Sylvester Stallone's eldest son Sage died from heart failure, the Los Angeles county coroner's office said Thursday, adding that there were almost no drugs in the 36-year-old's body.

Sage Moonblood Stallone, who was also an actor and appeared with his father in two films, was found dead at his Hollywood home on July 13, leaving the "Rocky" star "devastated."

Fierce fighting rocked northern Syria on Friday as Ankara pressed its call for safe havens to be set up in the country to stem the refugee exodus and protesters demanded the fall of the regime.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon told Syria's premier at a summit in Tehran that Damascus must stop using heavy weapons in the conflict, and the International Committee of the Red Cross warned of a fast deteriorating humanitarian situation.

The West Nile virus, responsible for more than 60 deaths in the United States so far this year, has now claimed its first victim in the eastern state of Maryland, state health officials said Thursday.

"We reported 13 cases of West Nile virus that occurred since the 1st of July," a spokeswoman for the state health department, Dori Henry, told Agence France Presse.

Global food prices soared 10 percent in July, increasing the threat to millions of the world's poor especially in Africa and the Middle East, the World Bank said Thursday.

Drought and soaring temperatures in the United States and Eastern Europe have savaged some of the key grain crops that feed much of the world, with prices for corn (maize) and soybeans hitting records.

Hundreds of people pushed, prodded and stretched their way to a new world record for the biggest simultaneous group massage, in the Thai capital Bangkok on Thursday, organizers said.

A total of 1,282 entrants took part in the event at a convention center, smashing the previous Guinness World Record of 526 people set in Daylesford, Australia, in March 2010.

Arizona's Republican governor Jan Brewer has been left red-faced -- again -- after mistakenly endorsing President Barack Obama in a live television interview.

The hardline Republican, who famously suffered a televised "brain freeze" in 2010 -- and had a public stand-up row with Obama when he visited Arizona this year -- made the gaffe Wednesday night.

A bear that became an online celebrity has been recaptured after making his way yet again back to Los Angeles -- and this time will get a new life in a "Club Med" for cuddly but dangerous animals.

Nicknamed "Meatball" and with his own Twitter account, the bear had already been returned to the wild twice after being found snaffling for food in the Los Angeles suburbs, the last time in July.

A co-pilot who sent his Japanese passenger jet into a nosedive when he mistook a rudder control for a door lock did not notice anything was wrong for 17 seconds, a government report said Friday.

The All Nippon Airways (ANA) flight, with 117 passengers and crew on board, dived 1,900 meters (about 6,300 feet) in 30 seconds from a height of about 41,000 feet.

An American freelance journalist whose whereabouts in Syria were unknown for more than two weeks is being held by the Syrian government, his employers said Thursday.

The Washington Post, citing diplomatic sources, said that Austin Tice, 31, was detained near the Damascus suburb of Daraya, where activists say forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad massacred hundreds of people last week.

A Japanese court Friday rejected Apple's claim that South Korean rival Samsung stole the U.S. firm's technology for its own products, the latest ruling in a global patent battle between the tech giants.

The Tokyo District Court ruled that Samsung did not infringe on Apple's patents on its iPhone and iPad computer for some of its own Galaxy smartphones and tablet computer.