Department of Veterans Affairs FY2016 Appropriations: In Brief

[Excerpt] The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides a range of benefits and services to veterans who meet certain eligibility rules; these benefits include medical care, disability compensation and pensions, education, vocational rehabilitation and employment services, assistance to homeless veterans, home loan guarantees, administration of life insurance as well as traumatic injury protection insurance for servicemembers, and death benefits that cover burial expenses. The VA carries out its programs nationwide through three administrations and the Board of Veterans Appeals (BVA). The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) is responsible for, among other things, providing compensation, pensions, and education assistance. The National Cemetery Administration (NCA) is responsible for maintaining national veterans’ cemeteries; providing grants to states for establishing, expanding, or improving state veterans’ cemeteries; and providing headstones and markers for the graves of eligible persons, among other things. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is responsible for health care services and medical and prosthetic research programs. The VHA is primarily a direct service provider of primary care, specialized care, and related medical and social support services to veterans through the nation’s largest integrated health care system. Inpatient and outpatient care are also provided in the private sector to eligible dependents of veterans under the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs (CHAMPVA)

Department of Veterans Affairs FY2017 Appropriations

[Excerpt] The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides a range of benefits and services to veterans and eligible dependents who meet certain criteria as authorized by law. These benefits include medical care, disability compensation and pensions, education, vocational rehabilitation and employment services, assistance to homeless veterans, home loan guarantees, administration of life insurance as well as traumatic injury protection insurance for servicemembers, and death benefits that cover burial expenses. The VA carries out its programs nationwide through three administrations and the Board of Veterans Appeals (BVA). The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) is responsible for, among other things, providing compensation, pensions, education assistance, and vocational rehabilitation and employment services. The National Cemetery Administration (NCA) is responsible for maintaining national veterans’ cemeteries; providing grants to states for establishing, expanding, or improving state veterans’ cemeteries; and providing headstones and markers for the graves of eligible persons, among other things. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is responsible for health care services and medical and prosthetic research programs. The VHA is primarily a direct service provider of primary care, specialized care, and related medical and social support services to veterans through the nation’s largest integrated health care system. Inpatient and outpatient care are also provided in the private sector to eligible dependents of veterans under the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs (CHAMPVA)

The State of the Death Penalty

The death penalty is in decline in America and most death penalty states do not regularly impose death sentences. In 2016 and 2017, states reached modern lows in imposed death sentences, with just thirty-one defendants sentenced to death in 2016 and thirty-nine in 2017, as compared with over three hundred per year in the 1990s. In 2016, only thirteen states imposed death sentences, and in 2017, fourteen did so, although thirty-one states retain the death penalty. What explains this remarkable and quite unexpected trend? In this Article, we present new analysis of state-level legislative changes that might have been expected to impact death sentences. First, life without parole (LWOP) statutes, now enacted in nearly every state, might have been expected to reduce death sentences because they give jurors a non-capital option at trial. Second, legislatures have moved, albeit at varying paces, to comply with the Supreme Court’s holding in Ring v. Arizona, which requires that the final decision in capital sentencing be made not by a judge, but by a jury. Third, states at different times have created state-wide public defender offices to represent capital defendants at trial. In addition, the decline in homicides and homicide rates could be expected to contribute to the decline in state-level death sentencing. We find that contrary to the expectations of many observers, changes in the law such as adoption of LWOP and jury sentencing, did not consistently or significantly impact death sentencing. The decline in homicides and homicide rates is correlated with changes in death sentencing at the state level. However, this Article finds that state provision of capital trial representation is far more strongly and robustly correlated with reduced death sentencing than these other factors. The findings bolster the argument that adequacy of counsel has greater implications for the administration of the death penalty than other legal factors. These findings also have implications beyond the death penalty and they underscore the importance of a structural understanding of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel in our system of criminal justice

Sultan, dynasty & state in the Ottoman Empire: political institutions in the 16th century

