Survivor | featured news

A doctor overseeing the French version of the "Survivor" reality show has committed suicide following the sudden death of a contestant who he had treated, France's biggest TV station says. Dr. Thierry Costa killed himself on location Monday on an island in Cambodia, the TF1 station said. Costa, 38, blamed the press for damaging his professional reputation in a handwritten suicide note that TF1 published on its website.

Only one child made it out alive of a first-grade classroom at Sandy Hook Elementary School last week — by fooling the gunman into thinking she was  dead, the family's pastor says.

It's remarkable how strong the Charlie Brown specials continue to perform in the ratings, year after year. "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" is not the most popular entry in the beloved animated franchise (both "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and It's the "Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" deliver bigger numbers). Yet the program still managed to hold its own against CBS' "Survivor" and Fox's "The X-Factor" (in fact, the special edged out Factor in total viewers, see below). Plus,"A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" delivered its biggest audience in four years — 8.1 million viewers and a 2.2 rating in the adult demo, up 22 percent from last year. Pretty spry for a 39-year-old repeat, huh?

A skydiver in New Zealand suffered serious injuries Thursday when he plunged toward the ground after his main parachute failed, forcing him to turn to his reserve parachute, which only partially worked, police said.

A 28-year-old autistic man ate frogs and scavenged for roots in order to survive a perilous three-week trek through southern Utah's inhospitable Escalante Desert.

Authorities say a young New York girl survived a four-story fall from a Florida hotel balcony. Orange County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Ginette Rodriguez says the girl was not seriously injured when she landed Saturday night in some bushes at the Marriott Grande Vista hotel in Orlando.

A cat from Boston in America fell from a window 19 storeys high and amazingly survived!

Four hours into a family fishing trip, rough waves flipped a 22-foot boat off the Florida Keys, tossing eight people overboard. Seven of them, including a 4-year-old girl, survived by clinging to their capsized vessel and a small blue cooler for almost 20 hours, suffering exhaustion, jellyfish stings and hypothermia....

An Oregon hiker who survived a 50-foot fall, broken bones and three nights in a national forest says a strong drive to live led her to keep moving, eat bugs and even try a bite of a “plump and juicy” slug. Pamela Salant told reporters Monday that the snail-like forest mollusk “looked really tasty, but it was not” and she spat it out after giving it a chew. “I was thinking, ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this, but it’s what’s happening,’” she said.

An 11-year-old boy lived through a tornado that demolished part of his house by hiding in a clothes dryer, according to reports.