Free Republic

A record 245 people tried to jump off San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge in 2017, but fewer succeeded, thanks to the city’s men and women in blue. The number of successful police interventions with potential bridge-jumpers jumped from 184 in 2016 to 245 in 2017, while the number of confirmed suicides fell from 39 to 33 over the same period, according to a bridge authority report cited by The Marin Independent Journal. Five new police officers were added to the bridge’s security detail in 2017, bringing the number of officers available to thwart suicide attempts to 36. In May of...

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump tweeted that he wouldn’t allow transgender individuals to serve in the military:

Election machines in three states were not hacked to give Donald Trump the election. There was never a serious post-election movement of electors to defy their constitutional duties and vote for Hillary Clinton. Nor, once Trump was elected, did transgendered people begin killing themselves in alarming numbers. Nor were there mass resignations at the State Department upon his inauguration. Nor did Donald Trump seek an order to “ban all Muslims” from entering the U.S. Instead, he temporarily sought a suspension in visas for everyone, regardless of religion, from seven Middle Eastern states that the Obama administration had earlier identified as...

Two Columbia University professors recently sent a letter to the institution’s president that linked a “fog” of political suffering to a “cluster of suicides” by students. Professors Robert Pollack and Letty Moss-Salentijn, the co-chairs of the Columbia Faculty Affairs Committee, contacted Columbia President Lee Bollinger on Feb. 24 about the need to help “faculty to reach into themselves and find strength to express themselves.” The two mentioned student suicides before requesting venues for quiet conversations and easy access to websites dedicated to preserving freedom.

Three bankers in New York, London and Siena, Italy, died within 17 months of each other in 2013-14 in what authorities deemed a series of unrelated suicides. But in each case, the victim had a connection to a burgeoning global banking scandal, leaving more questions than answers as to the circumstances surrounding their deaths.

For over a decade, architecture students at Rural Studio, Auburn University's design-build program in a tiny town in West Alabama, have worked on a nearly impossible problem. How do you design a home that someone living below the poverty line can afford, but that anyone would want—while also providing a living wage for the local construction team that builds it? In January, after years of building prototypes, the team finished their first pilot project in the real world. Partnering with a commercial developer outside Atlanta, in a tiny community called Serenbe, they built two one-bedroom houses, with materials that cost...

The summer, thankfully, has been largely bereft of the dismal trend of bankers committing suicide, but as Bloomberg reports, Thierry Leyne, a French-Israeli banker and partner of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the disgraced former chief of the IMF, was found dead Thursday after apparently taking his own life by jumping off the 23rd floor of one of the Yoo towers, a prestigious residential complex in Tel Aviv. This is the 16th financial services executive death this year.  Bloomberg reports that Thierry Leyne, the French-Israeli entrepreneur who last year started an investment firm with former International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has died....

With Russia and China having briefly taken over the hub of global executive suicides, the sad trend has returned back to America. In what appears to the 15th financial services executive suicide this year, yet another JPMorgan Director took his own life. As IBTimes reports, Jefferson Township (New Jersey) police report that the Global Network Operations Center Executive Director, "Julian Knott, age 45, shot his wife Alita Knott, age 47, multiple times and then took his own life with the same weapon." They are survived by 3 teenage children... As IB Times reports, JP Morgan executive director Julian Knott blasted...

(Reuters) - San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge marked a milestone in 2013 as 46 people leaped to their deaths in what appears to be the deadliest year for suicides at the California landmark, a watchdog group said on Tuesday.

WHEN LISA Schenke read about the sudden death of University of Pennsylvania freshman Madison Holleran last month, it brought back chilling memories. Schenke, a North Jersey mother, knew the story all too well: A high-achieving student and varsity athlete ultimately lost a battle with depression. Like Holleran, Schenke's son, Tim, committed suicide - in April 2008, months before he was set to attend Drexel University on an academic scholarship. "People don't expect depression in young people . . . that are keeping it together, at least for the public," she said. "And that is what Madison was doing, to continue...

Shoot Straight, Florida's largest independent gun-shop chain, has stopped renting guns to prevent its eight Florida ranges from becoming suicide parlors. Khaled Akkawi, founder of the Apopka-based chain, made the decision last month after the latest suicides at one his gun ranges. "We've had enough," Akkawi said Friday. "They've been increasing real fast and the one common denominator — everyone is done with a rental gun."

