Mark Memmott

The body of Boston Marathon bombings suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev "is now entombed," the Worcester, Mass., police department announced Thursday morning.

The statement does not reveal where Tsarnaev's remains were taken, only that "as a result of our public appeal for help, a courageous and compassionate individual came forward ...

(We put a new top on this post at 1:25 p.m. ET.)

"The FBI never told the Boston police or the Massachusetts State Police about possible Russian terror connections of the suspected Marathon bombers until three and half days after the attack, law enforcement officials testified today before the House ...

There were 323,000 first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week, down 4,000 from the week before, the Employment and Training Administration says.

Note: As often happens, the previous week's figure is a slight revision from what was reported earlier. Initially, the ETA said there had been 324,000 first-time ...

Russian investigators have questioned a distant cousin of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev about meetings the two of them had in Dagestan during 2012, Time magazine reports.

Authorities want to know whether that relative, Magomed Kartashov, encouraged Tsarnaev's turn toward extremism or introduced him to others who ...

(Most recent update: 7:24 p.m. ET.)

The three young women who were missing for about a decade before being rescued Monday from a home in Cleveland where they say they were chained, tortured and sexually assaulted, have given police similar accounts about how their long nightmares began.

In ...

Remember that brazen, right-out-of-the-movies diamond heist at Brussels' international airport on Feb. 18?

Now there's word from The Associated Press that "police on Wednesday claimed a major breakthrough in their investigation ... detaining 31 people in a three-nation sweep."

The Guardian adds that "police ...

Saying that "we are not barbarians, we bury the dead," the police chief of Worcester, Mass., on Wednesday appealed for someone in authority to clear the way for the body of Boston Marathon bombings suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev to be buried.

As we've reported, Worcester funeral director Peter Stefan ...

America's unlikeliest link to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has reached out to his friend in a bid to have an American citizen released from one of the communist nation's notorious labor camps.

"I'm calling on the Supreme Leader of North Korea or as I call him 'Kim', to ...

There's huge news in the sports world this morning:

Alex Ferguson, who has managed Manchester United football club for 26 years, is retiring at the end of the English Premier League season, which wraps up on May 19.

From London, NPR's Philip Reeves tells our Newscast ...

(Most recent update: 5:20 p.m. ET.)

We're following the latest news about the three young women who were rescued Monday from a home in Cleveland where authorities suspect they had been held captive for about a decade, and the investigation into what happened to them.

Update at 5:20 ...

Ray Harryhausen, who brought sword-fighting skeletons to the 1963 movie Jason and the Argonauts and was known as the master of stop-motion animation for his work on that and other films such as Clash of the Titans and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, has died.

The Ray and Diana Harryhausen ...

Charles Ramsey, the neighbor who police say helped free three long-missing young women from a Cleveland home on Monday, told a vivid story as he spoke with reporters at the scene.

"I thought this girl was dead!" he says of 27-year-old Amanda Berry, whose cries for help brought ...

The Massachusetts funeral director who is trying to find a cemetery that's willing to bury the body of Boston Marathon bombings suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev says he has gotten 120 offers from graveyards around the U.S. and Canada.

But when Peter Stefan "calls officials of the cities or towns ...

Neighbors heard a woman desperately shouting for help from inside a home. After a man helped her get out, authorities discovered that Amanda Berry and two other young women who had be...

The Texas-based company Defense Distributed is getting quite a bit of attention this week for its Liberator — a handgun made almost entirely by a 3-D printer.

The BBC says "the world's first gun made with 3-D printer technology has been successfully fired in the US." ...

At least one YouTube prankster has posted video of the big yellow guy blowing up. (Rest easy, that hasn't really happened.)

But "tens of thousands" of other people came to Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor over the weekend to be charmed by a six-story tall rubber duck floating along ...

This is one of the weekend's saddest stories.

Investigators are trying to determine what caused a horrific fire inside a limousine late Saturday night on the San Mateo Bridge over San Francisco Bay. A new bride and four of her friends — all women — died as they tried to ...

Good morning.

Our early headlines:

-- Boston-Area Cemeteries Say No To Burying Bombing Suspect.

-- Syrian Rebels May Have Used Sarin, U.N. Investigator Says.

-- Book News: Harper Lee Says Literary Agent Exploited Her Health.

Other stories that are making headlines:

-- Bride, 4 ...

Update at 1:55 p.m. ET: White House Is "Highly Skeptical":

At the White House this afternoon, spokesman Jay Carney said the U.S. is "highly skeptical" of the comments made over the weekend by international prosecutor Carla del Ponte, who said there are "strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof" ...

Officials in Cambridge, Mass., have urged the family of deceased Boston Marathon bombings suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev not to ask that he be buried in a city-owned cemetery. Meanwhile, at least four private cemeteries in the area have already turned down such a request.

From Boston, WBUR's Deborah Becker ...