Latest news with #JackKevorkian
Chicago Tribune
04-06-2025
- General
- Chicago Tribune
Today in History: Dr. Jack Kevorkian carries out his first publicly assisted suicide
Today is Wednesday, June 4, the 155th day of 2025. There are 210 days left in the year. Today in history: On June 4, 1990, Dr. Jack Kevorkian carried out his first publicly assisted suicide, helping Janet Adkins, a 54-year-old Alzheimer's patient from Portland, Oregon, end her life in Oakland County, Michigan. Also on this date: In 1812, the U.S. House of Representatives passed its first war declaration, approving by a vote of 79-49 a declaration of war against Britain. In 1919, Congress approved the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which said that the right of Americans to vote 'shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.' (The amendment was then sent to the states for ratification.) In 1940, during World War II, the Allied military completed the evacuation of more than 338,000 troops from Dunkirk, France. Also in 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared in a speech to the House of Commons: 'We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.' In 1942, the World War II naval Battle of Midway began, which resulted in a decisive American victory against Japan and marked a turning point in the war in the Pacific. In 1986, Jonathan Jay Pollard, a former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, pleaded guilty in Washington to conspiring to deliver national defense information to Israel. (Sentenced to life in prison, Pollard would be released on parole in November 2015.) In 1989, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pro-democracy demonstrators and dozens of soldiers are estimated to have been killed when Chinese troops crushed a seven-week-long protest held by occupying demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. In 1998, a federal judge sentenced Terry Nichols to life in prison without parole for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people. Today's Birthdays: Actor Bruce Dern is 89. Golf Hall of Famer Sandra Haynie is 82. Singer-actor Michelle Phillips is 81. Jazz musician Paquito D'Rivera is 77. Actor Parker Stevenson is 73. Actor Keith David is 69. Singer El DeBarge is 64. Opera singer Cecilia Bartoli is 59. R&B singer Al B. Sure! is 57. Actor Scott Wolf is 57. Comedian Horatio Sanz is 56. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, is 54. Actor Noah Wyle is 54. Actor Angelina Jolie is 50. Actor-comedian T.J. Miller is 44. Olympic figure skating gold medalist Evan Lysacek is 40.
New York Times
02-06-2025
- General
- New York Times
A Merciful Death
I grew up in the '80s and '90s and remember being fascinated by the controversy around Jack Kevorkian. He was a Michigan doctor who argued that sick people should be allowed to die on their own terms rather than suffer through a grueling illness. Was he a traitor to his oath to 'do no harm'? Or was he an angel of mercy, letting victims of disease exercise one last bit of agency over their failing bodies? Kevorkian, who went to prison for helping dozens of people with 'physician-assisted suicides,' seemed so radical at the time. Now his ideas are commonplace. Ten states and lots of Western nations have assisted-dying laws. But they're mostly built for people with a life-ending diagnosis. Canada is trying something more. There, a patient can have a state-sanctioned death if she is suffering — but not necessarily dying — from an illness. For the cover story of yesterday's New York Times Magazine, Katie Engelhart followed one woman's journey to die. It's a nuanced portrait of a person racked with pain and a tour of some controversial bioethics. I spoke with Katie about the difficulty in knowing what's right and what's wrong when people suffer. Your story has so much intimate detail about the struggles of the main character, Paula Ritchie. How did you get her to confide in you? Paula was, in her own words, 'an open book.' The first time I called her, we talked for nearly three hours. She had applied for medical assistance in dying, or MAID, after suffering a concussion, which led to dizziness and insomnia and pain that never went away. I knew that Paula would be an interesting case study, in large part because of the complexity — the messiness, really — of her life. She was the kind of patient whom opponents of MAID worry about. Paula had a mix of physical and psychiatric conditions: chronic pain, chronic fatigue, bipolar disorder, depression. She had a history of childhood trauma. She lived below the poverty line. She was very lonely. You watched Paula die. I was moved, reading about her last moments. What was it like to see that? I was trying to be as small a presence as possible in the room. I sat in a folding chair at the foot of her bed. As a reporter, the experience was doubly intense: I was there to do a job — to gather information — but I was also experiencing the moment as a human being, sitting in a room full of suffering. I said very little to Paula and she said very little to me, although she did briefly reach for my hand as she was getting ready for her injections. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
On This Day, April 16: MLK Jr. writes 'Letter from Birmingham Jail'
