Gabriel García Márquez, the author of famed, beautiful books such as One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, has died. Márquez, who was recently hospitalized for pneumonia and other health issues, was 87. » 4/17/14 4:30pm Yesterday 4:30pm

A fortysomething woman in Montreal was killed this morning after her scarf got caught in the escalator at a train station. Holy fucking shit. An escalator strangled someone to death. I need to lie down. » 1/30/14 5:00pm 1/30/14 5:00pm

Saddest: Firefighters say an 8-year-old boy who saved 6 people from an early morning fire in Penfield, New York lost his life while trying to save a 7th person — his disabled uncle. » 1/22/14 1:20pm 1/22/14 1:20pm

Thanks to heavily lobbied-for changes to laws governing debt collection, student loans don't vanish after the loan holders declare bankruptcy. Nor do they vanish when the loan holder dies. Some loan companies have policies in place that erase student debt accrued by a deceased person; others do not. And the ones that… » 1/16/14 6:30pm 1/16/14 6:30pm

For hundreds of years, people wore mourning jewelry to commemorate their dead loved ones. But what secrets about the past can you learn from these dark baubles made of diamonds, skeletons and bits of loved ones' hair. » 1/10/14 4:16pm 1/10/14 4:16pm

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Caitlin Doughty of Ask A Mortician fame (yes, FAME) visited Mike Zohn at Obscura Antiques in New York City's East Village to "shop" for "gifts." Carved skulls, sea roaches, diaphonized rats and dental articulators ahoy! » 12/19/13 6:40pm 12/19/13 6:40pm

A widowed father, in a tribute to his late wife who died of cancer at 31, staged a photoshoot with the couple's young daughter that's as gorgeous as it is sad as a sort of "farewell" to the house the family once shared. Seriously, grab the onions and a large knife; you're going to need a solid cry alibi to explain away… » 12/17/13 6:15pm 12/17/13 6:15pm

Peter O'Toole, one of the best stage and screen actors ever, has died at the age of 81, according to his agent. Though he was nominated eight times for an Academy Award, O'Toole never received one, which is so absurd that it deserves its own Monty Python sketch. For some good Sunday reading, check out Gay Talese's 1963 … » 12/15/13 1:50pm 12/15/13 1:50pm

What does a person deserve for being caught possessing another person's credit cards and baggies containing trace amounts of marijuana? A fine? Probation? Jail time? Nah, not tough enough. How about death? » 12/11/13 6:45pm 12/11/13 6:45pm

Caitlin Doughty, our favorite mortician, weighs in on Viking funerals. You might like boats, and you might like fire, and you might want your corpse to set sail in a boat that's on fire, but apparently, if you do so, you will be breaking a bunch of laws. » 11/14/13 4:50pm 11/14/13 4:50pm

Here's our favorite mortician, Caitlin Doughty, hanging out with the simply sickening Laganja Estranja and talking death, Bette Midler, hooker makeup and what music they'd like to have played at their funerals. » 9/19/13 3:50pm 9/19/13 3:50pm

Did you know that about 15% of the American funeral industry is run by large corporations? "Death is a for-profit business," explains our favorite mortician, Caitlin Doughty. Corporate structure sometimes means a funeral director will try to "upsell" products to grieving families. Caitlin's advice: "Know what services you… » 8/29/13 5:10pm 8/29/13 5:10pm