Tracy

SAN FRANCISCO - Three defendants accused of savagely beating and starving a teenager who was held in chains in a Northern California home for more than a year pleaded guilty Friday in a deal intended to send them each to prison for 30 or more years.

PITTSBURGH - Twenty-two people have been charged with conspiring for a decade to fly cocaine from California to Pittsburgh while bypassing airport security measures.

STOCKTON, Calif. - A Sunday school teacher who pleaded guilty to kidnapping and murdering a neighbor girl in Northern California made a tearful apology to the victim's family Monday as she was sentenced to prison for the rest of her life.

TRACY, Calif. - A local Sunday school teacher's guilty plea in the killing of an 8-year-old girl has brought relief to residents of this small California city, even as disturbing questions remained - including how, where and why the girl was murdered.