If there is one place that you don’t want to be these days it would have to be Syria as the death toll keeps rising and is now one of the most dangerous cities in the world as yet another journalist is killed while trying to bring the news of what is happening there to the world.

The latest victim of one of the worst government crack downs is Mazhar Tayyara who has been killed by government fire in the city of Homs in Syria, which is currently the center of resistance within the country against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Tayyara was a freelance journalist who was hired as a stringer for the Agence France-Presse and also who provided video footage for The Guardian and the Die Wilt in Germany.

Apparently Tayyara was trying to help some wounded people get to cover when a second volley of shells fell and he was hit by shrapnel in several parts of his body. He died several hours later in hospital.

The Committee to Protect Journalists issued a statement following his death.

“We offer our condolences to the family and friends of Mazhar Tayyara,” said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. “The Syrian conflict is growing increasingly dangerous for all kinds of journalists, from citizens who have taken the role of documenting unrest in the country to international journalists who report from the frontlines.

via Huffington Post

Freelance Syrian journalist Mazhar Tayyara killed in Homs is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Philippines navy, local fisherman, police and firefighters have joined forces in the hopes of widening their ongoing search efforts for survivors and the deceased of a massive flood that has already claimed the lives of more than 1,200 people.

The country has also packed more than 60,000 homeless citizens into schools and gymnasiums, many of whom are located in the two worst-hit cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan.

Search officials say they have retrieved 150 bodies from areas as far as 60 miles out to see.

According to officials the death toll sits at 1,236 as of Monday morning with two-thirds of the bodies still unidentified and more bodies floating away faster than authorities can reclaim them.

An official for the Philippines government noted:

“We’ve stopped counting the missing. There are no accurate figures,” adding, “Those recovered, we don’t know who they are.”

In the meantime the entire country has banned together including Communist guerrillas in the south who cancelled their movement’s 43rd anniversary celebration on Monday and promised to donate money  to flood victims. In a moment of political outrage the group also promised to punish multinational companies who they blame for the flood because of “environmental destruction.”

Speaking about their reaction to multinational entities a rebel said they had sought funds from giant banana and pineapple plantations:

“Some were lukewarm to our call,” he said. “That’ll be a factor when we decide which ones to punish first for this destruction.”

Search efforts are expected to continue over the coming days and weeks.

Philippines Flooding Claims 1,200 Lives, More Deaths Expected As Search Continues is a post from: The Inquisitr

A 71-year-old Canadian man was driving home with his 75-year-old wife from a vacation in Oregon when she passed away. If the story ended there it would be a sad tale of old age, however after realizing she had passed away the man drove his wife 225 miles before pulling over to call for help.

According to Tonasket Police Chief Robert Burks:

“He wasn’t sure what to do, so he kept driving.”

The couple had been on vacation when the man’s wife began suffering from a medical condition. Her husband tried to drive her home to British Columbia, Canada for treatment but she died near Pasco, Washington. According to police the man used his OnStar system to call for help, asking that he be put in touch with border patrol officials.

Eventually the dispatcher convinced the ma to stop at the Tonasket Police Department:

The dispatcher told Wenatchee World:

“I think it was just not registering that he needed to stop. He was taking her home, probably, to deal with it up there.”

While the females body is still at the Tonasket station police do not believe foul play was involved and therefore they have not asked for an autopsy at this time. The body will be returned to Canada once all proper transportation forms have been filed.

According to the police Chief:

“I believe that different permits have to get done to get a body across. I think that’s all they’re waiting for.”

Would you have acted the same way if you found out someone was dead next to you as your drove or would you have sought out immediate medical attention even if vacationing in another country?

[Image via ShutterStock.com]

Man Panics, Drives Dead Wife 225 Miles Before Calling For Help is a post from: The Inquisitr

It’s bad form to pose as a dead body in a casket, it’s in extremely bad form to pose in that casket if it’s the same type used to send the dead back from war and it’s in astronomically bad taste to post that photo on Facebook but that’s exactly what a group of enlisted Air Force men and women recently did and now an investigation has been launched.

In the photo (pictured above), a colleague is wrapped in chains with a noose around his neck. The photo was sent to Air Force Times by an angry Sergeant who was alerted to the photo by a former soldier who saw it posted on their friends Facebook page.

In his letter to AFT the Sergeant wrote:

“I cannot help but picture the faces of dead that we drug out of burning vehicles, dug out from collapsed buildings.”

In a statement about the situation Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said this type of behavior ”is not representative of the airmen I know.”

News of the photo couldn’t come at a worse time for the Air Force who admitted earlier this month to dumping the bodies of 274 soldiers into a Virginia landfill when they could not make a positive ID.

