In Southern California, one county is seeing more and more senior citizens dying from methamphetamine intoxication.
In 2012, San Diego County health records showed that "a majority of deaths attributed to methamphetamine were among Baby Boomers," NBC San Diego reports; the deaths included 69 people between the ages of 50 and 59 and 13 people older than 60. In 2013, 80 people age 45 to 54, 48 people between 55 and 64, and four people older than 65 had meth-related deaths.
"A lot of grandmas and grandpas are using meth and have been using for many, many years," Diana Julian, program manager for the McAlister Institute in El Cajon, California, told NBC San Diego.
The recent death of a San Diego man brought attention to this growing problem. Carl Salayer, 67, disappeared June 16, and a massive search-and-rescue effort was made to find him. More than a week later his body was discovered by San Diego County Sheriff's Deputies in a field. According to the autopsy, the official cause of death was acute methamphetamine intoxication.
Julian said more older people are taking meth for a variety of factors, including declining health. In some cases, the person doesn't have anyone there willing to help them stop. "For people that are using and they're older, their support has become smaller and smaller throughout the years," she said. Catherine Garcia
Simone Biles has been chosen to lead the American delegation at the Closing Ceremony of the Rio Olympic Games on Sunday. She is the first gymnast to be chosen to carry the U.S. flag since 1936.
"It's an incredible honor to be selected as the flag bearer by my Team USA teammates," said Biles in a statement Saturday. "This experience has been the dream of a lifetime for me and my team and I consider it a privilege to represent my country, the
Biles' gold medals in Rio cement the 19-year-old's status as the greatest living gymnast. Read The Week's guide to what makes her so uniquely skilled here. Bonnie Kristian
Speaking at a private fundraiser in Minneapolis Friday night, Donald Trump suggested he might be able to turn Minnesota red for the first time in more than four decades.
"If I could win a state like Minnesota, the path is a whole different thing," Trump explained. "It becomes a much, much different race. We’re going to give it our greatest shot." Trump assured the crowd of supporters he has "so many friends" in Minnesota and plans to visit "a lot." Though he did not make a public appearance, Trump's event was met by dozens of protesters who braved heavy rain to express their displeasure.
The last time the Midwestern state went for a Republican presidential candidate was in 1972, when every state excepted Massachusetts supported Richard Nixon. Minnesota has only gone red three times in the last 84 years, even bucking the rest of the country to support Minnesotan Walter Mondale over Ronald Reagan in 1984. Polls of the state for this race have seen Democrat Hillary Clinton consistently in the lead. Bonnie Kristian
Pyongyang harshly condemned North Korean diplomat Thae Yong Ho, who recently defected to South Korea, in a statement reported by the isolated country's state-run media on Saturday.
"This one clearly deserves legal punishment for crimes he has committed," the statement said, "but he proved that he is human scum that has no basic loyalty as a human and no conscience and morality by running away to survive and abandoning the homeland and parents and siblings that raised and stood by him." The North Korean government also accused Thae of "embezzling a lot of state funds, selling state secrets and committing child rape."
Thae was North Korea's deputy ambassador to Britain before he fled to the South Korean embassy. "I was surprised to learn of his defection, but not totally," said John Nilsson-Wright of London's Chatham House think tank. "Anyone who is as bright as he is can see the difference between the official lines of the government and the reality of the outside world." Bonnie Kristian
Refusing to embrace its true identity as the prime way moms embarrass their adult children on the internet, Facebook is launching a new app called Lifestage to compete with Snapchat for teenagers' attention.
Though anyone can download Lifestage, its full features are only available to those 21 and under. Once you turn 22, the app — which asks users biographical questions they answer with brief videos — will only permit you to view your own profile.
The app's creator is 19-year-old Michael Sayman, a Facebook product manager. Aside from dinging Snapchat, his goal was to revive the kids-only feel of early Facebook, when user accounts required a college email address. "What if I figured out a way to take Facebook from 2004 and bring it to 2016?" Sayman said, explaining his thought process. "What if every field in your profile was a full video?"
Fortunately for those of us older than 22, we'll never have to find out. Bonnie Kristian
The Justice Department said in a court filing Thursday night that holding people in jail purely because they are too poor to pay a fixed bail fee is a violation of their constitutional rights. This is the first time the DOJ has made this argument in a federal appeals court.
"Although the imposition of bail ... may result in a person's incarceration, the deprivation of liberty in such circumstances is not based solely on inability to pay," the amicus curiae brief said. "But fixed bail schedules that allow for the pretrial release of only those who can pay, without accounting for ability to pay and alternative methods of assuring future appearance, do not provide for such individualized determinations, and therefore unlawfully discriminate based on indigence."
The DOJ's reasoning particularly targets pretrial detentions of those arrested for low-level, nonviolent offenses — people whose release would pose no threat to society at large. This distinguishes between people held on bail because they're dangerous and those held only because they're poor.
The brief was filed in the case of Maurice Walker of Calhoun, Georgia, who was arrested for walking while drunk and held for six days in jail before trial. He could not pay $160 bail because he lives on a monthly Social Security disability stipend of $530. Bonnie Kristian
In the cutthroat world of political baking, would-be First Gentleman Bill Clinton has made a misstep.
The former President was asked to participate in Family Circle' s 2016 Presidential Cookie Poll (formerly the First Lady Cookie Contest), a cookie recipe competition for the spouses of presidential candidates which has run every election since 1992. He agreed to face off against Melania Trump, but his cookie recipe submission has come under fire.
For starters, it's not original. Bill submitted the exact same recipe then-First Lady Hillary Clinton used to win the 1992 and 1998 contests. But the real offense is that this is a recipe Clinton himself can't taste test: He has been vegan since 2010, and the cookies are made with eggs.
Trump submitted a star-shaped sugar cookie recipe which, unlike her convention speech, steered well clear of First Lady Michelle Obama's contribution from 2012. You can view both recipes here and cast your vote on Facebook. Bonnie Kristian
A U.S. district judge ruled Friday that controversial Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, along with several of his colleagues, should be charged with criminal contempt of court because they ignored court orders connected to a 2007 racial profiling case. If convicted, Arpaio would face jail time and fines.
The judge argued that Arpaio for 18 months willfully violated court instructions to stop detaining drivers solely on suspicion of illegal immigration, and that one of his subordinates concealed almost 1,500 IDs confiscated during traffic stops from a department investigation into such confiscations. Arpaio's lawyer denied the allegations, saying his client had "no criminal intent."
The sheriff has developed a national following for his aggressive immigration policing; critics say Arpaio, who calls himself "America's toughest sheriff," engages in racial profiling and harassment. Bonnie Kristian
