Colorado's long-awaited cinema massacre trial began on Monday with opening statements in which jurors were asked to decide whether gunman James Holmes was insane when he killed a dozen moviegoers in 2012, or a calculating mass murderer who deserves execution.
Former National Football League star Aaron Hernandez was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday for murdering an acquaintance in an industrial park near his Massachusetts home, concluding the first of two murder trials he faces this year.
Oklahoma prosecutors charged a sheriff's reserve deputy with second-degree manslaughter on Monday in the fatal shooting of a black man this month in Tulsa, the most recent in a series of U.S. cases that have raised questions about race relations and policing.
When a South Carolina policeman was acquitted of manslaughter after beating a suspect to death in 1987 in a station house, his lawyer was Andy Savage, who has built his reputation on taking cases many others would avoid at all costs.
A white South Carolina police officer was arrested and charged with murder on Tuesday after a video showed him shooting eight times at the back of a 50-year-old black man who was running away after a traffic stop and died at the scene.
Accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev followed his older brother's lead in carrying out the 2013 bombing that killed three people, rather than acting on his own motivation, one of his attorneys argued on Monday.
A 20-year-old man was charged on Sunday with first-degree assault in last week's shooting of two policemen during a protest rally in Ferguson, Missouri, a crime that shocked a city that has been devastated by months of racial strife.
Police hunted for a second day on Friday for suspects in the shooting of two police officers at a protest rally in Ferguson, Missouri, after U.S. President Barack Obama said those responsible must be brought to justice.
The killing of Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov within sight of the Kremlin has exposed rarely seen tensions between different camps inside President Vladimir Putin's system of rule.
A parking valet supervisor testified on Tuesday he saw New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez with what appeared to be a gun tucked in his waistband outside a Boston hotel two nights before prosecutors say he murdered an associate.
Activists protested for a third day in Madison, Wisconsin, on Sunday over the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white policeman, the latest in a string of killings that have intensified concerns of racial bias in U.S. law enforcement.
Florida's legislature convenes on Tuesday with lawmakers expected to grapple during the 60-day annual session with measures including allowing concealed guns on college campuses and permitting doctors to prescribe medical marijuana.
Minneapolis police arrested a man on Saturday afternoon in connection with what they called a targeted attack on an officer who was shot and wounded after responding to an early-morning burglary call.
Germany's Foreign Minister warned Kiev, Moscow and separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine on Saturday of the "high price" of violating a ceasefire agreement as fighting intensified hours before its start.
A Montana homeowner convicted of deliberate homicide last year for fatally shooting an unarmed teenage German exchange student who entered the garage attached to his home is set to be sentenced on Thursday.
New York City has settled with the family of an unarmed black teen fatally shot by police in 2012, agreeing to pay $3.9 million, officials said on Friday.
A man armed with "several pockets full of ammunition" opened fire at a Florida shopping mall on Saturday, injuring his wife and killing another man before fatally shooting himself, police said.
Protests flared into early Thursday in the St. Louis suburb where a white policeman fatally shot a black man who brandished a gun at a gas station on Tuesday night.
A man dressed in a Santa Claus suit accused of shooting two men over the weekend at a Detroit gas station was acting in defense of a co-worker who was dressed as Mrs. Claus, his attorney said on Tuesday.
