Michael Muskal

The family of the woman accused of being a multimillion-dollar madam has taken a page -- web, that is -- from the latest fundraising tool to help defendants find a way through the labyrinth of the criminal justice system.

Bill Lee Jr., who had stepped aside as police chief during the investigation of the shooting of unarmed African American teenager Trayvon Martin, has officially resigned as the top cop of Sanford, Fla., a city commissioner said Monday.

SANFORD, Fla. -- Bill Lee temporarily stepped down Thursday as police chief of Sanford, Fla., in the wake of complaints about how he handled the case of Trayvon Martin, a black teenager shot to death by a neighborhood watch officer.

At a televised news conference, Lee announced that he was stepping aside because his leadership has become a distraction and had overshadowed the events of Feb. 26, when Martin, 17, was shot by George Zimmerman.

BEAUMONT, Texas -- A gunman opened fire near the Jefferson County Courthouse in Beaumont, Texas, on Wednesday, killing at least one person and wounding three before he himself was wounded in a shootout with authorities and eventually captured, police said.

Ohio school shooting suspect T.J. Lane randomly chose the targets of his shooting rampage at a suburban high school, fired 10 shots from a handgun and was also armed with a knife, a prosecutor said Tuesday during a court hearing.

The rate of suicide throughout the U.S. military has stopped rising, but sexual assault and post-traumatic stress problems are on the rise, the Pentagon said this week as it released new data outlining the scope of both problems.

LOS ANGELES -- The government is broadening how it counts rape victims to include men and has adopted a wider definition of the crime, according to an announcement Friday.