The white stretch Lincoln was headed across San Francisco Bay, carrying the bride-to-be and eight of her friends for a bachelorette party.
Five of them, including the bride, never made it across.
Somewhere on the seven-mile San Mateo-Hayward bridge, the limousine caught fire. The driver and four members of the bachelorette party got out, but the bride – identified by a relative as 31-year-old Neriza Fojas – and four others died in the burning limo Saturday night, the California Highway Patrol said.
"The flames were gigantic," said Roxanne Guzman, who was crossing the bridge with her husband and brother about 10 p.m. Saturday (1 a.m. Sunday ET). "The flames were so big and radiating so much heat that I could feel the heat off of my face, and I was in my car the entire time."
FULL STORYThe gunman who fired shots into the ceiling of a Houston airport on Thursday left behind a suicide note saying he had a "monster within" and he wanted police to stop him before he hurt others, police said Friday.
The man, identified as Carnell Marcus Moore, 29, of Beaumont, Texas, shot himself fatally in the temple as he was confronted by a Homeland Security officer at Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport on Thursday afternoon.
Moore had gone to the airport with the intention of suicide and left a note inside a suitcase he carried into the terminal, police officials said at news conference Friday morning.
FULL STORYInvestigators have found residue of explosives in the Cambridge, Massachusetts, apartment slain bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev shared with his wife and young daughter, a source briefed on the investigation told CNN on Friday.
The residue turned up in at least three places, the source said: the kitchen table, the kitchen sink and the bathtub.
Suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had previously told investigators that he and his brother built the devices in Tamerlan's home, according to another U.S. law enforcement official regularly briefed on the investigation.
Meanwhile, investigators searched areas in and around Dartmouth, Massachusetts, on Friday, according to the FBI.
FULL STORYFirefighters continue to battle what has been a fast-growing Southern California wildfire,one that has already consumed more than 2,950 acres.
The spread of the blaze seemed to slow early Thursday morning and crews gained greater containment, now pegged at 35%, according to the state agency Cal Fire.
The Riverside County Fire Department said 425 firefighters were involved in what's being called the Summit Fire. Six air tankers dropped chemical retardants on the flames.
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A military judge on Wednesday set a May 29 court-martial for U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, who is charged in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, in November 2009 that left 13 people dead.
Hasan is charged with multiple counts of murder and attempted murder charges for the alleged shootings at the post's processing center, where soldiers were preparing to deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Hasan's court-martial has been repeatedly delayed since it was initially set to begin in March 2012, most notably after an appeals court delayed the case over the question of whether the Army major's beard could be forcibly shaved.
FULL STORYThe winter of 1609 to 1610 was treacherous for early American settlers. Some 240 of the 300 colonists at Jamestown, in Virginia, died during this period, called the "Starving Time," when they were under siege and had no way to get food.
Desperate times led to desperate measures. New evidence suggests that includes eating the flesh of fellow colonists who had already died.
Archaeologists revealed Wednesday their analysis of 17th century skeletal remains suggesting that settlers practiced cannibalism to survive.
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California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed legislation Wednesday that will boost funding for state efforts to confiscate firearms from those prohibited by law from owning them, the governor's office announced.
The bill gives $24 million from the Dealers' Record of Sale fund – fees paid by gun owners at the time of purchase – to the state's Department of Justice to help clear the backlog of individuals who once purchased a gun but are now barred from possessing firearms.
The state's Bureau of Firearms has identified about 20,000 Californians who illegally hold an estimated 40,000 handguns and assault weapons, with the list growing by 15 to 20 every day.
FULL STORYFederal agents are looking into possible links between dead Boston Marathon bomb suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and a Canadian boxer-turned-jihadist killed by Russian troops in 2012, a source being briefed on the investigation said Monday.
William Plotnikov and six others died in a firefight with Russian forces in the southwestern republic of Dagestan in July 2012, while Tsarnaev was visiting the region, the source said. The 23-year-old Plotnikov was born in Russia, but his family moved to Canada when he was a teenager.
The source said Plotnikov's body was prepared for burial by a local imam on July 14. Tsarnaev flew out of Dagestan two days later, arriving in New York on July 17. Investigators are looking into the possibility he left because of Plotnikov's death, the source said.
[Updated at 12:58 p.m. ET] In rare bipartisan accord, normally quarrelsome U.S. lawmakers passed a measure designed to end budget-related air traffic controller furloughs blamed for widespread flight delays.
The House of Representatives approved the legislation, capping a major congressional initiative as delays snarled traffic at airports. The House vote comes a day after unanimous approval by the U.S. Senate.
The measure - which is expected to be signed into law by President Obama - gives the Transportation Department budget planners new flexibility for dealing with forced spending cuts.
FULL STORYDzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, has been transferred from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to Federal Medical Center Devens, a facility that holds detainees who need medical care in north-central Massachusetts, U.S. Marshals Service spokesman Drew Wade said Friday.
