Suicide

Regional News • Asia • Japan
Takahiro Shiraishi, Japan's 'Twitter killer', has been sentenced to death for the murder of 9
Murder scene of Zama Suicide Pact Slayings in 2017 (Zama, Japan)
Murder scene of Zama Suicide Pact Slayings in 2017 (Zama, Japan) Credit: Asanagi, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Takahiro Shiraishi, who admitted to the murder of nine people he had befriended on Twitter, has been sentenced to death in Japan. Shiraishi strangled and dismembered eight women and one man over the course of three months. All of his victims had expressed suicidal thoughts prior to their death on Twitter, but "none of the nine victims consented to be killed, including by silent consent" so the the judge, Naokuni Yano, found.

Regional News • Europe
Netherlands announces future permission of assisted suicide for terminally ill children
Minister of Health Hugo de Jonge
Minister of Health Hugo de Jonge Credit: Gerard Stolk (Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0)

Netherlands Minister of Health Hugo de Jonge announced on Tuesday that assisted suicide for terminally ill children under the age of twelve is to be legalized. He quoted a study according to which the new regulation will affect about five to ten children per year.

The study shows that "among parents and doctors alike, there is a need to actively end the lives of terminally ill children who suffer hopelessly and unbearably and who will die in the foreseeable future," de Jonge wrote to Parliament.

Arts, Entertainment, Culture • Celebrities & Public Figures
Daisy Coleman has died by suicide at age 23
Daisy Coleman has died by suicide at age 23
Credit: YouTube (Reproduction)

Daisy Coleman, an advocate for sexual abuse victim and subject of a Netflix documentary, has taken her own life at the age of 23. After her mother called the police for a wellness check, Coleman was found dead.

Coleman was allegedly sexually assaulted when she was 14 while being unconscious at a high school party. In 2016, she was featured in the Netflix documentary "Audrie & Daisy" which followed the aftermath of both girls' harassment after the assault.

"She was my best friend and amazing daughter. I think she had to make it seem like I could live without her. I can't. I wish I could have taken the pain from her! She never recovered from what those boys did to her and it's just not fair. My baby girl is gone," so her mother, Melinda Coleman, in a post to Facebook.