Two prominent Western journalists have been killed in the Syrian city of Homs in the latest violence in the besieged city which left 20 people dead.

Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin, an American, and award-winning French photographer Remi Ochlik died when a shell hit a makeshift media centre in the Baba Amr district.

Opposition-held areas of Homs have been besieged since 4 February.

Thousands have died in unrest against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.

More than 40 people died on Tuesday alone, including Rami al-Sayed, a man who broadcast a live video stream from Homs used by world media.

Mr Sayed was fatally wounded by shrapnel during the shelling of Baba Amr. His brother posted a video of his body in a makeshift hospital.

I need to add some commentary before I post the latest news worthy article. If you all read BBC regularly like I do, then you will have read this today. If not, please read the article below. The West has this tendency to tell Muslims how uncivil we are, and that our actions are completely unprovoked. Well, here is a classic example of how hypocritical the Western powers are. They provoke us, when we have a protest, they say we are acting without reason. The news media is brilliant when it comes to defaming large swaths of people. There is no other social or religious group more demonized or persecuted than Muslims. Unfortunately for myself, I have had dear friendships end simply because of the intel fed to their families due to the media. It's quite bizarre and alarming.

NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Police Department monitored Muslim college students far more broadly than previously known, at schools far beyond the city limits, including the elite Ivy League colleges of Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, The Associated Press has learned.

Police talked with local authorities about professors 300 miles (480 kilometers) away in Buffalo and even sent an undercover agent on a whitewater rafting trip, where he recorded students' names and noted in police intelligence files how many times they prayed.

Detectives trawled Muslim student websites every day and, although professors and students had not been accused of any wrongdoing, their names were recorded in reports prepared for Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.