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Knife Attack Kills 19 at Japan Disability Center, Official Says

By Issei Kato SAGAMIHARA, Japan (Reuters) – Nineteen people were killed and 25 wounded after an attack by a knife-wielding man at a facility for the disabled in central Japan early on Tuesday, a government official said, in Japan's worst mass killing in decades. Police have arrested Satoshi Uematsu, a 26-year-old former employee at the facility in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Tokyo, a Kanagawa prefecture official said. Uematsu had turned himself in, the official told a news conference carried on public broadcaster NHK.

Aging, indebted Japan debates right to ‘die with dignity’

By Linda Sieg TOKYO (Reuters) – Retired Japanese airline employee Tarou Tanzawa said he hadn't thought much about his own death until his 84-year-old mother was diagnosed with malignant lymphoma and decided against costly and invasive life-prolonging treatment. Soon after, Tanzawa made his own “living will”, stipulating he did not want life-prolonging treatment if he became terminally ill or was in a vegetative state. “I felt it was too soon (for my mother to die) but I also thought 'Ah, there is this way of dying,” Tanzawa, now 68, told Reuters.