The Transformers movie franchise has been insanely popular, but it's also racked up some record-breaking production expenses. The third film, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, reportedly clocked up a jaw-dropping $195 million in production costs, with Michael Bay admitting that he spent an additional $30 million just for the 3-D effects.

It turns out that the studio has yet another enormous bill to pay for that particular movie, because Paramount has just settled an $18.5 million lawsuit for an accident that occurred on set in 2010. It sounds like just another incomprehensible number—$18.5 million?—but when you read about what actually happened, it's obvious no amount of money can really make the situation better for 26-year-old stunt driver Gabriela Cedillo.

Greyhound bus rides can be unpleasant under the best of circumstances, but no one got a more gruesome and tragic ride than Tim McLean, a 22-year-old carnival worker, who was attacked, beheaded, and partially eaten by his seat mate, Vince Li, a mentally disturbed man. Li, who suffers from severe schizophrenia, became convinced that McLean, whom he didn't know, was an alien and that he had to kill him to save humanity.

Li has spent four years in a mental facility in Winnipeg, and now he is going to be allowed to make supervised visits to the outside world. The decision sparked outrage in Canada, but Li says that he now takes his medication, doesn't hear voices, and that he is "not a risk for anybody." Er, does this make anyone feel comfortable? Yeah, me neither.

But there's one more thing Li would like too. And it's a doozy.

It was tragic that last week Mary Kennedy seemingly fell victim to the Kennedy curse and killed herself, leaving behind four children. But some of the sordid details now being revealed about the weeks leading up to her suicide are casting an even more tragic pall over her death. Mary's estranged husband, Robert Kennedy, Jr., had filed for divorce and begun dating actress Cheryl Hines. Hines is best known for her starring role in HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm. And, like a lot of new girlfriends, Hines had been making the events, parties, and general life rounds with her boyfriend, Mary's estranged husband. In fact, she seemed to sort of be taking over Mary's role in Robert's life entirely. (Mary also seemed to already know Cheryl and was photographed with her in 2010.)

Mary had issues with alcohol, debt, and depression, but watching the new life that Robert was carving out with his Hollywood girlfriend couldn't have helped her state of mind.

Lillie Stanton, a 48-year-old grandmother in Kentucky, has been charged with stabbing her 23-year-old daughter Danel Korrey Stanton and 22-month-old granddaughter Kaydence Ray Miers to death last week. She had also stabbed herself. The tragedy is unimaginable and until she was charged, it seemed impossible to imagine it could have really been her.

As of now, no motive has been given, but Stanton allegedly confessed once she recovered enough to speak to investigators. This is so heartbreaking for so many reasons. The exact person a young mom should be able to trust killed her.

But then this is the sad tragedy of so many stories like this.

New details are emerging in the case of Tonya Thomas, the Florida mother who inexplicably killed her four teenage children last week. The kids, ranging in age from 12 to 17, were shot at point blank range with most of their wounds on the fronts of their bodies, meaning they were facing their mama, maybe even looking at her, when she opened fire on them two, three, four, up to seven times each.

Experts say the gun Thomas used, a Taurus .38 caliber, can only hold a round of six shots, which means she would’ve had to stop and reload three times during the assault on her children. I can’t even begin to imagine the agony of watching your mother not only kill your siblings one by one, but the terror of waiting as she reloaded, knowing your turn to die was inevitably coming up. My heart actually aches thinking about it.

It's hard to call it good news. Police say they know who kidnapped California teenager Sierra LaMar as she walked to her school bus in March. They've even gone so far as arresting Antolin Garcia-Torres this week.

But the charges they've levied against the 21-year-old Garcia-Torres are hard to swallow. One count of kidnapping. One count of murder. Good for the justice system? Maybe. Maybe not.

Four years ago, Hanna and Chris Rapini welcomed their first child into the world, a son they named Cole. Seemingly healthy and strong, they took him home from the hospital ready to start their new life ... only that new life quickly took a tragic turn as his health started deteriorating.

From vision and hearing loss to severe developmental delays, he developed a host of medical issues. In his short life he has undergone countless tests and surgeries and traveled across the country looking for answers or a cure, but the only one that has been given is that it's an undiagnosed condition. Recently doctors dealt the devastating blow that Cole's situation is getting worse, and that he likely has only a few years left to live.

Times are tough, and quite a few Americans are struggling to find work. At the same time, unfortunately, there are employers who have seemingly taken advantage of the situation and treated their employees worse and worse, using the bad economy as an excuse for their bad behavior. That might be one reason why breast cancer survivor Connie Robinson, from Richard, Virginia, has spent the past three years not only fighting her disease but also fighting an uphill battle to stay employed.

Robinson says she was fired twice while in the midst of treatment. The first time, she was working as an employment specialist in 2009 when she learned she had breast cancer. She left work to undergo chemotherapy, and in the last week of her treatment, her employer dismissed her because she exhausted a federal leave act that allowed her to be away from work a certain number of days.