Donley continues to reveal in his statement:

“It saddens me that this may cause additional grief to the families of our fallen warriors.”

How do you think the Air Force should react to this type of blatant tomfoolery from their enlisted men and women?

Air Force Launches Investigation Into Dead Body Casket Gag is a post from: The Inquisitr

I understand that we are running out of spaces where we can have out mortal remains buried so that everyone can come and pay their last respects but the idea of polluting the great expanse of space with an ever increasing number of shiny urns doesn’t strike me as the greatest of ideas.

However this doesn’t seem to have fazed the government of Virginia in the least as they are floating the idea that you could get a tax deduction of up to $8,000 is you agree to ship your remains into space once you pass away.

Not only are they trying to have you believe you could save some money on your taxes but they are also pushing the idea that this would be great for the local economy, specifically as a way to boost visitors to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island.

Mourners would eat at local restaurants, stay at hotels and visit attractions, said Donna Bozza, director of the Eastern Shore of Virginia Tourism Commission, according to WTVR’s website.

“If you’re spending that money to go to space, you’re going to want your peeps to cheer you on,” she said.

via PhysOrg

Right now the whole space funeral business is dominated by a company called Celetis out of Huston Texas, where costs to have your remains launched into space can start at $1,000 up to $10,000 to have your remains sent to the Moon.

Send your ashes into space and get a tax break – What?! is a post from: The Inquisitr

Malaria is one of the world’s largest killers of human beings. In 2008 there were between 190 million and 311 million reported cases of malaria with between 708,000 and 1.003 million people killed by malaria; with the majority of those deaths occurring in sub-Saharan Africa.

A new study published in the November 11, 2011 issue of PLoS ONE reports about a new line of attack against malaria that is showing real promise.

Discovered by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshive University this new antimalarial agent is proving effective at clearing infections caused by malaria parasite by simply starving the parasites to death.

This “starving” can be done because of a weakness that the researchers found with strain of the parasite most commonly associated with severe infections and death – the Plasmodium falciparum (P.falciparum) strain. The “Achilles heel” as the researchers call it is that the P.falciparum can’t synthesize a vital building block for making DNA called purines.

Instead the parasite makes these purines by indirect methods by using an enzyme called purine nucleoside phosphorylase (PNP) to make the needed purine precursor called hypoxanthine. This is the point that the researchers have targeted as the weak point and by using the drug BCX4945 they kill the parasites by starving them of the purines they need.

The transition-state analog BCX4945 was chosen for this study because of its high affinity for both P. falciparum PNP and human PNP (which the parasite obtains from the red blood cells it infects). Since PNP is abundant in mammalian red blood cells and those cells are constantly replaced, BCX4945 is toxic only to the parasite and not its mammalian hosts. (Two of Dr. Schramm’s other PNP inhibitors — one for T-cell cancers, the other for gout — are being evaluated in clinical trials.)

“Inhibiting PNP differs from all other current approaches for treating malaria,” said Dr. Schramm. “For that reason, BCX4945 fits well with the current World Health Organization protocols for malaria treatment, which call for using combination-therapy approaches against the disease.”

via Science Daily

image courtesy of Doctors Without Borders

Starving the malaria parasite to death shows real promise as cure is a post from: The Inquisitr

That image you see above has, in a very short period of time, become the iconic image of Apple and Steve Jobs. It first started spreading around the web just after his passing away was announced and in the process made Hong Kong student designer Jonathan Mak a well known name, and broght him job offers in the process.

Well it turns out that Mak may or moy not have been the first to come up with the image as there are two more people saying that they came up with the design first.

One of the new names in the mix is a English designer going by the name Raid71 who said he came up with the image first back in May. Jonathan Mak on the other hand is saying that he didn’t rip off Raid71 and is claiming independent invention.

None of this is flying with the third person, Farzin Adeli in California, who isn’t just claiming first rights but is also trying to copyright and trademark the image. Adeli claims that he came up with the image right after Jobs’ death and while the image that went viral is a ‘negative’ version it is “virtually identical” to the one he created.

Adeli is apparently working with lawyers to secure the trademark for the image.

via Techdirt

The now iconic Steve Jobs Apple image is headed to copyright fight is a post from: The Inquisitr

A female driver was killed on Thursday when a large eucalyptus tree fell on her car, killing her before police were able to respond.

The accident occurred at 2 p.m on Irvine Avenue at Westcliff Drive in Costa Mesa.

Driver Rocco Iati was behind the driver when he saw the tree falling. Rocco says he was “4 seconds away from the tree that fell.”

