Articles by Debbie Truong

Advocates, lawmakers rally to protect DACA recipients

December 12, 2017 Debbie Truong 0

After Maricruz Abarca’s mother brought her into the United States illegally as a teenager, Abarca began building a life. She’s now a mother and business owner in Baltimore, she recalled during a Wednesday demonstration organized by immigrant rights advocates in the shadow of the Capitol. But the life she’s settled into was upended in September after President Donald Trump reversed Obama-era provisions that insulated from deportation people who, like her, were brought to the country illegally as minors.

117 people died in 11 mass shootings this year

December 12, 2017 Debbie Truong 0

In October, a man fired indiscriminately from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas into a crowd of country music concertgoers, killing 58 people. The massacre at the Route 91 Harvest music festival marked the single deadliest mass shooting in recent memory. Authorities found 23 guns in the gunman’s hotel room, about half of which were equipped with bump stocks that allowed for rapid fire, according to the Washington Post.

Upcoming film series aims to re-establish trust in the media

December 7, 2017 Debbie Truong 0

Even before President Donald Trump called the media, “the enemy of the American people,” and began using the term fake news to discredit journalists, trust in the media was already at an all-time-low. A 2016 report by Gallup, an independent survey company, said Americans’ trust and confidence in the mass media “to report the news fully, accurately and fairly” had dropped to its lowest level since 1972 when they first started asking the question. Bill Gentile, a full-time film and media professor at American University hopes to curb this trend by taking people behind the scenes and showing them the sacrifice and dedication of the journalists that bring them the news.  

More than half of pain pill prescriptions written for people with mental illness

November 7, 2017 Debbie Truong 0

More than half of 115 million prescriptions for pain pills each year are distributed to people with mental health disorders, according to research released earlier this year. Adults with anxiety or depression receive 51.4 percent of prescriptions for opioids yearly, the analysis from researchers at the University of Michigan and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth found. The study is one of the first to explore the link between mental illness and opioid use, justifying further examination of the connection between the two, the study’s authors say.