Morbid suicide story of the day: A young woman in Taipei, Taiwan committed suicide by inhaling poisonous fumes while chatting with her friends on Facebook. None of her so-called friends called the police: more ›

Yesterday, Jeremy Page of the Wall Street Journal broke the news of the mysterious death of a British businessman Neil Heywood who was closely linked (and apparently had business disputes) with Gu Kailai, the second wife of the recently ousted Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai. There's more excellent sleuthing from Page today, who says Heywood was working part-time for a British strategic-intelligence firm, Hakluyt & Co., set up by former spies, although the company has since denied he was involved in Chongqing-related projects: more ›

Anti-American crusader Sima Nan (司马南) got his head stuck recently at an escalator at the airport in Washington D.C. but he can consider himself lucky that he walked away with moderate injuries. A nine-year-old boy in Beijing was not so fortunate. He died yesterday after his head got caught between two escalators at a mall: more ›

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Here's yet another tragic reincarnation of the Yueyue story all over again. A 5 year old boy named Longlong (龙龙) passed away from critical injuries in Linyi, Shandong Province after passersby ignored his mother's plea for help to rush him to the hospital. more ›

The two window cleaners who plunged to their deaths from the 22nd storey of the the Pacific Business Center on Yan'an Road yesterday could have been linked to each other by a safety harness. (We're not reposting the images here. Click here if you absolutely must see them.) more ›

Disaster has struck again in Guangdong province, where the death of two-year-old toddler Yueyue after a double hit-and-run has left the nation and the world stunned with the apathy of bystanders who left her bleeding by the roadside. Two three-year-old kids have been knocked down in separate incidents under eerily similar circumstances, both just metres away from their parents' shophouses. more ›

Pan Shiyi, real estate tycoon and president of SOHO China, posted the following tweet on Weibo earlier today, "The Board of Apple should decide right now to mass produce a new iPhone and iPad under 1000 yuan, and allow more people to afford Apple. This is the best way to commemorate Jobs." more ›

This morning, a man attempted to commit suicide by laying himself on the subway track at the Songhong Road station. Quickthinking passengers informed metro staff who then activated the emergency brake. Everyone was on tenterhooks as they watched the train coming in, but heaved a sigh of relief as it came to a complete halt just before the man. Crisis averted. more ›

Information released at the 7th China Hearth Congress last Friday reported that nearly 3 million people die of cardiovascular disease every year in China, averaging out to about 6 per minute! About 230 million people suffer from the disease in China, the causes of which include high salt and fat intake, lack of exercise, and smoking. Sounds like a life description of every middle-aged Chinese man we've ever met. more ›

Maybe it's a good thing that Typhoon Muifa didn't hit. The on-and-off lightning storm that started sometime yesterday has allegedly already killed three people. The victims were in places as far away as Pudong and Minhang. Two died after being struck by lightning, one passed away after a building collapsed. more ›

Are you still not convinced that former president Jiang Zemin (江泽民), is alive? Here's proof that our good old friend is alive and kicking. more ›

"A 31-year-old man in central Hunan Province was sentenced to death for killing his wife and mother-in-law with a car because they had a dispute over divorce, Hunan Morning Post reported today. Ding Daili became estranged from his wife Xiao Ying, who on July 17 last year went to Ding's home with her mother Li Meirong and her elder brother Xiao Jian to reach a divorce agreement, according to the police in Changsha, the provincial capital. After that, Ding was about to drive away from his home and he was stopped again by Xiao and her family as they demanded Ding to return Xiao's ID card and salary card. Ding was enraged by their abusing language and mowed them down with his car. Xiao and her mother were killed instantly and two other men at the scene were slightly injured, Changsha police said." [Shanghai Daily] more ›

"A GRIEVING couple blocked a road yesterday morning in a protest over the death of their three-year-old son after receiving an intravenous drip at a nearby health care center. The mother and father from Jiangsu Province, with relatives and friends, brought traffic to a halt for around two hours on Fengzhuang Road. More than 30 protesters stopped traffic at about 7am, daubing the Chinese character for 'wrong' on the walls of the community health care center and carrying placards into the middle of the road calling for justice. The distraught family laid a wreath on the road and knelt down on the ground. More than 100 police officers and urban management officials rushed to the scene to restore the traffic flow. Traffic was flowing normally again at around 9am. Officers took the family in for questioning and published a post on their microblog yesterday, urging people to take a rational response in medical disputes. The boy, the couple's only child, died on Saturday on the way to a hospital after receiving intravenous drips at the Zhenxin Community Health Care Center, witnesses said. Health authorities said they are looking into the case." [Shanghai Daily] more ›

More information about Kuan Yun-ti, Examination Yuan President John Kwan's daughter, and her mysterious death courtesy of Shanghai Daily: "Wendy Kuan, 34, fell from a residential complex in Xuhui District between 4am to 5am, police said yesterday. Police have ruled out the possibility of murder after an initial investigation. Kuan fell from the kitchen window in the residence on the 27th floor, officers said. It is not known if she was alone in the apartment at the time... Kuan's family, including her father, arrived in Shanghai yesterday evening. Kuan John Chung was "in deep sorrow and almost collapsed" at a Taiwan airport, according to Taiwan reports. Her mother, Zhang Hui Jun, hinted that there had been "relationship problems," according to the reports." more ›

We were just informed that Julien Stelmach, the charismatic operations manager of one of our favorite bars in Shanghai - The Rhumerie Bounty - passed away of heart disease last week. It's a very unfortunate loss: Julien was one of the friendliest, sweetest bar owners in the city. more ›

