What makes autistic children different and how can their parents make the best choices to integrate them into daily life, especially with an overwhelming amount of clinical research to consider? In the United States, where an estimated one in 68 children suffer from the condition, thousands of parents are faced with these questions. VOA’s Anush Avetisyan introduces us to a mother who has first-hand experience.
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To mark the International Day of the Older Person, the World Health Organization is calling for a new, integrated approach to meet the health needs of an aging population.
By mid-century, the World Health Organization reports one in five people in the world will be aged 60 or older. As people age, it says they are likely to be afflicted with numerous health problems.
WHO Department of Aging and Life Course Director, John Beard, says older people probably will have more than one chronic disease at the same time. He says knowing how to treat these complex conditions is challenging.
“It has been demonstrated that integrated care that is already into a holistic system of the individual provides much better outcomes than just health services, which respond independently to a specific condition every time somebody presents with them. And, so one of the things we are trying to emphasize is the need to develop these systems of integrated care and chronic care,” he said.
Ed Kelley is Director of the Department of Service Delivery and Safety at WHO. He personally identifies with a health system that does not comprehensively assess the problems of older persons.
“If you take my own father, I have these parents we are dealing with — he is 90 years old, he takes 13 medications, he has got five doctors. None of them talk to each other. And, he is relatively healthy. That is a very typical situation for your average elderly person around the world,” he said.
The World Health Organization says the health of older people would improve if all ailments were taken into consideration when an individual seeks relief for one specific illness or disease. For example, chronic pain might be linked to an individual’s difficulties with hearing, seeing, walking or performing other activities.
0Casinos in the world’s biggest casino hub of Macau extended a 14-month winning streak in September with revenue up 16.1 percent, priming for a bumper national holiday week, which is expected to see strong visitor traffic in the southern Chinese territory.
Macau, a former Portuguese colony and now special administrative region, is the only place in the country where casino gambling is legal.
Government data Sunday showed monthly gambling revenue was 21.4 billion patacas ($2.66 billion) in September, within analyst expectations of growth between 11-17 percent.
Two typhoons
September saw the tail end impact from two typhoons in August, which caused massive destruction and unprecedented flooding.
Many casinos shut down for several days and had problems accessing fresh water and power, but big resorts on Macau’s Las Vegas style Cotai strip were left relatively unscathed.
Macau’s government this week will release a 15-year plan to boost tourism with key objectives including rebranding Macau into a multiday destination and managing local tourism capacity.
Typically during national holidays, Macau’s tiny peninsula and adjoining islands are inundated with swarms of visitors putting pressure on creaking infrastructure and transport.
Casino executives have said that hotels are fully booked for the official holiday period, Oct. 1-8.
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American rap artist Macklemore will perform a gay anthem at a rugby league final in Sydney on Sunday, thanks to the sport’s officials rejecting pressure from opponents of same-sex marriage as Australia votes on liberalizing its marriage laws.
Macklemore will perform the hit song Same Love before more than 80,000 fans of a sport traditionally associated with macho values as the North Queensland Cowboys take on the Melbourne Storm in the National Rugby League Grand Final.
NRL bosses resisted pressure last week to stop the song despite a petition signed by just more than 7,000 people calling for the performance to be banned.
Song No. 1 on Australian iTunes
Instead, the song rose to No. 1 on the Australian iTunes chart where it remained ahead of the match Sunday.
Macklemore pledged Friday to donate proceeds from the Australian sales of the song to help the campaign to legalize same-sex marriage.
After becoming the third major American celebrity to weigh in on the debate, the singer from Seattle, Washington, said music had the power to help people talk about the issue.
“I want to donate my portion of the proceeds from Same Love that I get off of that record here in Australia to voting YES,” Macklemore said in a Channel Nine interview posted on his twitter feed Saturday.
Voting underway
Australians began voting last month in a non-binding poll, conducted by mail, to inform the government on whether to become the 25th nation to permit same-sex marriage. The results of the poll will be declared Nov. 15.
Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman said he was surprised Australia didn’t have marriage equality yet, in an interview with NewsLtd’s online service news.com.au published Saturday.
U.S. pop star Meghan Trainor entered the fray in August after her image was used without her permission to urge Australians to vote against legalizing same-sex marriage.
“I support marriage equality. Someone in Australia is illegally using my picture for a campaign against marriage equality. So wrong. Not okay,” Trainor tweeted.
The debate has divided the nation of 24 million people along religious and generational lines and at times has threatened to turn nasty, prompting parliament to strengthen laws preventing hate-speech.
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The Invictus Games for wounded veterans came to a close Saturday with a rousing ceremony featuring stars such as Bruce Springsteen and Bryan Adams, though some of the attention focused on Britain’s Prince Harry and his girlfriend, American actress Meghan Markle.
