyssa's birth father. He was in a prison for drug distribution serving a five year sentence. He decided to sign over his rights because he wanted her to have a good life. Their lawyer called the judge's office and explained Marshall's situation, and asked if the judge had any openings. They had one for that day. Tracy, her lawyer, and Alyssa went to the courthouse (Marshall was too sick to make it) and she was allowed to adopt Alyssa. Tracy was on her way home when she called her daughter that was living with them and told her to tell Marshall that "We've got her, and I'll be there in a few minutes." Danielle repeated the news to the room. Her sister Amy leaned in close to her father and said "She's ours." McClain's breathing eased and his face muscles relaxed. The clerk's stamp on the final decree reads 12:09. Marshall McClain's official time of death was 12:17.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44597789/ns/health-health_care/#.ToFTpNR_Tng

Gunman Kill 36 People

Men from Congo traveled across the river to Bujumbura, Burundi with an intent to kill. According to Bujumbura's province governor Jacques Minami they traveled to a pub west of Burundi's capitol Sunday on a late-night attack. The gunman managed to kill 36 people. A survivor named Jackson Kabura said the men entered wearing fatigues: "One of them all said, 'Kill them all, kill them all. Make sure there's no survivors." They had managed to only would Jackson in the stomach. Burundi's president Pierre Nkurunziza has declared three days of mourning. A 16 year civil war ended in 2009 in Burundi when its remaining rebel groups demobilized. "The persons who were brutally assassinated were our brothers and sisters," Nkurunziza said. "I promise that those criminals will be arrested and brought to justice," he told a crowd in the town of Gatumba, the scene of the attack, outside the capital Bujumbura.

I think that this is a horrible thing. These men came to this place and murdered 36 people for no apparent reason.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44575736/ns/world_news-africa/

Remove Salmon-Eating Sea Lions

On May, 13 2011 NOAA's Fisheries Service said it was authorizing the states of Washington and Oregon to lethally remove specific California Sea Lions that congregate 140 miles from the Pacific Ocean just below the Columbia's River's Bonneville Dam to eat thousands of adult salmon and steelhead swimming upriver to spawn. Some of the salmon and steelhead are listed as threatened or endangered. "This is not an easy decision for our agency to make, but a thorough analysis shows that a small number of California sea lions preying on salmon and steelhead are having a significant effect in the ability of the fish stocks to recover," said William W. Stelle Jr., Northwest regional administrator for NOAA's Fisheries Service. "Today's authorization allows state fisheries and natural resource agencies to carefully remove California sea lions to reduce their affects on vulnerable fish species." Like all marine mammals in U.S. waters, California sea lions are protected by federal law, but their are provisions in the Marine Mammal Protection Act that allow today's authorization. The California sea lion population on the West Coast is considered healthy and stable, and estimated to be 238,000.

I think that is was okay to safely remove these sea lions so that the salmon and steelhead could thrive, as long as they didn't harm the sea lions.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110512_sealion.html

Bluefin Tuna Not Warranted

After an extensive scientific review, NOAA announced on May, 27 that Atlantic Bluefin Tuna currently do not warrant species protection under the Endangered Species Act. NOAA has committed to revisit this decision by early 2013, when more information will be available about the effects of the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill, as well as a new stock assessment from the scientific arm of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, the international body charged with the fish's management and conservation. NOAA is formally designating both the western Atlantic and eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean stocks of bluefin tuna as "species of concern" under the Endangered Species Act. This places the species on a watch list for concerns about it's status and threats to the species.

I think that they should have probably kept protecting this species.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110527_bluefintuna.html

From Butterflies, to Penguins, to Walruses

Every year, millions of these Monarch Butterflies migrate from North America to their winter habitat in Mexico. There is a well preserved and protected high-altitude pine and fir forest in Mexico that is essential for the survival of the overwintering of monarchs, which has been recognized as an endangered biological phenomenon. These butterflies reproductive habitats are protected in the United States and Canada because these locations are also crucial to saving this species migration, one of the most remarkable natural phenomena on the planet. WWF and the Mexican Fund for the Conservation of Nature have designated a strategy to protect and restore the Monarch butterflies wintering habitat in Mexico, so that the butterflies are protected from extreme weather and other threats.

These Magellanic Penguins were once threatened by oil spills. Now they face a much larger threat as fish are displaced by warming ocean currents, forcing the penguins to swim farther to find food. In 2009, many of these penguins washed up on beaches around Rio de Janeiro, many emaciated or dead. Their traditional nesting area is at the southern tip of Argentina. Scientists speculate that changes in ocean currents or temperatures, which may be related to climate change, could have been responsible for these penguins moving more than a thousand miles north of their traditional nesting area. 12 out of the 17 penguin species are currently experiencing rapid population decline.

The Pacific Walrus, one of the latest victims of climate change, live in the Arctic Bering and Chukchi Seas. In September of 2009, up to 200 dead walruses were spotted on the shore of the Chukchi Sea on Alaska's northwest coast. These animals use floating ice for resting, birthing and nursing calves, and protection from predators. With Arctic ice melting, the Pacific Walrus is experiencing habitat loss to the extent that in September 2009, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced that adding the walrus to the Endangered Species list may be warranted.

Here are even more species that are endangered and their populations are rapidly decreasing. The world should consider helping them, before it's too late.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/6927330/Top-10-most-endangered-species-in-the-world.html