Study: Antidepressants May Decrease Child Suicide Rates

Suicide rates among children ages 5 to 14 are lower in counties where antidepressants are prescribed more often, according to a study published last week in the American Journal of Psychiatry. The result does not allow scientists to conclude that the antidepressants lower suicide rates, because it is possible that some unrelated factor — a greater willingness to seek help for emotional problems, for example — could influence antidepressant use and suicide rates. But researchers said the results were worth keeping in mind after data showed that adolescents taking the drugs in clinical trials had more suicidal thinking than those who got sugar pills.

— The Washington Post

N.Y. Pot Users Rely On Home Delivery

An untold number of otherwise law-abiding professionals in New York are having pot delivered to their homes instead of visiting drug dens or hanging out on street corners. Among the legions of home delivery customers is Chris, a 37-year-old salesman in Manhattan. He dials a pager number and gets a return call from a cheery dispatcher who takes his order for potent strains of marijuana. Within a couple of hours, a well-groomed delivery man arrives at the doorstep of his Manhattan apartment carrying weed neatly packaged in small plastic containers. “These are very nice, discreet people,” Chris said.

— Associated Press

Marine Pleads Guilty To Assault in Slaying Of Iraqi Civilian

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — A Marine pleaded guilty yesterday to aggravated assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice before testifying that his squad executed a known insurgent who turned out to be a civilian. Lance Corporal Tyler Jackson, 23, entered the pleas through his attorney, Thomas Watt, at a military court hearing. He was the third serviceman to plead guilty to reduced charges in return for his testimony in the case, in which seven Camp Pendleton-based Marines and a Navy corpsman were charged with killing 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad.

— Associated Press

Judge Orders U.S. To Charge Cuban Bomber Or Release Him

MIAMI — He has confessed to bombing Havana hotels, served time for plotting to assassinate Fidel Castro, and for more than 20 years was a fugitive from charges of blowing up a Cuban airliner. But 17 months after Luis Posada Carriles was arrested and sent to a Texas immigration lockup, American officials have declined to label him a terrorist or charge him with a crime. Friday, a federal judge in El Paso, Texas, gave the government until February 1 to bring a case against Posada or the reputed bomber will be freed.

— Los Angeles Times