Blog Posts by Jeff Stacklin and Jason Sickles

Three women who went missing separately about a decade ago, when they were in their teens or early 20s, had been tied up but were found alive Monday in a residential area just south of downtown, and three brothers were arrested, police said.

One of those arrested is a 52-year-old man, police say. The women were being treated at the hospital. A 6-year-old also was found in the home.

One of the women, Amanda Berry, was last heard from in 2003, when she called her sister to say she was getting a ride home from the Burger King restaurant where she worked, reported the Cleveland TV station WEWS. She was to turn 17 the day after she disappeared.

Another of the women, Gina DeJesus, was 14 when she went missing on April 2, 2004. She was walking home from school.

The third woman, Michelle Knight, 32, had been missing since 2002.

Ariel Castro, the owner of the home where the women were found, has been arrested, according to The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer. Live TV reports showed hundreds of people and

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A gunman took at least two shots at a security officer outside the Watts Bar nuclear power plant in east Tennessee and then escaped in a boat, a spokesman for the Tennessee Valley Authority said.

The incident, which is being investigated by the FBI and local police authorities, occurred just before 2 a.m. Sunday. TVA spokesman Jim Hopson said the gunman has not been apprehended.

FBI officials did not immediately respond to a telephone message left Monday.

The power plant, which was not damaged during the shooting, was put on an "unusual event” status—the lowest caution level for a facility regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Hopson said. The facility remained on that status through early Sunday afternoon, he said.

Security at the nuclear plant was not compromised during the incident, he said. The security officer also was not injured.

“But anytime you have shots taken at a security officer at a nuclear plant, that’s a big issue,” Hopson added.

The episode began when a

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Chardon High School remembersChardon, Ohio—A few red ribbons, tattered by the elements, still hang on trees along the streets of Chardon, Ohio. To some people in town, the ribbons are a necessary reminder of a shooting spree at Chardon High School a year ago that left three students dead and three others injured.

On Tuesday, just a day shy of the one-year mark of the tragedy, T.J. Lane pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated murder and other charges in the Chardon shooting. Prosecutors say Lane fired 10 shots from a .22-caliber pistol at students milling in the school cafeteria the morning of Feb. 27, 2012.

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Most sufferers of brutal migraine and cluster headaches are all too familiar with the warning signs of an approaching attack, but a California biotech company says it has created a device that can potentially stop the crippling pain as easily as flicking a switch.

Developed by Autonomic Technologies Inc., the therapy has successfully completed a trial of its technology on European patients with cluster headaches, also known as “suicide” headaches, the Redwood City, Calif., company said Tuesday.

The same device is being trialed for use on migraine headache patients in Europe, and the company plans to offer it for patients suffering from cluster and migraine headaches in the United States, too.

During trials of the device in Europe, 67 percent of cluster headache patients were relieved of pain within 15 minutes – a far cry from hours or days some people suffer from cluster headaches, which are more severe than migraine headaches.

“It’s amazing,” said Dr. Frank Papay, a facial doctor at

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A shooting rampage that left a pregnant woman, her 3-year-old daughter, and seven others dead on Friday near the capital of the Philippines illustrates that the United States isn’t the only nation facing problems with gun violence.

The alleged gunman had been on an alcohol and methamphetamine binge for the past week and had just returned home “because of a marital problem,” reports the Associated Press. The shooting spree began in a neighborhood outside Manila. The gunman was killed in a shootout with police.

The killings happened just three weeks after the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in Newtown, Conn., when a 20-year-old gunman armed with an assault weapon murdered 26 people, including 20 children. As in the U.S., people in the Philippines already were wrestling with the problem of gun violence in their country following the death of a 7-year-old girl, who was hit by a bullet of unknown origin during traditionally noisy celebrations on New Year's Eve.

There are similarities and

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Syria's regime is showing signs that it is weakening, according to reports from newspapers in the United Kingdom and Israel.

Syrian President Bashar Assad has sought asylum for himself, his family, and associates in Latin America if his regime falls and he is forced to flee Damascus, reported Haaretz, an Israeli daily paper.

The report indicates that nation's deputy foreign minister met with leaders in Cuba, Ecuador, and Venezuela, and brought personal letters from Assad to local leaders.

Meanwhile, The Guardian reported Tuesday that former Syrian foreign ministry spokesman, Jihad Makdissi, is traveling to the United States after apparently defecting. Makdissi, the newspaper notes, is the most senior Christian official who hasn't abandoned Assad's regime. He arrived Monday in London, where he previously served in the Syrian embassy.

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Famed painter Thomas Kinkade died of an accidental overdose of alcohol and Valium, according to a report published by NBC Bay Area.

The Santa Clara County, Calif.,  medical examiner, which is expected to release its autopsy report today, concluded that the self-described "Painter of Light" stopped breathing at his Monte Sereno home in Northern California on April 6 from a combination of alcohol and Valium, the TV station reported.

The 54-year-old Kinkade was renowned for his sentimental paintings of gardens and landscapes, which he sold in a nationwide chain of galleries, the Associated Press reported. In recent years, the AP noted, he had run into personal difficulties, including a 2010 bankruptcy filing by one of his companies.

He also battled alcoholism and relapsed before his death, said his brother Patrick in an interview with The (San Jose) Mercury News.

Kinkade's artwork was something that could be appreciated by anyone, including people who were "uninitiated into the language

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