The prince, a veteran of service in Afghanistan, created the Paralympic-style games as a way to inspire soldiers toward recovery. About 550 competitors from 17 countries competed in 12 sports over the last week.
Harry and Markle made their first public appearance together at the event earlier in the week.
At the closing ceremony, Harry sat beside the wife of Canada’s prime minister in the stands while Markle sat in a luxury box with her mother. Harry later joined her in the luxury box as Springsteen performed. Harry gave a smiling Markle a kiss on the cheek at one point. The 36-year-old actress known for her portrayal of a paralegal in the television show Suits recently told Vanity Fair they’re in love.
The seven days of inspirational athletic performances closed in spectacular fashion as Springsteen sang three songs, including his classic Dancing in the Dark, before joining Adams on Cuts Like a Knife.
Harry paid tribute to the athletes in his closing speech, saying, “Our world needs your dedication and passion like never before.”
“And you never know, this may just be the missing piece of the puzzle to help you regain that satisfaction of serving others once again,” he added.
About 550 competitors from 17 countries competed in 12 sports over the last week. This is the third Invictus Games. They are in Sydney next year.
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A rescued green sea turtle named Picasso was released back into the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, carrying the ashes of a self-taught Texas oceanographer who founded the rehabilitation center that helped nurse it back to health.
Hundreds of well-wishers pressed forward to get better views during a sunset ceremony that effectively allowed Tony Amos, who devoted his life to helping the endangered reptiles, to do so once more in death. On a stretch of beach named in his honor, Amos’ wife, Lynn; his son, Michael; and other relatives sprinkled ashes on the turtle’s back, then watched it slowly flap and craw its way into the waves.
“Come on little turtle, off you go. The sun’s about to set,” called Lynn Amos, when the creature stopped and briefly raised its head, almost as if to acknowledge the onlookers.
Many in attendance were barefoot. Some choked back tears. When the turtle finally disappeared into the shimmering surf, a few cried, “Bye Tony!”
Weathering the hurricane
Amos, 80, died of complications from prostate cancer on Sept. 4, days after Harvey roared ashore as a fearsome Category 4 hurricane. It damaged the Animal Rehabilitation Keep for ailing sea turtles and aquatic birds that Amos opened nearly four decades ago.
But the turtles there weathered the storm well, as their counterparts in the wild also appear to have done, advocates say.
Turtle, bird center battered
At Amos’ turtle and aquatic bird center in the Harvey-ravaged beach town of Port Aransas, the hurricane smashed roof tiles and solar panels and collapsed parts of buildings. Partially submerged concrete tanks housing around 60 rescue turtles were also damaged, but the animals weren’t harmed. Even Barnacle Bill, a 200-plus pound loggerhead who first came to the center in 1997, was fine despite the storm mangling the cover of his pool.
Sea turtles generally are good at avoiding hurricanes except for eggs that can be flooded or babies who are displaced from floating mats of seaweed where they feed, said Jeff George, executive director of Sea Turtle, Inc., a rescue and rehabilitation center on South Padre Island near the Texas-Mexico border. As Harvey approached Texas, George and volunteers scoured the beach and collected about 280 eggs that waited out the storm indoors, inside insolated containers. All but a few hatched and were released about a week later.
In Port Aransas, a few turtles were discovered amid Harvey’s wreckage, but most marine experts say it could have been worse.
Oil spill’s impact
Amos was born in London and went to Bermuda at 17, trying unsuccessfully to engineer a color, flat-screen television. Having never graduated from college, he moved to Port Aransas in 1976 and became an oceanographer for the University of Texas Marine Science Institute.
Three years later, the Ixtoc I exploratory well exploded in the Gulf about 50 miles from Mexico’s coast, and Amos saw the devastating effects of the resulting oil spill on sea life. He later founded the Animal Rehabilitation Keep, which still helps hundreds of turtles and birds annually _ tackling everything from pelicans that swallow plastic to turtles stricken with a tumor-causing virus.
Known for a long, white beard that helped him play Santa Claus at Christmas, Amos collected and analyzed debris on Texas beaches and painstakingly entered findings in databases. He also sailed on marine voyages throughout the world.
At the conclusion of Saturday’s ceremony, some attendees tossed flowers into the surf behind the turtle, but then went to retrieve them, wary that Amos would have objected to littering in the Gulf.
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Monty Hall, the genial TV game show host whose long-running “Let’s Make a Deal” traded on love of money and merchandise and the mystery of which door had the car behind it, has died. He was 96.
Hall, who had been in poor health, died Saturday morning of heart failure at his home in Beverly Hills, said his daughter, Sharon Hall of Los Angeles.
