HOUSTON -- A military judge ruled Thursday that relatives of accused Ft. Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan can be compelled to testify, potentially facing contempt charges if they refuse.

Several relatives of Hasan, 42, have said they will not testify, but the ruling forces them and other listed witnesses to do so or face possible charges, a Ft. Hood spokesman told the Los Angeles Times.

The Army psychiatrist is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in connection with the Nov. 5, 2009, mass shooting at the sprawling base in central Texas. After repeated delays, the trial is expected to start within weeks.

The military judge, Col. Tara Osborn, denied several other defense motions Thursday, including requests that would have granted the defense a media expert, further delayed the trial and allowed Hasan to plead guilty to lesser charges to avoid the death penalty (a request Osborn previously denied).

Hasan’s lawyers argued...

Even the cops were surprised by what they discovered on Seymour Avenue in Cleveland.

"This might be for real," one officer, arriving on the scene Monday, told a dispatcher after Amanda Berry had called 911 and said she'd been kidnapped and held for 10 years by a man named Ariel Castro.

This might be for real, the officer said, as if the call might not have been.

The uncertainty quickly vanished as Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were also discovered in the dilapidated house. "We found 'em, we found em,” another official radioed as an emotional female voice could be heard in the background.

It's been three days since the discovery that has now led to rape and kidnapping charges against Castro, 52, who is suspected to have fathered a child with Berry while holding her in captivity. Yet shock remains the predominant emotion.

“I’m really disappointed, embarrassed, mainly devastated about this whole situation," Castro's daughter, Arlene, told ABC's "Good Morning America"...

Ariel Castro might face new charges that could lead to the death penalty, the Ohio prosecutor in charge of the case said Thursday.

Hours after Castro, 52, was arraigned on rape and kidnapping charges in connection with holding three female prisoners for about a decade, county prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty said he would seek new charges that Castro abused some of his victims and forced them to have miscarriages.

Those charges, which could include aggravated murder, carry the death penalty in Ohio, the prosecutor said at a televised news conference.

“Based on the facts, I fully intend to seek charges for each and every act of sexual violence, rape, each day of kidnapping, every felonious assault, all his attempted murders and each act of aggravated murder he committed by terminating pregnancies” during the years the women were held, McGinty said.

"My office of the county prosecutor will also engage in a formal process in which we evaluate whether to seek charges eligible for...

PHOENIX — The next phase of the Jodi Arias murder trial was postponed Thursday and will continue next week.

Court officials didn't provide a reason for the delay. The trial will resume Wednesday.

The jury was scheduled to return to the courtroom to decide whether Arias should be eligible for the death penalty after convicting her on Wednesday of first-degree murder in the death of her one-time boyfriend Travis Alexander in his home on June 4, 2008.

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said Thursday that no more media interviews with Arias would be granted. She has been placed on suicide watch.

Despite Arias' wish that she get the death penalty, the decision is up to the jury at this point. Arias could choose not to testify at the penalty phase and not appeal her conviction if she were to get death, but such scenarios are rare and still take years to play out.

The brutality of the attack and previous testimony from the Maricopa County medical examiner that Alexander had not died...

Shylock would understand Alexa. After all, injure either and they do indeed bleed.

Shylock, of course, is the moneylender in Shakespeare's “The Merchant of Venice” who demands a pound of flesh and tries to prove his humanity in two deeply anti-Semitic eras, the play’s and the author’s.

Alexa, meanwhile, is a flashy zombie mannequin that spurts fake blood when shot. If she were alive (or even among the animated dead) she would understand Shylock’s plaintive humanistic cry, “If you prick us, do we not bleed?”

Alexa is one of a collection of life-size dolls marketed by Zombie Industries in Poway, Calif. It is designed to appeal to people who like shooting at a woman provocatively attired in a low-cut top. The product comes in variety of other, equally appealing persona including the Nazi and the Terrorist.

Some of the mannequins were on display at the recent conventionof the National Rifle Assn. in Texas. At one booth, video clips from the...

The body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died after a gun battle with police, has found its final resting place, ending more than a week of confusion and anger about how to deal with the remains of the suspected Boston Marathon bomber.

Police in Worcester, Mass., where the body has been in a funeral home, announced that the issue of where the body should be buried has been resolved.

