An off-duty police officer driving south in the northbound lane of the New York State Thruway this morning struck another vehicle head-on, killing himself and the other driver, NBC reports.

A tour bus driving in the mountainous Chinese region of Tibet fell off the side of a 30-foot cliff on Saturday, officials say, causing an unreported number of fatalities.

The world's oldest European eel died on Friday, according to the BBC, causing an uproar among Swedes who loved that old eel. The eel was born in 1859 and lived in a well.

Veteran foreign correspondent, well-loved war reporter, and author of the extraordinary Iraq War book Black Hearts Jim Frederick died suddenly last week of a heart attack in Oakland, California. He was 42 years old.

A few years ago, I stood outside of my ex-boyfriend Billy's house. I was there for the second time that day, this time to take him to an appointment he had with his psychiatrist. It was an unusually sunny day for a Seattle February and I hadn't thought to wear sunglasses because it's not often that you need them here in the winter. If we hadn't broken up just before we'd both moved all the way across the country from New Haven, it would have been our fifth anniversary, but we had ended things and so instead it was just Groundhog's Day. I raised the heavy brass knocker on the dark red door and snapped it down a few times. The sound was loud as gunshots and echoed down the street. I struck it again and again. Nothing.

A giraffe being driven down a highway in South Africa died on Thursday after its head collided with a low bridge. Witnesses described the horrific scene and posted pictures of the giraffe taken just before the accident to Twitter.

A 54-year-old man died yesterday after crashing his car into an long-abandoned home in St. Charles, Michigan. Responders arrived to the scene quickly, but their efforts were deterred by an angry swarm of bees that had apparently been living in the house.

After a rap concert on the beach in Conakry, Guinea ended Tuesday night, at least 33 people were reported dead after a stampede occurred. Over 700 people had attended the concert and were asked to leave through a single gated exit.

A man fatally crushed by an elevator inside a Bronx public housing complex may have been riding the elevator like a "roller coaster," NYPD sources told the New York Post.

Today in unspeakable sadness, the story of Raphael Wittmann, a 14-year-old German boy with terminal cancer who broke both his legs and bit off his tongue in a head-on collision during a "dream ride" in a Porsche Boxster.

Car thieves in Philadelphia drove into a crowd of people this afternoon, killing three pedestrians and seriously injuring three others. One of the dead, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports, was a 10-year-old boy.

Daniel Pantaleo, the NYPD officer who can be seen wrapping his arm around Eric Garner's neck before the Staten Island man's death in a video that went viral last week, has been the target of two previous civil rights lawsuits, the Staten Island Advance reports.

A badly decomposed body found surrounded by liquor bottles found last month was identified as that of Yoo Byung-Eun, the billionaire owner of the doomed Sewol ferry.

When your wife catches you blowing a dude on a boat off a Florida nude beach, the correct response is to immediately apologize, and, once the situation has cooled, have a frank, open conversation about sexuality. Not recommended: throwing her off of the back of your jet ski and leaving her for dead.

Human remains found in a shallow grave on the side of the road in Guerrero, Mexico were identified as those of Harry Devert, a New Yorker who has been missing for six months.

Everyone is guilty of a little procrastination sometimes. If you're a writer, you might screw around for an hour before actually putting together a blog post; if you're a mechanic, perhaps you let a few repairs pile up before handling them. Funeral directors are no different: sometimes you just have to fill a storage unit with dead bodies until you get around to a proper burial.

Boko Haram militants attacked Damboa, Nigeria last night, leaving many dead and half the town burned to the ground, according to witnesses.

A rush-hour train derailment in Moscow today killed 19 people and injured 150, according to Russian officials. At least 50 of the injured are reportedly in grave condition.

A man at a Burning Man facsimile festival in Utah died after running into the ceremonial fire at the closing ceremonies on Saturday. Police are investigating the case as a suicide.

A three-year-old Filipino girl pronounced dead last week did a strange thing at her funeral ceremony yesterday: she woke up.