Rocco called police to tell them what he had witnessed and then proceeded to stay with the trapped female driver until police arrived.

A helicopter was sent in to airlift the passenger to the hospital but the female driver died before emergency air services arrived.

The victim’s identity has not been revealed and reflecting on the accident Rocco responded “I want to send my prayers out to the family.”

According to Newport Beach police spokeswoman Kathy Lowe, Newport Beach first responded to the accident and it was later determined that since the accident happened in Costa Mesa they will handle the final response.

Disclosure statement: Rocco Iati is my brother, information about his recollection of the accident was taken from his Facebook account.

Tree Falls On Car In California, Kills Passenger is a post from: The Inquisitr

Anderson Cooper recently interviewed Mitch Winehouse about his daughters (Amy Winehouse) death and in the interview to air Monday on the new talk show Anderson he tells Cooper that his daughter may have died from a detox seizure and “there was nobody there to rescue her.”

Mitch made his statement after it was discovered that no illegal drugs were in Winehouse’s body at the time of her death, although an “undetermined” amount of alcohol was found in her blood stream.

Mitch tells Anderson Cooper:

“Everything Amy did, she did to excess. She drank to excess and did detox to excess,” while he went on to add, “periods of abstinence were becoming longer, and the periods of drinking were becoming shorter. It was heading in the right direction.”

He added that Amy had suffered from seizures in the past that would cause her to pass out, although he says until he knows for sure he’ll be waiting for an inquest to be completed in October.

Mitch said of his daughters life with and without drugs:

“When she wasn’t drinking, she was absolutely on top of the world.

Tune in to the new Anderson Cooper talk show on Monday to find out more about Amy Winehouse from her family members who until this time have been relatively silent about Amy’s passing.

Mitch Winehouse Says Daughter May Have Died From Detox Seizure is a post from: The Inquisitr

On August 6, 2011 30 American soldiers where killed when the helicopter they were riding in was shot down in Afghanistan by Taliban fighters. One of those soldier’s was Navy SEAL U.S. Petty Officer 1st Class Jon T. Tumilson.

During the service honoring the soldier Tumlison’s dog, Hawkeye, walked up to the casket and laid down in front of it heaving a big sigh.

Tumlison’s cousin, Lisa Pembleton wrote on Facebook that Hawkeye was Tumlison’s loyal pet and refused to leave his side during the funeral. The following looping time lapse video was shot during the service.

Even in death a dog’s friendship is unwavering.

via Discovery and IsViral

If this doesn’t touch in your heart then you don’t have one is a post from: The Inquisitr

This is obviously a developing story.

Twitter is reporting that Gaddafi is dead is a post from: The Inquisitr

At least four concert goers at the Indiana State Fair are dead after the stage where the band Sugarland was suppose to perform this past Saturday collapsed.

The winds were reportedly between 60 to 70 miles per hour; and it is only because the band manager decided to hold everyone back in the underground pit of the stage after hearing about the severe weather warning that the country duo of Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush, along with the band members, weren’t among the reported 40 injured people.

Immediately following the stage collapse the band stagehands and techs jumped into the area of the collapse and helped rescue the injured.

Four concert attendees are reported to have died and another 40 taken to area hospitals. “It was a perfect blue sunny day until this, it’s just heartbreaking,” says the source, who adds that watching the video footage later was “surreal.”

A Sugarland staffer referred to the band’s tweet following the collapse, which read: “We are praying for our fans, and the people of Indianapolis. We hope you’ll join us. They need your strength.”

via Hollywood Reporter

State police have said that the fair will be closed on Sunday but re-open Monday.

Here is a video capturing the disaster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdpzTOTo_UI&w=550

image courtesy of Hollywood Reporter

Sugarland concert stage at Indiana State Fair collapses killing 4 [Video] is a post from: The Inquisitr

What’s that old saying about absolute power corrupting absolutely?

Well in this case it seems that the police in Fullerton, California, took their power to the extreme and beat Kelly Thomas, a homeless man,  who suffering from schizophrenia, to death. While the police officers in question are being investigated by the Orange County District Attorney’s office there is some question about their impartiality due to the fact that the lead investigator in the case is a very close  friend of the Fullerton police chief.

Such is the concern that Shawn Nelson, a member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, sent a request to the FBI asking that they conduct a separate investigation into the death which happened on July 5 in a Fullerton bus depot.