Kuan Yun-ti, the daughter of Taiwan's Examination Yuan's President John Kuan, has passed away in Shanghai according to Focus Taiwan. Kuan Yun-ti had only just married a mainland Chinese man last year - the cause of her death is still being investigated. The Examination Yuan is a branch of the ROC government in charge of validating the qualifications of civil servants. Under current regulations, senior government officials such as John Kuan need to apply for formal approval from the Taiwanese government before traveling to China. more ›

"A total of 29 people have died in fires this year and the city has recorded 2,551 blazes since New Year, the Shanghai Fire Control Bureau said today. More than 50 percent of the fires happened in residential buildings which will be the main target for the bureau's fire prevention checks. The city will also upgrade its firefighting equipment and facilities. According to the bureau, misuse of gas and electric appliances accounted for about half of all the fire causes. In the wake of last November's deadly high-rise inferno which claimed 58 lives and gutted the building on Jiaozhou Road, Shanghai authorities launched citywide fire safety checks in construction sites, shopping centers and other workplaces. They shut down 378 businesses and detained 622 people for violating fire control regulations. The bureau said each Shanghai household will receive a brochure on firefighting and escape skills by the end of June and all the residents will be organized to participate in fire drills this year." [Shanghai Daily] more ›

A 25-year-old auditor working for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in Shanghai complained of flu-like symptoms on March 31, and ten days later she was dead. The event has sparked enormous controversy online -- news of her death has been forwarded on Sina Weibo more than 15,000 times, and many are speculating that she was worked to death. We're hearing conflicting reports about the nature of her illness from the media, PwC employees, and PwC themselves. Here's everything we know so far. From the PwC press release: more ›

The first Chinese fatality of the great earthquake in Japan has been confirmed by the Chinese embassy in Tokyo. No information on the victim was released at the request of the bereaved family. All we know is that he/she was killed in Ishinomaki city, Miyagi prefecture, when the quake-triggered tsunami hit the area. more ›

Shanghai Daily reports: "The man is said to have hanged himself on Sunday afternoon in a student dormitory at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, school officials and police officers said." No other details about the young man's death are available, but his family members are on his way to Shanghai. more ›

The news that Gary Heyne, beloved co-owner of one of our favorite microbrew/food establishments in Shanghai, came as an incredible shock this weekend. Gary leaves his family - wife San San and daughter Gracie - behind. His family has requested that he be interred in Texas, so Boxing Cat Brewery is now holding a fundraiser to help with the funeral costs and offer assistance to his wife and child. more ›

In one of the more bizarre deaths we've heard of, three people were found dead in an oil container on a waste-oil collection ship in Shanghai's Songjiang District. All three bodies - two men and one woman - belonged to the same family and an initial investigation has ruled out murder. Instead, a stranger hypothesis has emerged: one victim could have accidentally fallen into the container while collecting oil. The two others then attempted a rescue, only to fall in themselves. more ›

Who knew officials had so much in common with college kids in the West? While China's students may not suffer much from the effects of firewater (mostly because they don't partake in the stuff), Chinese officials are going into comas and dropping dead because of too much boozing. Most recently, a deputy directory of water resources in Hubei died after a banquet dinner. Hospital records indicated that the official's heavy drinking had triggered a heart attack. In the same week, another official - this one a district chief in Guangdong, fell into a coma thanks to excessive amounts of alcohol. But the weirdest little tidbit comes from an over-drinking story from last year, when a family planning official died in Hunan and was later recognized as an "Excellent Party Member" who had died with "honor." Last we checked, puking up a storm and drunkenly stumbling face first onto the floor wasn't all that honorable, but perhaps we're going about alcohol poisoning the wrong way. Source: China Daily more ›

We don't know if this is what happens every summer in this city, but it seems like this month there have been a lot of really depressing stories about children drowning. First, there was the woman who allegedly threw a two-month-old infant into the river. She has been detained and is rumored to be suffering from post-partum depression. Then a little boy fell into the river near the Yangjia Bridge last week. He has yet to be found. And now Shanghai Daily tells us that a toddler has drowned in a freak septic tank accident in Baoshan District. Someone left the top of a septic tank open and a 5-year-old girl fell in and wasn't discovered til two days later. Good god. So keep an eye on your kids, parents, especially if they happen to be playing anywhere near water. more ›

Around 6:40 this morning, the scaffolding of the elevated on Huaxiang Lu near Beiqing Lu in the Minhang District collapsed in the construction area. More than 10 construction workers had been standing on the scaffolding before it suddenly crashed down. Immediately after the collapse, 120 emergency technicians rushed to the scene and brought the injured people to Qu Jing Hospital. According to Xinmin, one construction worker had died and another six have suffered injuries. more ›

The Ministry of Public Security has started a three-month campaign against prisoner abuse, after numerous suspicious deaths of suspects and prisoners within police custody in recent months - including the death of 19-year-old Xu Gengrong, who had been in detention for eight days on suspicion of murdering his former girlfriend. more ›

AFP reports:

One person was killed Sunday in a blast near a police post in China's financial hub Shanghai, the state news agency Xinhua reported. more ›

Randy Cohen, New York Times "The Ethicist" columnist, might be inclined to think so. Granted, Cohen's anti-auto podcast from last week is about Manhattan, but several of his arguments already seem applicable to Shanghai (and, in 2020, when our city's subway system looks like this, there will be few ethical excuses for owning personal cars in most of Shanghai). Cohen lays out five reasons why cars and Manhattanites shouldn't mix. Here's No. 1: "Cars kill. If you introduced a transportation system by announcing, 'It'll only kill 40,000 people a year,' it's hard to believe it would gain widespread popularity." (The number of "traffic deaths" in China was down to 73,484 in 2008, but up 100 percent over the last 20 years.) Listen to all New York Times podcasts here or subscribe via iTunes. They're all free. more ›