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column about how the gun-death data showed a very weak correlation with gun-law strictness. I used data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DoJ) to derive a gun-homicide rate. In the comments section, a reader pointed me toward more-detailed data from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), which captures death-certificate data from all the states. Despite interference by the National Rifle Association (NRA), the CDC has kept up the basic data, if not research into the details of who, how, and why. But what we can...

American soldier suicides continue to outnumber combat-related deaths in 2012, and the trajectory for soldier suicides continues to get worse. Statistics released by the Department of the Army show that through November potentially 303 active-duty, Reserve and National Guard soldiers committed suicide. As of Dec. 7, Stars and Stripes reports that 212 soldiers have died in combat-related deaths in Afghanistan. The Army set a grim new record of 177 potential active-duty cases with 2012 coming to a close on Tuesday – 64 of these cases remain under investigation, 113 have been confirmed... .

CALLAWAY — Libby Busbee pounded on the window of her son’s maroon Dodge Charger as he sat in the driveway of their home earlier this year. Locked inside his car, U.S. Army Spc. William Busbee sat with a .45-caliber gun pointed to the side of his head. “Look at me,” his mother cried out as she tried to get her son’s attention. “Look at me.” He wouldn’t look. He stared out the front windshield, distant, Busbee said, relating the story from an apartment complex in Callaway. “I kept yelling, ‘Don’t you do this. Don’t do it.’ He wouldn’t turn his...

Police are investigating a fatal shooting just outside the Occupy Oakland encampment in Northern California, the apparent suicide of a military veteran at an Occupy encampment in Vermont's largest city and a man found dead in a tent Friday morning in Utah. Salt Lake City's police chief has ordered all protesters to leave a city park after authorities found the body of the man, who was in his 40s. A cause of death was not available, but authorities say it did not immediately appear to be foul play. Police Chief Chris Burbank says the group will now have to pack...

HERAKLION, Greece—The first time he despaired of his debts, Vaggelis Petrakis drank a poisonous brew of beer and gasoline. A note he left didn't mention the financial woes of his fruit and vegetable business, of which his family was well aware. Instead, he left instructions for his children on how to look after his animals. "Put mother rabbit in a different place from the little rabbits," the note began. Then he had second thoughts and called his son, Stelios, who took him to a hospital. Mr. Petrakis survived that suicide attempt. But Greece's collapsing economy and the ruin of his...

Apple says 'saddened' by string of suicides at Foxconn HONG KONG Wed May 26, 2010 12:44am EDT HONG KONG May 26 (Reuters) - Apple Inc (AAPL.O) said on Wednesday that it was saddened by a recent spate of apparent suicides at Foxconn (2038.HK), one of its key production partners, and would continue ongoing inspections of all facilities where its products are made.

MURRAY -- A trio of disturbing self-inflicted gunshots at a Utah gun range is bringing attention to a federal gun law. All three people rented a gun at the range then turned it on themselves. It's an interesting law: Buy a gun from a store and you'll need to pass a background check; try one out, all you need to do is show ID. But that may not have prevented these shootings. The staff at Get Some Guns and Ammo is struggling with the self-inflicted shooting of one their customers Monday night. It's the third time it's happened in six...

DALLAS — A 13-year-old hangs himself in a Johnson County, Texas, barn. An 8-year-old jumps out of a two-story school building in Houston. Nine Massachusetts teenagers face jail time after allegedly harassing a girl so mercilessly that she killed herself. These incidents, all of which took place in one week, reframe the age-old phenomenon of the schoolyard bully. Students are turning to suicide, experts say, as an escape from taunts that now continue beyond the school day through cyberspace. Such drastic responses, they say, reveal how an action once considered a rite of passage has turned into a public health...

Two large new studies in The American Journal of Psychiatry suggest that treatment of depression, either with psychotherapy or drugs, reduces the risk of suicide attempts in all age groups, especially during the first months of treatment. The findings raise further questions about possible links between antidepressant drugs and suicide. In 2005, the Food and Drug Administration, faced with evidence from controlled studies, mandated a “black box” notification on all antidepressant drugs, warning that their use in children and adolescents could increase the risk of suicide. In May, after reviewing controlled data from all age groups, the F.D.A. required an...