Two of the three women rescued from a Cleveland home where they'd been held for about a decade or more returned home Wednesday while police readied charges against the men accused of keeping them captive.
Well-wishers from the neighborhood cheered as a gray van carrying Amanda Berry and the 6-year-old daughter she gave birth to during her captivity pulled up. The porch was decorated with balloons and stuffed animals and draped with a red banner that read, "Welcome home Amanda."
"We are so happy to have Amanda and her daughter home," her sister, Beth Serrano, told reporters. "I want to thank the public and media for their support and courage over the years."
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After turning 50 years old, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie secretly underwent lap-band surgery in February for the sake of his wife and kids, a source close to the governor confirmed to CNN.
Christie (pictured) told the New York Post, which first reported the story, that the invasive procedure came after his family and friends urged him to start improving his health.
"I've struggled with this issue for 20 years," he said. "For me, this is about turning 50 and looking at my children and wanting to be there for them."
FULL STORYAmanda Berry was last seen after finishing her shift at a Burger King in Cleveland in 2003. It was the eve of her 17th birthday.
Georgina "Gina" DeJesus disappeared nearly a year later, in April 2004. She was 14.
Michele Knight vanished in 2002, at age 19, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper.
All three were found alive in a home in a Cleveland neighborhood Monday night, police announced in a development hailed as a miracle by their families.
"Help me, I am Amanda Berry," Berry told police in a frantic 911 call from a neighbor's house. "I've been kidnapped, and I've been missing for 10 years. And I'm here, I'm free now."
The state of California is set to fine Pacific Gas and Electric Company $2.25 billion for the deadly San Bruno, California, pipeline rupture in September 2010.
The Safety and Enforcement Division of the California Public Utilities Commission recommended the penalty for three cases arising from the Sept. 9, 2010, incident, which killed eight people and destroyed dozens of homes.
FULL STORYThe state of California is set to fine Pacific Gas and Electric Company $2.25 billion for the deadly San Bruno, California, pipeline rupture in September 2010.
The Safety and Enforcement Division of the California Public Utilities Commission recommended the penalty for three cases arising from the Sept. 9, 2010, incident, which killed eight people and destroyed dozens of homes.
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The Senate passed legislation Monday that would allow the 45 states (and the District of Columbia) that charge sales tax to require online retailers to collect taxes on purchases made by their residents.
The bill will now move to the House.
So how would the passage of the "Marketplace Fairness Act" affect your online shopping? A lot depends on where you live.
From California to New York, here's a look at what you can expect:
FULL STORYThe 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 STORYA U.N. official says there are strong suspicions that Syrian rebel forces have used the deadly nerve agent sarin gas in the country's civil war.
Carla Del Ponte told an Italian-Swiss TV station that the findings come after interviews with doctors and Syrian victims now in neighboring countries.
Del Ponte, the commissioner of the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry for Syria, said the notion isn't surprising, given the infiltration of foreign fighters into the Syrian opposition.
But rebel Free Syrian Army spokesman Louay Almokdad said rebels don't even have unconventional weapons, nor do they want any.
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An American military refueling plane took off and crashed in Kyrgyzstan on Friday, Kyrgyz and U.S. officials said.
Three people were on board, said Bolot Sharshenaliev of the Kyrgyz Emergencies Ministry. A ministry spokeswoman had previously said there were five. The U.S. military didn't give the number of those on the plane and said "the status of the crew is unknown."
The plane was a U.S. Air Force KC-135 tanker aircraft, according to the U.S. 376th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs Transit Center at Manas, near Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The crew and aircraft are assigned to the transit center.
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.
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The maker of a fake bomb detector that investigators say put lives at risk was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison by a London court.
James McCormick, 57, marketed his ADE 651 units to government agencies and private companies around the world, including in Iraq, with sales exceeding $50 million by his own admission.
However, independent tests showed the device has no better than a random chance of finding a golf ball, much less a bomb.
British police say the device – the ADE standing for "Advanced Detection Equipment" – is really a novelty golf-ball finder with the label removed.
FULL STORYChemical weapons are a "red line" for Syria, too, a top government official said Thursday.
Syrian Information Minister Omran al Zoubi said in an exclusive interview with CNN that a hard-line Islamist rebel group has used chemical weapons during the civil war and his government "would never use" such munitions "if we had them."
"President Obama says chemical weapons are a red line," al Zoubi said. "Then he is in direct accordance with President (Bashar al-) Assad who also thinks that chemical weapons are a red line."
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.
FULL STORYA North Korean court has sentenced a U.S. citizen to 15 years of hard labor, saying he committed "hostile acts" against the secretive state.
The country's Supreme Court delivered the sentence against Pae Jun Ho, known as Kenneth Bae by U.S. authorities, on Tuesday, the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Thursday.
The KCNA article said Bae a Korean-American, was arrested November 3 after arriving as a tourist in Rason City, a port in the northeastern corner of North Korea. It didn't provide any details about the "hostile acts" he is alleged to have committed.
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[Updated at 1:42 p.m. ET Thursday] Atlanta-area authorities are investigating Wednesday's death of Chris Kelly, half of the 1990s rap duo Kris Kross, as a possible drug overdose, Fulton County Police Cpl. Kay Lester said Thursday morning.
Kelly, 34, died Wednesday at an Atlanta hospital after he was found unresponsive at his home, police said.
After paramedics took him to the hospital, a woman who identified herself as Kelly's friend told an investigator that Kelly had taken a mixture of heroin and cocaine Tuesday night, and that she had brought Kelly home "to recover from his drug use," according to a police report
FULL STORYThe U.S. Justice Department filed a notice of appeal Wednesday over a federal judge's ruling that directed the Food and Drug Administration to make the morning-after birth control pill available to females of all ages without a prescription.
The government also filed a motion for a temporary stay of the FDA's approval on Tuesday of the availability of the Plan B One-Step emergency contraception pill without a prescription for ages 15 and older.
In April, U.S. District Judge Edward Korman ordered the FDA to make emergency contraception, namely the morning-after pill, available to females of any age, without a prescription. This week's FDA announcement, which pertains to an application from Teva Women's Health, Inc., is not related to that, the FDA said.
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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.
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