From its inception around 1300, 'the House of Osman' maintained the ancient Eurasian steppe tradition which kept the system of suc cession open. At a sultan's death, the throne went to the best candidate to emerge in a contest. By the end of sixteenth century, dynastic strug gles, amounting to civil war and the killing of all the brothers of a successful prince, had caused disquiet in Ottoman polity. Subse quently, rules of succession favoured seniority due to circumstances of the age and lifespan of sultans. Also in the sixteenth century, the grand vezir established a personal administration. By the end of the century, the sultan, though himself no longer a charismatic military leader, curtailed the emergence of a minister in charge of policy. Ot toman polity remained a dynastic empire to its end which deliberately curtailed the emergence of independent political institutions

The Tennessee Death Penalty: Prosecutors, Juries and the Impact of Race

The impact of race within the American criminal justice system has seen long-term debate and has been studied by numerous social scientists. This dissertation examines the criminal justice system by analyzing data created by the Tennessee courts to determine whether race impacts the administration of Tennessee’s death penalty. This dissertation examines whether race impacts the overall administration of Tennessee’s death penalty, a Tennessee prosecutor’s decision to seek death, and a Tennessee jury’s decision to impose death. The impact of race at each stage is analyzed by logistic regression to isolate the defendant’s race, the victim’s race, and the racial interaction between them. Prior empirical research shows black defendants whose victims are white are more likely to receive death than white defendants whose victims are white. Prior research shows defendants whose victims are white, regardless of the race of the defendant, are more likely to receive death than when victims are black. The regression analyses reveal after controlling for heinousness of crime and the defendant’s dangerousness that race is not a predictive factor in whether defendants are sentenced to death in the overall application of the death penalty. The findings show that white victim murders, irrespective of the defendant’s race, have slight predictive power in whether prosecutors seek the death penalty, but white victim cases have the least predictive power of all variables that impact prosecutorial decisions. Murders involving black defendants and white victims, irrespective of their racial relationship, decrease the likelihood a jury will return a death sentence. When testing the racial interaction of defendants and victims, the only relationship that is a significant predictor in the Tennessee death penalty are murders with white defendants and white victims. Based on qualitative data from interviews with Knox County criminal court judges, this can be explained by heinousness of crime

Durvalumab: an investigational anti-PD-L1 monoclonal antibody for the treatment of urothelial carcinoma.

Our expanding knowledge of immunotherapy for solid tumors has led to an explosion of clinical trials aimed at urothelial carcinoma. The primary strategy is centered on unleashing the immune system by releasing the inhibitory signals propagated by programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) and its ligand programmed cell death ligand-1 (PD-L1). Many antibody constructs have been developed to block these interactions and are used in clinical trials. The Food and Drug Administration has already approved a number of checkpoint inhibitors such as anti-cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4 (CTLA4) monoclonal antibodies including ipilimumab; anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibodies including nivolumab and pembrolizumab; anti-PD-L1 antibodies including atezolizumab, avelumab, and durvalumab. One of the latest inhibitors is durvalumab, which is a high-affinity human immunoglobulin G1 kappa monoclonal antibody and blocks the interaction of PD-L1 with PD-1 and CD80. Currently, there are a number of ongoing trials in advanced urothelial carcinoma both using durvalumab monotherapy and in combination with other targeted therapies. In addition, durvalumab is being investigated in the non-muscle-invasive urothelial carcinoma, which is centered around intravenous formulations. These exciting developments have added a significant number of therapies in a previously limited treatment landscape

Region-specific up-regulation of oxytocin receptor binding in the brain of mice following chronic nicotine administration.

Nicotine addiction is considered to be the main preventable cause of death worldwide. While growing evidence indicates that the neurohypophysial peptide oxytocin can modulate the addictive properties of several abused drugs, the regulation of the oxytocinergic system following nicotine administration has so far received little attention. Here, we examined the effects of long-term nicotine or saline administration on the central oxytocinergic system using [(125)I]OVTA autoradiographic binding in mouse brain. Male, 7-week old C57BL6J mice were treated with either nicotine (7.8 mg/kg daily; rate of 0.5 μl per hour) or saline for a period of 14-days via osmotic minipumps. Chronic nicotine administration induced a marked region-specific upregulation of the oxytocin receptor binding in the amygdala, a brain region involved in stress and emotional regulation. These results provide direct evidence for nicotine-induced neuroadaptations in the oxytocinergic system, which may be involved in the modulation of nicotine-seeking as well as emotional consequence of chronic drug use

Adverse Effects of Cholinesterase Inhibitors in Dementia, According to the Pharmacovigilance Databases of the United-States and Canada.

