Suicide

The recent arrest of four "Final Exit Network" members - one in Baltimore - in connection with the death of a 58-year-old Georgia man again focuses attention on the painful issue of assisted suicide. Surely we all can agree that dying with a helium-filled plastic bag tied over your head is no way to honor the human dignity in each of us. Society should be able to come up with better choices than being in pain or killing yourself. People rightly fear being seriously ill and in pain or alone in a hospital room surrounded by strangers.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A huge explosion yesterday in a hunting supplies store here killed at least six people and wounded nine, and a few hours later a suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his chest in a bazaar in the eastern province of Khost, killing five people and wounding 38, officials said. The early-morning explosion in Kabul shook the city and turned an outdoor market near the store into a mass of debris. Afghan officials said that the explosion appeared to have been an accident and that it had occurred in a place where gunpowder and dynamite were stored.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A suicide bomber driving a taxi set off his explosives near a convoy of American civilian contractors and accompanying soldiers yesterday morning, killing himself and four bystanders, the Kabul police said. One of his intended targets was wounded. Within hours, U.S. soldiers fired into a crowd of Afghans near the scene of the blast, accidentally killing one man and wounding another, according to a U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. David A. Accetta. "It was an unfortunate incident, and we are investigating the cause of the accidental discharge of a weapon," he said.

WASHINGTON -- Despite a determined Defense Department effort to protect troops from deadly roadside bombs, the toll in Iraq continues to rise, with at least 19 American servicemen killed in the past week when insurgents' bombs tore their vehicles. Since the war began four years ago, Pentagon officials acknowledge, more than 2,000 U.S. troops have been killed and about 18,000 wounded when improvised bombs have shattered even heavily armored Humvees and other vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan.

WASHINGTON -- Federal health officials proposed new label warnings for all antidepressants yesterday, a move aimed at protecting 18- to 24-year-olds who might be at increased risk of suicidal thinking and behavior during early months of treatment. The "black box" update would follow similar changes made to antidepressants' labels in 2005 that added a warning of increased suicide risks among children and adolescents but did not give specific ages. The Food and Drug Administration emphasized that patients who are advised by their doctors to take an antidepressant should not stop using the drug.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Unlike so many deaths in this city these days, the passing of Ahmed Lami was remarkable not for its violent end but for its lack of bloodshed: He died of natural causes, at age 65. But even peaceful death has become a magnet for violence. As his Shiite Muslim family and friends gathered to mourn his passing yesterday afternoon under a tent in a middle-class, religiously mixed neighborhood on Palestine Street, a suicide bomber walked in, sat down and detonated his explosives, killing at least seven people and injuring 21 others.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush said tht the United States can still succeed in Iraq and that it would be September, at the earliest, before he considers changing course, as the White House issued a mixed report yesterday on progress in Iraq. The interim report's conclusions, many of which had been leaked in advance, offered glimmers of hope that the recent troop escalation is producing what Bush called "measurable progress" on the security front. Among the positive signs were a reduction in sectarian violence and a decrease in suicide attacks in May and June, a period that did not include one of the deadliest suicide bombings of the war, which killed more than 130 people this week north of Baghdad.

Former Baltimore Comptroller Jacqueline F. McLean won her bid yesterday to go forward with a $1 million lawsuit against city police for alleged invasion of privacy.In 1994, McLean attempted suicide in the midst of a scandal for which she later pleaded guilty to theft and official misconduct.Her lawsuit accuses city police of seizing the suicide note she wrote to her husband, then leaking the note to the media.The lawsuit, originally filed in 1997, was dismissed after McLean's lawyer, John H. Morris Jr., failed to respond to a court summons in the case.

THE RECENT crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 has become a national obsession in Egypt. To wary Egyptians, the investigation into the disaster's cause is not a search for truth but the latest flash point in the cultural confrontation between the Muslim world and the West.Perhaps no event since Egypt's defeat in the Six-Day War in 1967 has touched the nation's psyche more than U.S. news media reports suggesting that EgyptAir co-pilot Gameel el-Batouty committed suicide by deliberately crashing the plane.

"Night Falls Fast," by Kay Redfield Jamison. Knopf. 432 pages. $25.So many people throughout time have died from suicide, written about it, tried to make sense of it. In this new book, Kay Redfield Jamison attacks this complex, emotionally charged topic without fear. She has created a single, fresh text that answers the question so many have agonized over for so long: Why?In a sweeping, authoritative look at suicide, laced with the compelling tales of those who died or nearly died at their own hands, including herself, Dr. Jamison exposes the truth: Suicide is not one isolated moment of madness for otherwise rational people, but mostly an impulsive act of a patient trying to end the awful pain of a psychiatric illness.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - - A suicide bomber disguised as a Pakistani security officer attacked the lobby of a heavily guarded and fortified U.N. office in Islamabad on Monday, killing five other people and heightening fears of renewed violence in Pakistan's capital after a long lull in suicide attacks. The midday bombing occurred at Islamabad headquarters of the World Food Program. Dressed in the uniform of a paramilitary police officer, the bomber asked a security official at the agency's main gate for permission to use the bathroom, said Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik.