FULL STORYThe parents of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects have left their home in Dagestan for another part of Russia, the suspects' mother Zubeidat Tsarnaev told CNN Friday. She said the suspects' father, Anzor Tsarnaev, is delaying his trip to the United States indefinitely.
He was to fly to the United States as soon as Friday to cooperate in the investigation into the attacks. But his wife called an ambulance for him Thursday.
She told CNN's Nick Paton Walsh that her husband was delaying the trip for health reasons. She wouldn't elaborate.
Anzor Tsarnaev agreed to fly to the United States after FBI agents and Russian officials spoke with them for hours this week at the family's home.
FULL STORY(CNN) - The fertilizer plant that blew up in Texas last week warned state and local officials but not federal agencies that it had 270 tons of highly volatile ammonium nitrate on site, according to regulatory records.
The April 17 fire and explosion at West Fertilizer Co. killed 14 people and devastated the small town of West, Texas. Investigators have said they're not sure how much ammonium nitrate was actually on site at the time of the explosion, however, since plant records were destroyed in the blast.
The company sold ammonium nitrate and anhydrous ammonia, both commonly used as fertilizers. It had notified state and local emergency management officials of its stock of both in its most recent declaration of hazardous chemicals, filed in February.
(CNN) - Texas executed Richard Cobb on Thursday for the 2002 abduction and killing of a man outside of the town of Rusk, southeast of Dallas, the state Department of Criminal Justice said.
Cobb was convicted of kidnapping Kenneth Vandever, 37, during an armed robbery at an convenience store and then shooting him and leaving him for dead in a field.
Cobb was the fourth person to be executed in Texas this year.
Authorities kept their distance as a fire raged on board a pair of fuel barges on Thursday morning, hours after exploding at a docking area on Alabama's Mobile Bay.
Steve Huffman with Mobile Fire and Rescue said conditions remain too volatile for fire crews to approach. At least six explosions have been reported and were heard up to 20 miles away.
Just half a mile across the bay, Alan Waugh, the general manager at the Ft. Conde Inn, said he saw and heard the initial explosion when it happened.
FULL STORYIn a central Texas town still looking for answers, President Barack Obama will join the community of West on Thursday for a memorial service for the 14 people killed in a fertilizer plant explosion last week.
First lady Michelle Obama will also attend the service at Baylor University in nearby Waco, Texas.
Before leaving Washington, Obama signed a proclamation ordering all flags in the state to be flown at half-staff for the day.
FULL STORYA fire broke out on Alabama's Mobile River on Wednesday night after two barges with natural gas exploded, the city's fire department said on Twitter.
The Mobile Fire-Rescue Department, on its official Twitter feed, reported that it had "units on the scene on east side of Mobile River where a fuel barge has exploded and is on fire."
Minutes later, the fire department issued an update stating that two barges had exploded.
Three people injured in the incident were transported to a local hospital.
Two tornadoes ripped into a New Orleans suburb Wednesday afternoon, damaging homes and knocking down power lines, but no injuries were reported, a local government spokeswoman said.
The storm hit in Kenner, Louisiana, near the city's international airport. The tornadoes damaged cars and roofs and brought down trees and electrical wires, Jefferson Parish spokeswoman Kriss Fortunato said.
Mike Efferson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in New Orleans, said the twister had estimated top winds of 90 mph. The second one had winds of 75 mph, the agency said on its Twitter account.
In response to a crash during a February race at the Daytona International Speedway that injured dozens of spectators in the stands, officials at the track will add cables on crossover gates and tether the frames of the gates to posts in time for NASCAR races in July, representatives for the Florida speedway said Wednesday.
Changes were also made at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama, where events will be held this weekend. The 2.67-mile track is known as one of the fastest on the NASCAR circuit.
There are seven crossover gates, a part of the massive metal fence that opens to allow people to cross the racing surface, at each track, officials said.
On February 23, a jaw-dropping wreck occurred on the last lap of the Nationwide Series race when Kyle Larson's car went airborne and pieces of his car flew into the grandstands. At least 28 people were injured, officials said.
Five people were killed and a 6-year-old girl was taken to a hospital after a shooting in a tiny western Illinois village early Wednesday, officials said.
A suspect in the slaughter in Manchester, Illinois, was killed following a chase and shootout with police hours later, authorities said.
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Nine days after Boylston Street turned into a bloody scene of carnage, the area reopened to public foot traffic Wednesday.
It's another sign Boston is recovering from the twin bombings that killed three and wounded hundreds more.
Also Wednesday, mourners will gather to honor Massachusetts Institute of Technology Officer Sean Collier, who authorities say was fatally shot by the suspected bombers last week. The memorial service will take place on the MIT campus.
And as more details slowly emerge from the bedridden suspect, U.S. officials were traveling to Dagestan to interview the parents of the suspected bombers.
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