NightBlogger

CNN.com
An out-of-work money manager in California loses a fortune and wipes out his family in a murder-suicide. A 90-year-old Ohio widow shoots herself in the chest as authorities arrive to evict her from the modest house she called home for 38 years. In Massachusetts, a housewife who had hidden her family’s mounting financial crisis from her husband sends a note to the mortgage company warning: “By the time you foreclose on my house, I’ll be dead.” Then Carlene Balderrama shot herself to death, leaving an insurance policy and a suicide note on a table. Across the country, authorities are becoming concerned that the nation’s financial woes could turn increasingly violent, and they are urging people to get help. More

Daily Express
THE spate of deaths among young people in Britain’s suicide capital could be linked to radio waves from dozens of mobile phone transmitter masts near the victims’ homes. Dr Roger Coghill, who sits on a Government advisory committee on mobile radiation, has discovered that all 22 youngsters who have killed themselves in Bridgend, South Wales, over the past 18 months lived far closer than average to a mast. He has examined worldwide studies linking proximity of masts to depression. Dr Coghill’s work is likely to trigger alarm and lead to closer scrutiny of the safety of masts, which are frequently sited on public buildings such as schools and hospitals.

It is also likely to fuel more campaigns against placing masts close to public places on health grounds. Dr Coghill said last night there was strong circumstantial evidence that the masts may have triggered depression in those from Bridgend who took their lives. They include Kelly Stephenson, 20, who hanged herself from a shower rail in February this year while on holiday in Folkestone, Kent. Dr Coghill said: “There is a body of research that has over the years pointed to the fact that exposure to mobile radiation can lead to depression. There is evidence of higher suicide rates where people live near any electrical equipment that gives off radio or electrical waves.” More

LINDSAY WISE
Houston Chronicle
When Andersson killed himself on March 6, 2007, he became one of at least 16 Army recruiters to commit suicide nationwide since 2000. Five of those suicides occurred in Texas, including three at the Houston Recruiting Battalion, where Andersson worked after serving two tours of duty in Iraq.

Roughly one in five U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan reports symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, but only slightly more than half have sought treatment, according to a recently published Rand Corp. study. Of those who did seek care, only about half received minimally adequate treatment, the study found.

Amid increasing concerns about failure to screen, diagnose and treat soldiers with mental health problems adequately, Andersson’s story raises questions about the pressures faced by the growing number of veterans who return from multiple combat deployments to high-stress recruiting assignments back home. Read more

In this 6 minute 2005 video, Adam Yamaguchi looks into the disturbing trend of why so many young people in Japan commit suicide. Japan has roughly half the population of the US, yet the same number of suicides.

TOKYO (AP) — April 25, 2008 — At least four people killed themselves Friday by inhaling fumes from a detergent mixed with other chemicals amid a wave of similar suicides that has reportedly claimed about 50 lives this month in Japan. Authorities are alarmed by the sudden rise in such incidents — an average of two a day were reported in April — because the chemicals are easy to get and the fumes could spread to affect bystanders or rescuers.
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