J
    Jason Cherkis

    Jason Cherkis

    Reporter, HuffPost

  • A Psych Ward Doctor On Treating Patients On The Brink Of Suicide

    “They’re playing with one of the big existential issues for all of us, which is death,” says Dr. Stuart Beck of Mass General.

  • Bolton Claims Indictments Help Trump With Putin

    Trump is less enthusiastic about confronting the Russian president on election meddling.

  • Donald Trump Declares The European Union A 'Foe'

    "In a trade sense, they’ve really taken advantage of us.”

  • Here's How You Can Help Stop A Sexual Assault Before It Happens

    Earlier this year, a woman named Jackie Fuchs reached out to The Huffington Post saying that she was ready to come forward with a secret she had lived with most of her life: When she was 16 and the bassist for the Runaways -- going then by the name Jackie Fox -- she was raped by the rock band's creator in front of several bandmates (including Joan Jett) and a handful of hangers-on. HuffPost spoke with a number of those bystanders, and they confirmed Fuchs' suspicion that they, too, were haunted by the experience.

  • One Very Large Man's 18-Year Quest For Hot Dog Eating Glory

    Listen to our interview with Eric Booker below. A native of New York City, where he still works as an MTA subway conductor, he was walking with his kids past the Nathan's Famous in Oceanside, New York, in June 1997.

  • Christie Negotiates Discount On Heroin Overdose Drug

    New Jersey's first responders and government agencies charged with addressing the opioid epidemic got a boost Thursday from Gov. Chris Christie, a potential GOP presidential candidate. Christie said he had completed a deal to purchase naloxone, a drug that can revive an overdose victim, at a 20 percent discount from its California-based maker, Amphastar. According to The Associated Press: Amphastar will refund New Jersey $6 per dose sold to qualifying agencies and the state will distribute the rebates to the groups.

  • Senate Bill Would Dramatically Alter U.S. Addiction Treatment

    Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) have joined forces to back legislation that would make medically assisted treatments more accessible to opioid addicts. The legislation, known as the Recovery Enhancement for Addiction Treatment Act, would loosen restrictions on the number of patients a doctor could treat with buprenorphine for opioid addiction. The consensus among the medical establishment is that medically assisted treatments such as buprenorphine (and methadone), along with counseling, represent the best chance for addicts to gain a foothold on sobriety.

  • Cover Up: D.C. Police Cited For Refusing To Identify Themselves In Hundreds of Cases

    The District of Columbia's Office of Police Complaints issued a scathing report this week on how officers with the Metropolitan Police Department continually fail to identify themselves to citizens. The OPC reported a wide range of complaints.

  • David Letterman Grilling Politicians And Pundits Through The Years

    In the weeks leading up to Wednesday's final show, David Letterman has been hailed as a comic genius, a revolutionary who stormed the networks in a Velcro suit. When he's gone, one thing that we may not actually see again on mainstream television is Letterman's unique, prickly interview style. Sure, there was the celebrated awkward moment with Cher, a recent gruesome exchange with a clueless Dan Patrick and a teary moment with Lindsay Lohan.

  • Hillary Clinton Campaign Begins Drafting Policy Solutions To Heroin Epidemic

    After hearing story after story from voters on the campaign trail about heroin's toll, Hillary Clinton instructed her policy team to draw up solutions to the burgeoning opiate epidemic. A Clinton aide told The Huffington Post that the Democratic presidential candidate decided to make mental health and drug addiction a major campaign issue after stops in Iowa and New Hampshire, where she kept hearing from people that the problem needs more attention. “When I started running, when I started thinking about this campaign, I did not believe I would be standing in your living room talking about the drug abuse problem, the mental health problem, and the suicide problem," she said at the home of one of the first gay couples in the state to wed.

  • U.S. Park Police Enters Historic Settlement Over Mass Arrests

    The practice of surrounding protesters, detaining them without warning and arresting them en mass, or “kettling,” has been a go-to tactic utilized by police departments across the country. Kettling became widely known –- and the basis of several costly civil suits -- during demonstrations against the IMF and the World Bank more than a decade ago.

