Newser

Nearly a week after Tom Clements, chief of Colorado's prisons, was fatally shot at his front door , investigators have matched the gun in his slaying to one used by prime suspect Evan Ebel in a shootout with Texas authorities. It's a small part of the puzzle as investigators work to...

The Amanda Knox legal drama isn't over yet. Italy's highest criminal court today overturned her 2011 acquittal in the slaying of her British roommate and ordered a new trial, prolonging a case that has become a cause celebre in the US. The Court of Cassation ruled that an appeals court...

An upcoming British musical show will tackle the grim subject of Anders Breivik's 2011 massacre of 77 people, reports the Guardian . But after researching in Norway, David Greig opted to set his work, called The Events , in Scotland and not mention Breivik's name. "Some people asked us not to write...

British police say that a post-mortem examination has found that self-exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky hanged himself, but said that a pathologist has found nothing to indicate a violent struggle. The 67-year-old businessman —a one-time Kremlin powerbroker who later became a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin—was found...

A forensic expert in one Mexico's most violent cities has found a way to cull secrets from corpses that have gone dry, AFP reports. Alejandro Hernandez, who handles waves of dead bodies in Ciudad Juarez, lowers them into a homemade solution that makes their murder wounds and facial features reappear....

George Zimmerman's brother reopened old wounds yesterday by comparing Trayvon Martin to the alleged killer of a 13-month-old baby, Huffington Post reports. Robert Zimmerman tweeted photos of De'Marquis Elkins—accused of shooting a baby in its stroller last week—and Martin, each flipping the middle finger. "A picture speaks a...

So much for being civil: A British actor had his ear partly bitten off yesterday after asking people in a hotel to quiet down, the BBC reports. Clive Mantle, 55—who acted in the first season of Game of Thrones —was pinned down to the ground in a Travelodge and...

A man who plotted to attack a military complex in the US with machine guns and grenades was sentenced today to 18 years in prison. Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif , 35, also was ordered to be supervised for 10 years after his release. Abdul-Latif, also known as Joseph Anthony Davis, pleaded guilty...

Before visitors to the Metropolitan Museum of Art can stroll past the Picassos, they must first deal with the ticket line and the posted $25 adult admission. That amount is merely the suggested donation—the word "recommended" is posted in smaller type just beneath it—but people, especially foreign tourists,...

The New York Times calls the study "groundbreaking" and "startling": Inmates who stayed at one of the halfway houses on which Pennsylvania spends $110 million a year had an increased chance of committing another crime. The study, conducted by the Pennsylvania Corrections Department, found that 60% of inmates released directly...

Virginia's normally-tranquil east coast is in the midst of an arson wave. A Thursday night fire (dismally reported as occurring "after two nights without one") now brings the number of fires that have baffled police since November to 72, Delmarvanow.com reports. As Time explains, the fires in Accomack County...

Jerry Sandusky says that if Penn State coach Joe Paterno "absolutely thought" he was a pedophile, he would not have let him coach. "If he had a suspicion, I don't know the answer to that," he says. He made the statement in the course of 3.5 hours of telephone...

The gay marriage debate moves to the Supreme Court this week, where justices will hear arguments for and against the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage tomorrow. The federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, will be before...

Still reeling from the shooting death of corrections chief Tom Clements , Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper signed some of the nation's toughest gun laws into effect on Wednesday. Then it turned out that the suspect in Clements' murder was Evan Spencer Ebel, the troubled son of a good friend of Hickenlooper...

Rand Paul is no fan of marijuana, but today he blasted American laws that stick nonviolent criminals such as potheads in jail for "37, 50, 45 years," calling them "a huge mistake" that have the effect of ruining lives over the harmless indiscretions of youth. Case in point? The current...

Remember the bizarre murder plot against Justin Bieber that was masterminded from a prison cell? Well, the convict behind it now tells his side of the story, Huffington Post reports. Dana Martin—who has a Bieber tattoo—tells Details that he still has assassins on the case: "It's still on...

A man cleared of murder charges after 23 years in prison rejoined his family, ate a steak dinner, and had a heart attack, the Daily News reports. David Ranta, 58, is in stable condition in a New York hospital after doctors began procedures to clear up his arteries. Ranta was...

The suspected killer of Colorado corrections chief Tom Clements had a decent, middle-class upbringing that went downhill after his sister died in a card accident, USA Today reports. Evan Ebel—who died in a gunfight with police yesterday—started getting into trouble in his Denver suburb, committing robberies, pistol-whipping a...

New video has emerged of police interviewing teenagers who saw the Steubenville rape victim getting more and more drunk before she was attacked, ABC News reports. "I could tell that she was gradually getting more drunk and worse throughout the night,” said 16-year-old Farrah Marcino. “Just, like, that she couldn’t,...

When juveniles are kept in adult jails and prisons, many are placed in solitary confinement for their own safety—but that can amount to psychological torture, experts tell NBC News . Imprisoned kids talk "about being in a cell alone, the size of a parking space, the size of an elevator,...