Spokesmen for the Fullerton police publicly say the department will cooperate, which shouldn’t come as a surprise; given the horrific nature of photographs of Thomas taken after his assault, resisting an investigation would make them look even worse. And that’s something they can’t afford, especially given this radio testimonial from a “friend” of Fullerton cops who says video of the altercation between police and Thomas shows officers beating and kneeing Thomas with the Taser gun while Thomas was doing “absolutely nothing.”

via Gawker

Apparently the city of Fullerton tried to settle with the homeless man’s parents for $900,000, which could have been higher according to a city official except that Thomas “wasn’t no rocket scientist”.

What follows is an extremely graphic image of Thomas in hospital where he died from the beating.

Mentally ill homeless man beaten to death by police. FBI called in to investigate. is a post from: The Inquisitr

This is a developing story but Twitter is going crazy at the moment with the news coming primarily out of Europe by the looks of it that singer Amy Winehouse has died.

The British singer was apparently found dead in her London flat at around 4 pm and at this point her death is being listed as unexplained.

This news follows on the heels of her disastrous European tour where she appeared to be drunk on stage and was booed off by her once loyal fans.

Here’s a clip of Amy at her best 4 years ago on Letterman.

BREAKING: Amy Winehouse reported to have passed away is a post from: The Inquisitr

If one of your great pleasures in life is a cold ham sandwich, the CDC would like you to know that what’s lurking in your lunch box could possibly kill you.

Bologna, ham, sliced turkey and roast beef all make deli sandwiches delicious, but they also can harbor a dangerous and potentially deadly bacteria known as listeriosis. Old people, immunocompromised individuals and people who are knocked up are particularly at risk of serious illness resulting from the bacteria, which is heavily linked with miscarriage and stillbirth.

Government agencies say the new warnings to heat deli meats is a strong one:

But food-safety officials mean business about the warning. “When it comes to food safety, we’re serious: People at risk for listeriosis should not eat hot dogs, luncheon meats or deli meats unless they are reheated until steaming hot. Thoroughly reheating food can help kill any bacteria that might be present. If you cannot reheat these foods, do not eat them,” says Neil Gaffney, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service.

The warnings regarding deli meats seem, aside from hot dogs, like they would render the prospect of a sandwich unappetizing and far more complicated. Are you going to bother to heat your ham sandwich before you eat it? Are you concerned with listeria, which results in 1,600 cases and 260 deaths a year? Does the term “steaming hot” kind of gross anyone else but me out?

[Image]

CDC ruins picnics, says many should “cook cold cuts” is a post from: The Inquisitr

Those who like to start off the day with a latte/coitus combo and a morning run could be upping their risk of a terrifying brain aneurysm, according to Stroke: The Journal of the American Heart Association.

Per a study conducted by Dutch researchers, there are eight main triggers that sharply increase risk of an intracranial aneurysm (IA)- blood vessels in the brain that can swell and rupture. Only 2% of the population has IAs, and fewer of than that suffer ruptures, but IAs can be serious and deadly.

Researchers ID’d the top risk factors and the percentage at which they contribute to the risk:

• Coffee consumption (10.6 percent)
• Vigorous physical exercise (7.9 percent)
• Nose blowing (5.4 percent)
• Sexual intercourse (4.3 percent)
• Straining to defecate (3.6 percent)
• Cola consumption (3.5 percent)
• Being startled (2.7 percent)
• Being angry (1.3 percent)

Sound like your to do list today? Drinking alcohol was also determined to temporarily increase risk. Study lead author Monique H.M. Vlak, M.D, said that the events were sometimes preceded by nausea or vomiting, but oftentimes did not present with any other symptom. Vlak commented:

“Reducing caffeine consumption or treating constipated patients with unruptured IAs with laxatives may lower the risk of subarachnoid hemorrhage,” Vlak said. “Whether prescribing antihypertensive drugs to patients with unruptured IAs is beneficial in terms of preventing aneurysmal rupture still needs to be further investigated.”

Information was gathered for the study via a questionnaire administered to individuals who had experienced an IA regarding their activities directly prior to the event.

[Image]

Coffee, sex and exercise can up risk of brain aneurysm is a post from: The Inquisitr

Salt consumption is one of the areas in which those at risk of cardiovascular conditions are required to have less fun eating, and traditional wisdom long held that a reduction in salt was key in managing heart conditions and other co-morbid illnessses.

But a new study suggests that beliefs regarding salt consumption may be flawed, although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not support its findings:

Dr. Peter Briss, a medical director at the centers, said that the study was small; that its subjects were relatively young, with an average age of 40 at the start; and that with few cardiovascular events, it was hard to draw conclusions. And the study, Dr. Briss and others say, flies in the face of a body of evidence indicating that higher sodium consumption can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.

