The state attorney’s office believes there were two motives in the home invasion murder of Florida couple Byrd and Melanie Billings — robbery and a contracted hit — a source told CNN. Most of the suspects thought they were there for a robbery, but Leonard Gonzalez Jr. and others plotted a hit, the sourdce says.

A 90-year-old Holocaust survivor was found strangled Thursday in his Upper East Side apartment, a spokeswoman for the New York City medical examiner said Friday.

One of the nine U.S. attorneys whose firings sparked a political uproar during the Bush administration is getting a second chance at the job.

Even convicted swindler Bernie Madoff is suprised he got away with his Ponzi scheme for so long. A lawyer representing victims who have filed lawsuits says Madoff told him he expected authorities to catch him years ago. Joseph Cotchett talked with Madoff for four hours Tuesday at a federal prison in North Carolina.

A woman whose husband and two sons are accused of plotting violent jihad overseas said federal authorities tricked her into leaving her home so they could search it. Sabrina Boyd says she rushed to the hospital after being told there had been a horrific accident. The claims against her loved ones, she says, are false.

The Obama administration Wednesday ducked a potential confrontation with a federal judge Thursday, signaling in court documents that authorities are willing to release a Guantanamo detainee within about three weeks.

Police seized approximately 150 birds and arrested 19 people in a Connecticut home in an investigation of alleged finch and canary fighting. “This is new to us,” Shelton Police Sgt. Robert Kozlowsky said. “Finches are much easier to keep under the radar than roosters because they make less noise …”

A 23-year-old man was arrested Sunday in the death of a former “American Idol” contestant, who was struck by a car in New Jersey, authorities said.

One of seven suspects charged with murder in the deaths of a Florida couple will be extradited from Alabama to Florida to stand trial, authorities said Monday.

Police say a clerk’s quick flip of a switch foiled a robbery at an Office Depot store in downtown Chicago. A man entered the store carrying a gun concealed in a folded newspaper. He demanded the contents of the safe. The clerk refused but turned on the public address system. The man ran off.