  • Report Provides Even More Evidence Of The Misuse Of Solitary Confinement

    A report released this week by the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonpartisan nonprofit based in New York, provides yet more evidence of the misuse of solitary confinement. "Disruptive behavior -- such as talking back, being out of place, failure to obey an order, failing to report to work or school, or refusing to change housing units or cells -- frequently lands incarcerated people in disciplinary segregation," according to the report. Before collaborating with Vera, Illinois found that more than 85 percent of the people released from disciplinary segregation during a one-year period had been sent there for relatively minor infractions, such as not standing for a count and using abusive language.

  • Someone Isn't Telling The Truth About Freddie Gray's Death

    Baltimore authorities and representatives for Gray’s family agree that the 25-year-old sustained fatal trauma to his neck and spine at some point while in police custody following his arrest on April 12. Although a full autopsy hasn't yet been released, the family has said that Gray’s spine was nearly severed, and that his doctors had attempted to repair three fractured neck vertebrae and a crushed voice box. On Thursday, unnamed law enforcement sources told WJLA that according to a police report shared with prosecutors earlier that day, an investigation into Gray's death suggested the fatal injuries occurred when Gray slammed into the back of the police transport van.

  • Heroin Addicts Finally Get Some Help From Kentucky Drug Courts

    Kentucky will no longer require opioid addicts to stop taking prescribed treatment medications as a condition of participating in the state's drug court program, according to a motion filed in federal court. The state court system had previously mandated that addicts taper off such medications within six months in order to remain in drug court -- a policy that contradicted established medical research and best practices. Connie Payne, who helps oversee Kentucky’s drug court program, stated in an April 3 affidavit that changes to the Kentucky Supreme Court's drug court rules were approved on March 24.

  • D.C. Mayor Doesn't Want You To See Police Body Camera Footage

    After this month's police killing of Walter Scott in South Carolina, Americans were treated to another lesson in how police departments can spin such incidents. If not for a citizen’s cell phone footage, the public may never have known what really happened between Scott and Officer Michael Slager. Officials in South Carolina and just about everywhere else are urging more body cameras for police officers to discourage such excessive force.

  • Private Equity Firm Threatened To 'Gut' Whistleblower 'Like A Carp,' Lawsuit Claims

    Private equity firm TPG Capital was sued Thursday by its former head of public affairs, who alleges his bosses threatened to ruin his career, fired him and sued him after he raised concerns about the firm’s business practices. Adam Levine, former managing director of TPG’s global public affairs department, claims in a whistleblower lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California that his email to top executives drew a harsh response from chief counsel Clive Bode. Bode said that if Levine had sent the email warning directly to him, Bode would have “hunted” him down and “gutted him like a carp,” according to the lawsuit.

  • Kentucky's New Heroin Law Marks A 'Culture Shift'

    On Tuesday night, Kentucky lawmakers passed wide-ranging legislation to combat the state’s heroin epidemic. Instead, they will be connected to treatment services and community mental health workers. At a Wednesday morning press conference before he signed the bill into law, Gov. Steve Beshear (D) said the legislation sent a simple message to addicts across Kentucky: "We’re coming to help you.

  • Boy Scout Confronts Chris Christie Over Post-Sandy Rebuilding

    In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) famously declared in tourism ads that the state was "stronger than the storm." The question going into the 2016 Republican presidential primary is whether the prospective contender is strong enough to withstand the persistent criticism over his handling of the state's recovery. Protesters recently followed the governor to Iowa, and on Tuesday, a Boy Scout confronted Christie at a town hall meeting in Freehold, New Jersey. The 12-year-old, Zachary Seemar, has been living in a trailer for the past two and a half years with his parents and older brother.

  • Kentucky Sued In Federal Court Over Drug Treatment Practices

    Two law firms have teamed up to file a federal lawsuit against the state of Kentucky for its practice of forbidding opiate addicts from receiving medical treatment while under the supervision of the criminal justice system. The plaintiff, Stephanie Watson, is a nurse with an opiate addiction whose bond conditions forbid her from taking any medications that would be prescribed by her doctor to treat her addiction, such as Suboxone, Methadone or Vivitrol. The Kentucky policy violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Watson's rights under the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause, the lawsuit alleges.

  • Kentucky Considers Changes To Drug Courts

    The Kentucky court system is reconsidering how its drug courts treat defendants thanks to a new federal policy that is pushing them to offer medications to opiate addicts. The state currently bars medication-assisted treatments for addicts in its drug courts. In early February, Michael Botticelli, the director of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, said that drug courts that receive federal money can no longer ban defendants from using treatments like Suboxone.