“As a result of our public appeal for help, a courageous and compassionate individual came forward to provide the assistance needed to properly bury the deceased. His body is no longer in the city of Worcester and is now entombed,” police said in a statement posted on its website.

FULL COVERAGE: Boston Marathon attack

“Most importantly the chief thanks the community that provided the burial site,” said police, who did not say where the body ended up.  “There is no further information at this time.”

Tsarnaev, 26, and his brother, Dzhokhar, are accused of planting two pressure-...

Ariel Castro, a former school bus driver, was arraigned Thursday on rape and kidnapping charges in connection with the disappearance of three Cleveland women, and his bail was set at $8 million.

It was the first court appearance for Castro, 52. He did not speak during the brief televised proceeding, and no plea was entered on his behalf. Wearing dark blue jail togs, he spent his time looking downward. He was handcuffed but his feet were not shackled.

Berry, now 27, was just shy of her 17th birthday when she vanished in 2003. Knight, 32, was 20 when she disappeared in 2002. DeJesus was 14 when she went missing in 2004.

Authorities say the...

When three young women emerged from a Cleveland home Monday evening after being held captive for about a decade, neighbors were thunderstruck. Ariel Castro, 52, who owns the home and who faces kidnapping and rape charges, was known as a sunny face, someone who was good with children.

The neighborhood was shocked. But Fernando Colon wasn’t.

"The first thing I said was, 'I knew it, I knew it,' " Colon told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, adding: "He's a monster. He's the opposite of what people thought he was."

Photos: Three missing women found in Cleveland

As the case gained worldwide attention, details were trickling out about the dungeon-like conditions in which Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, about 23, and Michelle Knight, 32, were purportedly imprisoned and abused.

A dark portrait of Castro also was emerging. Interviews and court documents detailed long-term, repeated allegations of manipulation and domestic abuse.

Castro and Colon were linked by a romantic partner,...

PHOENIX — Jodi Arias said in a post-conviction interview with a TV station that she prefers the death penalty over life in prison.

Arias talked to Fox affiliate KSAZ in the courthouse minutes after she was convicted of first-degree murder. With tears in her eyes, she said that she felt overwhelmed and that she was surprised at the verdict because she didn't believe she committed first-degree murder.

“It was unexpected for me, yes, because there was no premeditation on my part,” she said in the interview. Arias said that she would “prefer to die sooner than later,” rather than spend the rest of her life in prison, and said that "death is the ultimate freedom."

Arias had said she considered suicide after killing her lover Travis Alexander. The county said Arias was placed under suicide watch.

Arias was convicted Wednesday in the gruesome killing of her onetime boyfriend after a four-month trial that included lurid tales of sex, lies, religion and a blood...

SEATTLE — The battle over plans for a series of massive coal export terminals across the Pacific Northwest took a new turn Wednesday when the energy company Kinder Morgan announced it was dropping its plan to build a $200-million facility on the Columbia River in northern Oregon.

Company officials said the site at the Port Westward industrial park near Clatskanie could not be configured optimally to handle export of up to 30 million tons of coal a year, most presumably destined for markets in Asia.

That means three of the original six proposed coal export terminals that have locked Oregon and Washington in controversy are now either shelved or off the table. Developers still are exploring or seeking permits for terminals in Boardman, Ore., Longview, Wash., and at Cherry Point near Bellingham, Wash.

Thousands of residents have signed petitions and turned out for hearings to block the plans, which would involve shipping coal from the Powder River Basinin Wyoming and Montana on...

CLEVELAND -- Ariel Castro, described by police as a "big bully," was charged Wednesday with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape after three women, missing for about a decade, escaped from his house this week.

Castro, 52, the owner of the house at 2207 Seymour Ave. in Cleveland, was charged in connection with the kidnappings that have shocked the city.

His brothers, Pedro, 54, and Onil, 50, who were arrested Monday along with Ariel, were not charged in connection with the disappearances, prosecutor Victor Perez said at an afternoon news conference.

All three are scheduled to appear in court Thursday, Perez said.

Ariel Castro will be arraigned on the seven charges related to the missing women. His brothers face outstanding warrants on misdemeanor charges.

Castro is charged with kidnapping and raping three women, Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, about 23, and Michelle Knight, 32. The fourth kidnapping count applies to Amanda Berry’s 6-year-old daughter, who was born in...