“Let’s Make a Deal,” which Hall co-created, debuted as a daytime show on NBC in 1963 and became a TV staple. Through the next four decades, it also aired in prime time, in syndication and, in two brief outings, with hosts other than Hall at the helm.
Contestants were chosen from the studio audience — outlandishly dressed as animals, clowns or cartoon characters to attract the host’s attention — and would start the game by trading an item of their own for a prize. After that, it was matter of swapping the prize in hand for others hidden behind doors, curtains or in boxes, presided over by the leggy, smiling Carol Merrill.
The query “Do you want Door No. 1, No. 2 or No. 3?” became a popular catch phrase, and the chance of winning a new car a matter of primal urgency. Prizes could be a car or a mink coat or a worthless item dubbed a “zonk.”
‘Those are my people’
The energetic, quick-thinking Hall, a sight himself with his sideburns and colorful sports coats, was deemed the perfect host in Alex McNeil’s reference book, “Total Television.”
“Monty kept the show moving while he treated the outrageously garbed and occasionally greedy contestants courteously; it is hard to imagine anyone else but Hall working the trading area as smoothly,” McNeil wrote.
For Hall, the interaction was easy.
“I’m a people person,” he said on the PBS documentary series “Pioneers of Television.” “And so I don’t care if they jump on me, and I don’t care if they yell and they fainted — those are my people.”
Hall also guest-starred in sitcoms and appeared in TV commercials. And with the wealth that the game show brought, he made philanthropy and fundraising his avocation. He spent 200 days a year at it, he said, estimating in the late 1990s that he had coaxed $700 million from donors.
His daughter Sharon estimated that Hall managed to raise nearly $1 billion for charity over his lifetime.
Another daughter, Joanna Gleason, is a longtime Broadway and television actress. She won a Tony in 1988 for best actress in a musical for “Into the Woods” and was nominated for Tonys two other times.
Benefactor’s gift
Born Monty Halparin in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in Canada, Hall grew up during the Depression. In 1942, Hall was doing manual labor when a wealthy stranger offered to pay for his college education on condition that he repaid the money, got top grades, kept his benefactor’s name anonymous and agreed to help someone else.
Hall only revealed the name of the late Max Freed about 30 years later.
Hall earned a degree from the University of Manitoba with the goal of becoming a physician. He was denied entry to medical school, Hall later said, because he was Jewish and faced quotas limiting the admission of minority students.
“Every poor kid wants to get into some kind of profession, and in my case I wanted to get into medicine to become a doctor. … My dreams of medicine evaporated,” Hall said in a 2002 interview with The Canadian Press.
On to entertainment
Instead, he turned to entertainment. He first tested his skills on radio and, after moving to New York in 1955 and later to Los Angeles, began working on a variety of television shows. Among the programs he hosted were “Cowboy Theater” in 1957, “Keep Talking,” 1958, and “Video Village” in 1960.
He joined with writer-producer Stefan Hatos to create “Let’s Make a Deal.”
The show’s roots could be found in “The Auctioneer,” a game show Hall hosted in Toronto in the 1950s. “The Auctioneer” was a “pretty pedestrian” program until the concluding 10 minutes, when he would barter with audience members, Hall told the Daily Herald of suburban Chicago in 2000.
“It was much more exciting than the first 20 minutes of the show,” he recalled.
Besides Hall, the hosts of “Let’s Make a Deal” were Bob Hilton (1990) and Billy Bush (2003). But it was Hall who was lastingly identified as “TV’s big dealer,” as the show put it, something he found at least mildly disconcerting.
When a People magazine interviewer suggested in 1996 that “Let’s Make a Deal” would be his epitaph, Hall replied, with a wince: “You put that on my tombstone, and I’ll kill you.”
However, Sharon Hall said Hall never refused an autograph and used his fame to help others.
His family’s financial circumstances and a childhood accident stirred that charitable desire, Hall said.
Childhood injury
At age 7, he was severely burned by a pot of boiling water and endured a lengthy recovery.
“When you’ve been that sick, spent a year out of school, you identify with people who have these ailments and sicknesses,” he told the Palm Beach (Fla.) Post in a 2003 interview. “And when you grow up poor, you identify with people in need.”
Hall was repeatedly honored for his charity efforts, with awards including the Order of Canada, Order of Manitoba and Variety Clubs International’s Humanitarian Award. Wards were named in his honor at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia and other medical centers.
Hall and his wife, Marilyn Plottel, married in 1947. She died earlier this year.
In addition to his daughters, Hall is survived by his son, Richard; a brother, Robert Hall of Toronto, Canada, and five grandchildren.
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