Cleveland Browns rookie running back James Davis will miss the rest of the season with a shoulder injury. The team placed Davis, a sixth-round pick from Clemson, on injured reserve Saturday and signed running back Chris Jennings to the active roster from the practice squad. Davis, who led Cleveland in rushing during the preseason, was hurt in the season opener against the Minnesota Vikings on a hit by cornerback Antoine Winfield. He was inactive the following week in Denver and rushed for 10 yards on five carries against the Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium.

On a Wednesday morning in August, Sangjin Lee, an immigrant from South Korea, left his $8-an-hour job as a bakery deliveryman, went through the turnstile at the West Falls Church Metro station and headed to the eastbound platform. He told his co-workers at Vie de France Yamazaki in Vienna that he had some things he needed to do. A six-car train bound for New Carrollton entered the station. Suddenly, there was a loud thud on the tracks, followed by an awful scream. Lee, 46, had thrown himself onto the tracks in front of the approaching train.

It is human - or perhaps just journalistic - nature to think we can explain the inexplicable. We take all the horrifying details that tumble from first one murder-suicide that wipes out an entire family and then unbelievably a second one - the sunny yellow house, the 10th-floor hotel room, the three little tykes, the two sisters, the mom who blogged and the one who volunteered - and we grasp for a universal string theory that will tie the who-what-where-when-and-how to...

The phone in the Parentes' 10th-floor hotel room rang just before midnight. By then, a mother and two daughters staying there had been beaten and asphyxiated by the man who answered the phone. Not long after taking that call - from a college roommate of his older daughter - the man used a knife to commit suicide. On Wednesday, Baltimore County police sketched a timeline for the murder-suicide of a Long Island family in a room at the Sheraton hotel in Towson. Officials described methodical killings over a period of hours Sunday, but a crime with no clearly defined motive since the killer left no suicide note.

The headlines have had a similar ring: A Frederick County man underwater on his mortgage kills himself and his family. A man accused of financial improprieties does the same while staying at a Towson hotel. A top official with Freddie Mac, a company with major money woes, is found dead in an apparent suicide. With the economic crisis showing little sign of easing - and with a known link between suicide and unemployment rates - experts warn that stressful life events such as losing a job, a home or savings can unhinge those who are vulnerable to harming themselves and others.

A convicted killer with a history of mental illness was found dead in his cell Monday in what authorities say was an apparent suicide, an outcome the inmate's lawyers called tragically predictable. Kevin G. Johns Jr., 26, was found at the Supermax prison in Baltimore just after midnight during a routine security count, according to the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. He was being held at the prison after being found not criminally responsible for the death of another inmate during an attack aboard a prison transportation bus in 2005.

Woman wounded in apparent suicide try A woman was found shot in the head in West Baltimore yesterday afternoon in an apparent suicide attempt, said police spokeswoman Nicole Monroe. The woman was found at Edgemont and Parkwood avenues about 12:51 p.m., Monroe said. The woman, whose name was not released, survived the shooting, Monroe said last night, but her condition was unavailable. Andrea K. Walker Man accused of arson and insurance fraud FROSTBURG: A Frostburg man has been accused of setting his home on fire in a bid to collect insurance payments.

The recent arrest of four "Final Exit Network" members - one in Baltimore - in connection with the death of a 58-year-old Georgia man again focuses attention on the painful issue of assisted suicide. Surely we all can agree that dying with a helium-filled plastic bag tied over your head is no way to honor the human dignity in each of us. Society should be able to come up with better choices than being in pain or killing yourself. People rightly fear being seriously ill and in pain or alone in a hospital room surrounded by strangers.

Man, 40, is charged in road rage incident Maryland State Police have charged a 40-year-old Pikesville man with six counts of first-degree assault in a road rage incident on the Baltimore Beltway last month. Stephane Roger Dejean, who was arrested Tuesday, is accused of running a Chrysler PT Cruiser off the outer loop at Security Boulevard about 1 p.m. Feb. 14 while driving a 1997 Nissan Maxima, police said. The Chrysler struck a concrete jersey wall and its six occupants, including three children, suffered injuries that were not life-threatening, police said.