Source 1: CNN
Source 2: BBC

A 25-year-old man, Tomohiro Kato, plowed into pedestrians with a truck in a crowded Tokyo neighborhood (Akihabara) Sunday and then stabbed 17 people in three minutes, killing at least seven in a grisly attack. “He was screaming as he was stabbing people at random,” an unidentified witness told public broadcaster NHK.

Kato was arrested with blood on his face. “The suspect told police that he came to Akihabara to kill people,” said Jiro Akaogi, a spokesman for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. “He said he was tired of life. He said he was sick of everything,” Akaogi said.

The Akihabara district specialises in electronic gadgets and video games and is especially popular with people interested in comic books and distinctive fashion. It is also home to one of the first shops to sell personal robots and robotics. The area is often crowded on weekends.

Once rare, stabbing attacks have become more frequent in Japan in recent years. In March, one person was stabbed to death and at least seven others were hurt by a man who went on a slashing spree with two knives outside a shopping mall in eastern Japan. In June of 2001, a man with a history of mental illness burst into an elementary school in Japan and killed eight children. He was executed in 2004.

Here’s a story from MSNBC:

Police in the town of Arvada, Colorado are searching for two robbers who used women’s thong underwear for masks. On May 16th, one man wearing a green thong on his face and another man wearing a blue one robbed a convenience store, getting away with cash and cigaretes.

Who were these guys? Gary and Wyatt from Weird Science?

Bye, Bye, Bye

Source: Orlando Sentinel

Boy band mogul Lou Pearlman was sentenced this morning to 25 years in federal prison for running a lengthy, systematic con that artificially inflated his net worth and cheated people out of $300 million.

During Pearlman’s sentencing in U.S. District Court this morning, Senior U.S. District Judge G. Kendall Sharp offered Pearlman an incentive to pay back his investors: for every $1 million he puts back in investors’ pockets, he gets one month off of his sentence. Since Pearlman’s sentence is for 300 months, he can avoid prison altogether if he forks up the cash. “I’m going to give you the keys to your jail cell,” Sharp said. But attorneys in the case say it’s unlikely there are any vast sums hidden and the prospect of Pearlman getting out of prison is unlikely.

Pearlman, 53, was once the toast of Orlando. His financial empire included popular musical acts like the Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync, an airplane charter business, and Church Street Station, an iconic piece of real estate in Orlando’s downtown.

Funny Flag:

Peacock also argued that Pearlman’s opulent lifestyle was a business requirement.”Mr. Pearlman did live large, if you will, but judge, he was in the entertainment business,” Peacock said.

From the Washington Post:

Deborah Jeane Palfrey, facing a likely prison term of four to six years for running a Washington area call-girl ring, apparently hanged herself Thursday in a storage shed behind her mother’s mobile home in Tarpon Springs, Florida.

Photo of “D.C. Madam” Deborah Palfrey, courtesy of Getty Images

Dubbed “the D.C. Madam” after a grand jury in Washington indicted her 14 months ago on prostitution-related racketeering charges, Palfrey, 52, repeatedly told journalist Dan Moldea last year that she would rather die than live behind bars.

Palfrey had been previously incarcerated for 18 months in California in the early 1990s after being convicted of running a prostitution ring.

Palfrey was convicted April 15 of financial racketeering, money laundering and using the mail for illegal purposes. Allowed to remain free while awaiting her July 24 sentencing, Palfrey went to Tarpon Springs to stay with her 76-year-old mother. Palfrey’s body was found in a shed outside her home in Sun Valley Estates Mobile Home Park.

Upon entering the shed located on the west side of the residence, Blanche Palfrey discovered her daughter, Deborah, apparently hanged herself using a nylon rope from a metal beam on the ceiling of the shed. Police found 2 suicide notes.

BBQ-smoker-turned-’Robocop’ chases off drug dealers

It’s midnight on the streets of Atlanta, and bar owner Rufus Terrill patrols his neighborhood with a rolling crime fighter of his own creation. Meet “Bum-bot,” as Terrill describes it; others in his neighborhood call it simply, “Robocop.”

This former BBQ smoker is armed with a water gun to chase off bums and drug dealers in downtown Atlanta. It’s a barbecue smoker mounted on a three-wheeled scooter, and armed with an infrared camera, spotlight, loudspeaker and aluminum water cannon that shoots a stream of icy water about 20 feet. Operated by remote control, the robot spotlights trespassers on property down the street from his bar, O’Terrill’s. Using a walkie-talkie, Terrill belts out through the robot’s loudspeaker, “That’s private property. You guys need to get out of here.”

Robotic vigilante

Terrill, a 57-year-old ex-Marine, asserts his motives are pure: He says more police now patrol the area at night, the park across the street feels safer and he’s had no break-ins since the cube-shaped robot has roamed the area. To Henrik Christensen, director of Georgia Tech’s Robotics and Intelligent Machines Center, the Bum Bot exploits the kind of anxiety that underlies the Terminator movies.

“We have a Hollywood picture that they’re going to run amok, kill people and do bad things. This Bum Bot plays on that stereotype,” Christensen says. “For the rest of us who want to use technology to assist people in their daily lives, it’s an obstacle.”

The robot’s shell is made of steel and plywood, covered in rubber gym mats painted black and nicked by rocks, bricks and other objects people Terrill was rousting have thrown at it.