The news this past August 22, a Tuesday, seemed promising. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health released its quarterly report showing a 5 percent decline in opioid-related deaths in the first half of 2017 compared with the same period last year (978 deaths, as opposed to 1,031 deaths; January to June). The statistics led The Boston Globe to conclude this was "the strongest indication to date that the state's overdose crisis might have started to abate."
But the news was a tantalizing chimera. The Barnstable police already knew. August was cruel.
Some students at University College Dublin want to remove the student president because she yanked information about getting abortions in England from a student handbook. Abortion is illegal in the Republic of Ireland, where the constitution forbids it, but a referendum is expected next year on a measure to repeal the amendment that protects unborn babies.
