A ruling acquitting US student Amanda Knox over the brutal murder of her British housemate in 2007 had numerous contradictory and incoherent elements, Italy's highest appeals court said Tuesday, explaining its decision to order a retrial. Knox and her Italian former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito -- originally sentenced to 26 and 25 years in prison for killing Meredith Kercher -- were acquitted on appeal in 2011 after four years behind bars.

A Cleveland man accused of holding three young women captive for a decade pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of kidnapping, rape and murder for beating one pregnant captive until she miscarried. Ariel Castro, 52, could face the death penalty if convicted of the aggravated murder charge, which is a capital offense in Ohio if it occurs in connection with a kidnapping. Castro's lawyer entered the plea on his behalf in a brief arraignment. He shuffled into the courtroom in an orange prison jumpsuit with his head bowed and did not say a word.

A gunman who killed four people in a shooting and carjacking rampage was a former student at the California college where he was ultimately killed by police, officials said at a press conference Saturday. Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks said the gunman, whose name she did not release, was armed with some 1,300 rounds of ammunition and an arsenal of weapons during Friday's bloody killing spree. The suspect carried "a bag full of loaded magazines," Seabrooks said, as well as a handgun and a semiautomatic rifle" as he stormed through the streets of Santa Monica.

(Reuters) - A gunman randomly firing from his pickup truck killed one person and wounded five, including the sheriff of Concho County, Texas, on Sunday before the suspect was killed in a shootout with law enforcement, officials said. Authorities recovered an assault rifle, a handgun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition from the suspect, who was said to be 23 years old and from North Carolina. The name was withheld pending notification of relatives, the Texas Department of Public Safety said in a statement.