“At the moment, this study might need to be taken with a grain of salt,” he said.

The European study was published in JAMA, and included nearly 4,000 middle-aged Europeans without high blood pressure or cardiovascular diseases and tracked them for the better part of eight years. But what the study found was that the less salt participants consumed, the more likely they were to succumb to heart disease- “50 people in the lowest third of salt consumption (2.5 grams of sodium per day) died during the study as compared with 24 in the medium group (3.9 grams of sodium per day) and 10 in the highest salt consumption group (6.0 grams of sodium per day).” And while the biggest salt consumers had a slight increase in systolic blood pressure, there was no overall increase in hypertension.

In the New York Times piece on the study, several experts debate the feasibility of ever discovering the true impact of salt consumption, as the level of salt found in processed foods makes it nearly impossible to do long-term, controlled studies of individuals on low-sodium diets without pre-existing conditions necessitating said diets.

Wisdom of low-salt diet called into question is a post from: The Inquisitr

Would you pay your respects at a wake from a passenger’s seat or while shifting down to first?

A Los Angeles funeral parlor has instituted a novel, yet somewhat jarring new option for mourners. Instead of actually parking your car and saying a prayer or doing whatever it is atheists do casket-side, at the Robert L. Adams Mortuary in Compton, you can drive through a viewing lane and attend the visitation. Sound crass? Owner Peggy Scott Adams points to “convenience” as the main factor in offering the unusual mourning option:

“It’s a unique feature that sets us aside from other funeral parlors… You can come by after work, you don’t need to deal with parking, you can sign the book outside and the family knows that you paid your respects,” said Scott Adams. “It’s a convenience thing.”

Of course, convenience isn’t the only consideration when considering a drive-by grieving. Funerals are often a safety issue when gang or mafia deaths are involved:

In the 1980s, cemetery shootouts made gang members reluctant to gather for graveside services. The drive-thru’s glass partition is bulletproof, Scott Adams said, and so for a while the mortuary became a popular location for gang funerals.

Olivia Boudreaux, a mourner who attended a drive through viewing, says the detachment made the process simpler:

“I’m used to just going up and looking into the casket, and spending as much time as you need,” said Boudreaux. “But it’s good this way. Not quite as emotional.”

Would you pay respects in such a fashion, or does it come off as… well, disrespectful?

McMourning: LA funeral parlor offers drive-thru viewings is a post from: The Inquisitr

Perhaps as a testament to the pull tobacco addiction has on those in its clutches, a new study reveals one in five patients with lung cancer continue to smoke, according to the US National Cancer Institute.

The perhaps unsurprising statistic was revealed in a study, and one of the lead author’s says the ailing smokers may feel it’s pointless to attempt smoking cessation after the sobering diagnosis:

“The biggest obstacle is fatalism, the belief that it is too late to quit smoking so why bother,” said Kathryn E. Weaver, study lead author and assistant professor of social sciences and health policy at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C.

“There are benefits to be gained by quitting that have important implications for survival, response to treatments, and quality of life,” she said.

The study, published in the medical journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, reveals and even higher proportion of caregivers for those stricken with lung cancer continue to smoke- 25% of caregivers for lung cancer patients and 20% of colorectal cancer patients. Patients who continue smoking risk complications including secondary cancers.

Nearly one in five lung cancer patients continue smoking is a post from: The Inquisitr

Earlier this week: too much work can kill you.

Middle of the week- no work can also kill you. Researchers have found a “causal link” between unemployment and early or premature death, in a study published in the journal Social Science & Medicine. Unemployed individuals are “less likely to have good health care, and less likely to have healthy eating habits,” two circumstances which may exacerbate the risk.

Conclusions were drawn from a large scale study of over 20 million people in over a dozen countries. Interestingly, people in countries with more comprehensively available medical resources for the uninsured did not fare better than those in countries without. McGill Sociology professor Eran Shor said the link likely stems from financial stress itself:

“This probably has to do with unemployment causing stress and negatively affecting one’s socioeconomic status, which in turn leads to poorer health and higher mortality rates.”

Men are far more likely to die after job loss than women, at a 78% increase versus the increase in females at just 37%. Shor explains:

“We suspect that even today, not having a job is more stressful for men than for women,” Shor said. “When a man loses his job, it still often means that the family will become poorer and suffer in various ways, which in turn can have a huge impact on a man’s health by leading to both increased smoking, drinking or eating and by reducing the availability of healthy nutrition and health care services.”

Shor suggests more aggressive public health initiatives to address the issue.

‘Casual relationship’ found between unemployment and early death is a post from: The Inquisitr