This survey analyzes two national pharmacovigilance databases in order to determine the major adverse reactions observed with the use of cholinesterase inhibitors in dementia. We conducted a statistical analysis of the Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) and the Canada Vigilance Adverse Reaction Database (CVARD) concerning the side effects of cholinesterase inhibitors. The statistics calculated for each adverse event were the frequency and the reporting odds ratios (ROR). A total of 9877 and 2247 reports were extracted from the FAERS and CVARD databases, respectively. A disproportionately higher frequency of reports of death as an adverse event for rivastigmine, compared to the other acetylcholinesterase inhibiting drugs, was observed in both the FAERS (ROR = 3.42; CI95% = 2.94-3.98; P<0.0001) and CVARD (ROR = 3.67; CI95% = 1.92-7.00; P = 0.001) databases. While cholinesterase inhibitors remain to be an important therapeutic tool against Alzheimer's disease, the disproportionate prevalence of fatal outcomes with rivastigmine compared with alternatives should be taken into consideration

Twenty-Five Years of Death: A Report of the Cornell Death Penalty Project on the Modern Era of Capital Punishment in South Carolina

In 1972, the United States Supreme Court determined that the death penalty, as then administered in this country, violated the Eighth Amendment\u27s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Many states, including South Carolina, scurried to enact new, improved capital punishment statutes which would satisfy the Supreme Court\u27s rather vague mandate. In 1976, the High Court approved some of the new laws, and the American death penalty was back in business. After a wrong turn or two, including a statutory scheme which did not pass constitutional muster, the South Carolina General Assembly passed the current death penalty statute in 1977. The first death sentences under the new capital sentencing regime were imposed on October 7 of the same year. With twenty-five years of experience under the South Carolina death belt, an examination of how the new, improved death penalty statute is working is in order. It is time for a report card. The time is right to examine South Carolina\u27s capital punishment scheme not only due to the new regime\u27s twenty-fifth anniversary, but also because of several recent national studies raising troublesome findings about the administration of the death penalty in the United States. For example, Professor James Liebman and his colleagues, in their Broken System studies, found high rates of error in capital cases, as well as racial inequities, geographical disparities, and other systemic defects in the administration of the death penalty. This Study, with its focus on South Carolina, is much more modest. It is an attempt to scrutinize one state\u27s new death penalty from a variety of perspectives in light of these national findings. Thus, after first discussing the legal landscape against which the current capital punishment statute was enacted, this Article will explore who has been sentenced to death in this state; how jurors, the South Carolina Supreme Court, other reviewing courts, and South Carolina\u27s governors have performed their various functions in the system; and how the system stacks up against the promise of a new and improved death penalty. Furthermore, the Capital Jury Project is briefly discussed

The Impact of Civilian Aggravating Factors on the Military Death Penalty (1984-2005): Another Chapter in the Resistance of the Armed Forces to the Civilianization of Military Justice

In 1984, the U.S. Armed Forces amended its capital punishment system for death eligible murder to bring it into compliance with Furman v. Georgia. Those amendments were modeled after death penalty legislation prevailing in over thirty states. After a brief period between 1986 and 1990, the charging decisions of commanders and the conviction and sentencing decisions of court martial members (jurors) transformed the military death penalty system into a dual system that treats two classes of death eligible murder quite differently. Since 1990, a member of the armed forces accused of a killing a commissioned officer or murder with a direct impact on the ability of military commanders to run an effective and disciplined military is significantly more likely to face a capital court martial and be sentenced to death than a similarly situated member accused of a murder connected to the military only fry the identity of the accused. This empirical study of charging and sentencing decisions in 104 death eligible military murders from 1984-2005 documents contemporary resistance to the civilianization of the military death penalty as manifest in charging and sentencing decisions. We conclude that a limitation of death eligible murder to those directly impacting military command and control could reduce the risk of arbitrariness in the administration of the military death penalty