MIAMI – With alternately tearful goodbyes and barely contained impatience, more than 100 South Floridians surrendered their exotic animals Saturday at a zoo event designed to give owners an alternative to simply turning them loose. The canopied plastic tables at the Miami MetroZoo became exhibits of their own as passers-by …

VANDALIA, Ohio – Hundreds of mourners, carrying signs and arriving on motorcycles, filed into a church Saturday morning to honor a pregnant Ohio Marine found dead in North Carolina. • Click here for related video. The funeral Mass for Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach drew a throng to St. Christopher Catholic …

LAS VEGAS – If only Roger Bergendorff could say why vials of deadly ricin, guns and a copy of the “The Anarchist Cookbook” were found in his Las Vegas motel room. Instead, the struggling graphic artist remained hospitalized Thursday, unconscious and on a ventilator, unable to describe how he and …

• Silda Wall Spitzer originally is from Concord, N.C.; Eliot Laurence Spitzer is from Riverdale, N.Y. • Silda Wall Spitzer was raised as a Baptist and is the daughter of a hospital administrator and a homemaker. She married fellow Harvard Law student Peter Stamos in 1982 — for only 29 …

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Three people upset that a news crew was reporting on the arrest of a relative attacked the television reporter and yelled racial slurs at her and a photographer, authorities said Tuesday. The family members, all white, began yelling and charged at black WSPA-TV reporter Charmayne Brown while …

CHESTER, Pa. – Chester police are treating as suspicious the deaths of three adults and a child whose bodies were in a city apartment on Saturday night. A call from a relative of the victims sent police to the second-floor apartment on Keystone Road at about 7:30 p.m., Chester City …

CUPERTINO, Calif. – Two bicyclists are dead and a third was seriously injured after authorities say a sheriff’s deputy plowed into the riders while on patrol in Cupertino. Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Sgt. Don Morrissey said the deputy accidentally crossed over the center line at around 10:25 a.m. Sunday and …

WASHINGTON – Citing security risks, the Pentagon banned Google teams from making detailed street-level video maps of U.S. military bases after images of a Texas base ended up on the popular Internet site. A message sent to all Defense Department bases and installations around the country late last week told …

“Lost” has intrigued audiences with mysterious numbers, polar bears, hatches and Others. Ubisoft’s first video game based on the popular castaway drama hopes to do the same thing — interactively, of course. Unfortunately, the only engaging thing about “Lost: Via Domus” ($59.99 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, $29.99 for …

CHARLEVILLE-MEZIERS, France – A French man accused of the serial murders of seven women and girls refused to speak at the opening of his trial Thursday unless the judge emptied the courtroom. His wife is being tried at the same time, accused of complicity in five of the killings. Michel …