April 16 (UPI) -- On this date in history: In 1862, the U.S. Congress abolished slavery in the District of Columbia. In 2005, the city officially began observing the date as Emancipation Day. In 1912, as crowds gathered outside its New York City offices, the White Star Line denied that it was withholding information on the sinking of RMS Titanic. In 1947, a fire aboard the French freighter Grandcamp in the Texas City, Texas, port on Galveston Bay ignited ammonium nitrate and other explosive materials in the ship's hold, causing a massive blast that destroyed much of the city and killed nearly 600 people. In 1963, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote "Letter from Birmingham Jail" while imprisoned in Alabama for protesting segregation. It was published May 19, 1963. In 1972, Apollo 16 blasted off on an 11-day moon mission with three astronauts aboard. In 1990, Dr. Jack Kevorkian helped in his first assisted suicide. In December, he was charged with murder for the death of a woman with Alzheimer's disease, who died using his so-called suicide machine in June. In 1991, the first Jewish settlement under the Israeli government opened in the occupied territories, defying a U.S. request to stop settlement activity in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In 1999, hockey legend Wayne Gretzky announced his retirement from the NHL after 21 years. He was inducted into the NHL Hall of Fame in November without having to go through the usual three-year waiting period. In 2002, Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok and members of his government resigned after a report faulted them, along with the United Nations, for failing to prevent the 1995 massacre of 7,500 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, Bosnia. In 2007, Seung-Hui Cho, a senior at Virginia Tech, went on a campus shooting rampage, killing 32 people before killing himself. In 2011, a vicious rash of tornadoes tore through 14 U.S. states over three days, leaving more than 40 people dead and many others homeless. In 2018, Kendrick Lamar became the first rapper to win the Pulitzer Prize for music for his album Damn. In 2021, Raul Castro, brother of the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro, announced he was stepping down as head of Cuba's Communist Party. In 2024, one of Denmark's oldest buildings, the 400-year-old stock exchange the Børsen, went up in flames while under renovation.
Chicago Tribune
13-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Today in History: Dr. Jack Kevorkian sentenced
Today is Sunday, April 13, the 103rd day of 2025. There are 262 days left in the year. Today in history: On April 13, 1999, right-to-die advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian was sentenced in Pontiac, Michigan, to 10 to 25 years in prison for second-degree murder for administering a lethal injection to a patient with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. (Kevorkian ultimately served eight years before being paroled.) Also on this date: In 1743, Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, was born in Shadwell in the Virginia Colony. In 1861, Fort Sumter in South Carolina fell to Confederate forces in the first battle of the Civil War. In 1873, members of the pro-white, paramilitary White League attacked Black state militia members defending a courthouse in Colfax, Louisiana; three white men and as many as 150 Black men were killed in what is known as the Colfax Massacre, one of the worst acts of Reconstruction-era violence. In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the Jefferson Memorial in Washington on the 200th anniversary of his birth. In 1964, Sidney Poitier became the first Black performer to win an Academy Award for acting in a leading role for his performance in 'Lilies of the Field.' In 1997, 21-year-old Tiger Woods became the youngest golfer to win the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, finishing a record 12 strokes ahead of Tom Kite in second place. In 1999, right-to-die advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian was sentenced in Pontiac, Michigan, to 10 to 25 years in prison for second-degree murder for administering a lethal injection to a patient with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. (Kevorkian ultimately served eight years before being paroled.) In 2005, a defiant Eric Rudolph pleaded guilty to carrying out the deadly bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and three other attacks in back-to-back court appearances in Birmingham, Alabama, and Atlanta. In 2009, at his second trial, music producer Phil Spector was found guilty by a Los Angeles jury of second-degree murder in the shooting of actor Lana Clarkson. (Later sentenced to 19 years to life, Spector died in prison in January 2021.) In 2011, A federal jury in San Francisco convicted baseball slugger Barry Bonds of a single charge of obstruction of justice but failed to reach a verdict on the three counts at the heart of allegations that he knowingly used steroids and human growth hormone and lied to a grand jury about it. (Bonds' conviction for obstruction was overturned in 2015.) In 2016, the Golden State Warriors became the NBA's first 73-win team by beating the Memphis Grizzlies 125-104, breaking the 72-win record set by the Chicago Bulls in 1996. In 2017, Pentagon officials said U.S. forces struck a tunnel complex of the Islamic State group in eastern Afghanistan with the GBU-43/B MOAB 'mother of all bombs,' the largest non-nuclear weapon ever used in combat by the military. Today's Birthdays: Singer Al Green is 79. Actor Ron Perlman is 75. Singer Peabo Bryson is 74. Bandleader-drummer Max Weinberg is 74. Chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov is 62. Golf Hall of Famer Davis Love III is 61. Actor-comedian Caroline Rhea is 61. Actor Rick Schroder is 55. Actor Glenn Howerton is 49. Actor Kelli Giddish is 45. Singer-rapper Ty Dolla $ign is 43. Actor Allison Williams is 37.
