Four years ago, a woman I love—a friend who felt sisterly and vibrant—died of breast cancer. She was 33. I feel like I must spell it out: thirty-three. I want to paint it on a brick wall in the middle of the night. I want to wear it like the scarlet letter A. I want every billboard to read two numbers: 3 and 3.

Two men in Hamilton, Ohio fell to their deaths when painting a water tower, police say. They had been painting the tower when scaffolding that was holding them up "failed."

At around 4 a.m. Tuesday morning, a 35-year-old man in Roy, Utah called a suicide hotline looking for help. A SWAT team responded to the man's home, and after a seven-hour standoff in his garage, an officer shot and killed him.

While the official word is that comedy legend Joan Rivers died of complications from throat surgery—namely, oxygen deprivation that led to irreparable brain damage—we'll never know exactly how she died, because her daughter Melissa Rivers asked doctors not to perform an autopsy.

Danny Gold's Vice story about Ebola in Liberia is terrifying, and not just for the lack of protective gear in evidence.

On Monday night, NYPD officers shot and killed two men, Francisco Carvajal and Rafael Laureano, in a Brooklyn apartment. Carvajal had broken into his ex-girlfriend's home and was threatening her and her children with a knife; Laureano was attempting to intervene and was accidentally hit with a police bullet.

A 25-year-old wine specialist died Monday after she was overcome by fumes from a fermentation tank, causing her to lose her balance and fall into the vat.

A bus carrying the North Central Texas College softball team through Oklahoma was struck by a tractor-trailer late Friday night, killing four and injuring fifteen. The tractor-trailer had allegedly crossed over the center median of highway I-35.

Guy Blouin, 48, died in Quebec City, Canada, last week. According to witnesses, he had been run over by a police cruiser after riding his bicycle the wrong way on a one-way street, and officers continued to arrest him even after blood poured out of his mouth.

We've all had pets that died. Pets die. It's all part of the cycle of life (and death). But a teen in Holland wearing an awesome Pacman hoodie took the initiative to build the first funeral rat helicopter after his pet rodent died from cancer.

Bangladeshi writer Tahmima Anam has a heartbreaking editorial on Bangladesh's dismally maintained, murderous roads and waterways in today's Times: As she details, using WHO stats, at least 17,000 people die a year on Bangladesh's roads, not always while they're in vehicles.

A 32-year-old woman was found dead inside her SUV in a convenience store parking lot, where she was trying to get some extra sleep between shifts at her four part-time jobs, the New Jersey Star-Ledger reports.

A new day has dawned, and with it, a new draft of a new United Nations report on climate change has leaked unto the world. Like the turning pages of a calendar as one draws closer to death, the report brings tidings that grow worse, and worse, and worse.

According to a coroner's report obtained by NBC News, Victor White, a 22-year-old black man, committed suicide in the back of a police car by shooting himself in the chest while his hands were cuffed behind his back. The report contradicts the official police account, which said White shot himself in the back.

Every time I drive on the New Jersey Turnpike I see one of these billboards, and every time I see one of these billboards I start getting a phantom headache. The crisp, compact jpeg here doesn't do justice to the image looming beside the highway: Clive Owen's pained gaze, caught between excesses of light and of shadow, as he shoves a lowball glass toward the viewer, like he's trying to ward something off with it.

Lord Richard Attenborough, an Academy Award-winning director and actor famous for his iconic roles in films like Jurassic Park and Miracle on 34th Street, reportedly died Sunday at age 90.

Dante Parker, a 36-year-old married father of five who family and coworkers described as a hard-working "good dad" with a sense of humor, died this week after San Bernardino County Sheriff's deputies stunned him multiple times with a taser.

Rush Limbaugh, in a damned fine effort to get your weird uncle Larry riled up on his way to work, claimed Robin Williams' suicide could be attributed to a "leftist worldview" on his radio show this week.

If you have a "young one" waddling around your home at the moment (because it is your child), I suggest you lift them off the ground with a mighty effort, shake them (as much as you're able), and scream, "There's a 40% chance you will have diabetes one day!" (until your muscles give out).

Ezell Ford, 25, was shot and killed by LAPD officers near his home in Los Angeles' Florence neighborhood Monday evening. Ford was unarmed, and a man who identified himself as a witness told local news outlet KTLA that cops shot Ford multiple times in the back while he laid down on the sidewalk.