Christmas, Deaths | featured news

A gunman opened fire in a suburban Portland shopping mall Tuesday, killing two people and wounding another as people were doing their Christmas shopping, authorities said. Witnesses described a scene of chaos and disbelief as a gunman wearing some sort of camouflage outfit and a white mask shot an initial burst of fire and then more rounds at Clackamas Town Center. Shoppers tried to find safe areas as teams of police officers began entering the mall to find the shooter.

After months of searches and appeals to the public, authorities confirmed Thursday that a body found in a northeast Maryland river was a North Carolina teen who went missing while visiting relatives in Baltimore over the Christmas holidays.

The Broward Sheriff's Office is investigating what appears to have been a freakish accidental death in which a Parkland woman was strangled by an electronic neck massager on Christmas Eve.

Five young men who police said died of carbon monoxide poisoning in a South Florida motel room were constant companions who acted like brothers and even went shoe shopping together before Christmas so they all would have the same pair, relatives said Tuesday....

A lightning strike killed seven people -- including a 4-year-old child -- at a nursery school Christmas party in South Africa, a government spokeswoman said Saturday.