In a tragic and disturbing trend, veterans are resorting to suicide on the grounds of VA facilities, VA Secretary Dr. David Shulkin said last week.

"As some of you may know, veterans tend to come to a VA -- either drive a car or come to the VA -- and actually suicide on our property," Shulkin said last Tuesday, stressing the need for the Department of Veterans Affairs to do more to curb veteran suicides, estimated at 20 daily nationwide.

"There are a number of reasons, not all of which I completely understand," for veterans to choose to end their lives at the VA, he said, "but one of them being they don't want their families to have to discover them."

"They know that if they're discovered at a VA, that we will handle it in an appropriate way and take care of them," Shulkin said in his opening remarks at the VA's annual "Innovation Day" at Georgetown University.

Shulkin, who has made curbing veteran suicides his top clinical priority, did not state how many suicides are occurring at VA facilities, "but every day I am notified of more and more of these that happen. So we just have to do more, we have to do better, we have to innovate" in seeking out and assisting at-risk veterans.

VA officials also did not put a number on what is known in the veterans community as "parking lot suicides."

Shulkin "was referring to a number of tragic incidents that have been in the news," a VA spokesman said in an e-mail. "His point was that VA has more work to do when it comes to its suicide prevention efforts."

FLORENCE, Ky. — The young man accused of plowing a car into a crowd of people protesting a white supremacist rally was fascinated with Nazism, idolized Adolf Hitler, and had been singled out by school officials in the 9th grade for his "deeply held, radical" convictions on race, a former high school teacher said Sunday.

James Alex Fields Jr. also confided that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was younger and had been prescribed an anti-psychotic medication, Derek Weimer said in an interview with The Associated Press.

In high school, Fields was an "average" student, but with a keen interest in military history, Hitler, and Nazi Germany, said Weimer, who said he was Fields' social studies teacher at Randall K. Cooper high school in Union, Kentucky, in Fields' junior and senior years.

"Once you talked to James for a while, you would start to see that sympathy towards Nazism, that idolization of Hitler, that belief in white supremacy," Weimer said. "It would start to creep out."

BOSTON —
A teenager was arrested for allegedly vandalizing Boston’s Holocaust Memorial.

Police said officers responded around 6:40 p.m. Monday where they saw the suspect being detained by two bystanders.

Witnesses said they saw the 17-year-old Malden male throw a rock at the memorial, shattering a glass panel.

Photos from the scene show shattered glass on the lawn with caution tape surrounding the scene.

The 17-year-old will be charged with willful and malicious destruction of property. Police said their civil rights unit is also investigating the incident to determine if additional charges are pending.

"I'm grateful for the quick response and the community help which led to the swift arrest of the suspect," Boston police Commissioner William Evans said. "This type of behavior will not be tolerated in our city. And, in light of the recent events and unrest in Charlottesville, it's sad to see a young person choose to engage in such senseless and shameful behavior."

Three speakers backed out of a far-right rally planned for this weekend on Boston Common, casting doubt on the event amid strong opposition from city and state officials fearful about a repeat of the bloodshed in Charlottesville, Va.

In a show of resolve, Mayor Martin J. Walsh joined Governor Charlie Baker, other elected officials, and civil rights leaders on City Hall Plaza Monday afternoon to denounce the hate and white nationalism that authorities said fueled the violence in Charlottesville, where a woman died Saturday after an Ohio man allegedly drove his car into the crowd.

Walsh vowed to do everything possible “so that the march or this demonstration does not happen in our city,” while other city officials said that if the rally proceeded they would keep participants safe.

Baker said that anyone caught in acts of violence would be held accountable.

“What happened in Virginia was a tragedy and an act of terror,” Baker said. “I want to be clear that there is no place here for that type of hatred.”

Tanisha Sullivan, head of the local NAACP, said the city is sending a clear message that “we stand against hatred, racism, and the terrorism that we all witnessed over the weekend.”

Some of the speakers seemed to have received the message that they were not welcome in Boston.

Augustus Invictus, an Orlando activist who took part in the Charlottesville rally, said organizers of Boston’s rally texted him on Monday and said it was necessary to cancel “from a PR standpoint,” after Saturday’s violence in Virginia.

Invictus, who attracted support from white supremacists when he ran for the US Senate as a Libertarian in Florida in 2016, said organizers indicated they were also worried about statements he has made espousing support for a “second American civil war.”

Another planned headliner, Gavin McInnes, said he was backing out. McInnes, who heads a group of self-described “Western chauvinists” called the Proud Boys, accused Walsh and other city officials of trying to incite a riot to discredit the assortment of right-wing activists who planned to rally in Boston.

“It’s a trap!” McInnes tweeted. And in an e-mail to the Globe, he added: “I’m out.”

A third speaker, Cassandra Fairbanks, tweeted that she also was not going to speak at the rally. “The threats keep escalating and people are unhinged rn,” she wrote, using Internet shorthand for “right now.”