NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) – A US Airways flight made an emergency landing on its belly at Newark Liberty International Airport early on Saturday after the plane’s landing gear failed to deploy, but no one was injured, airline and government officials said.

Piedmont Airlines flight 4560, operating for US Airways from Philadelphia with 34 passengers and three crew members, landed safely at 1 a.m., and passengers were evacuated on the tarmac and transported to the terminal, a Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman said in an email.

NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) – Rutgers University picked a woman to head its athletic programs on Wednesday, as New Jersey’s largest public college looks to move on from a scandal that saw several top sports officials resign.

Julie Hermann, 49, who was a senior executive atheletic director at the University of Louisville, will be the first woman to hold the post of athletic director at Rutgers.

NEWARK (Reuters) – Police in New Jersey have arrested the father of a 4-year-old boy who fatally shot a 6-year-old friend while playing with one of the father’s guns, which had been left unsecured in a bedroom.

The Atlantic City prosecutor’s office charged 33-year-old Anthony Senatore with six counts of endangering the welfare of a child and one disorderly persons charge for allowing minors access to a loaded firearm.

NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) – A tense weekend standoff in a South Trenton, New Jersey, neighborhood ended early on Sunday with a hostage taker dead and three children rescued, authorities said.

Police shot Gerald Tyrone Murphy, ending the 37-hour standoff and saving the lives of three unidentified children he had held hostage, New Jersey State Police Colonel Rick Fuentes said at a news conference Sunday morning.

NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) – An armed man with multiple hostages remained barricaded inside a Trenton, New Jersey, house on Saturday after a standoff with law enforcement negotiators overnight, police said.

Trenton police declined to say how many hostages were inside the home with the man, who has been barricaded there since Friday afternoon, or explain their relationship to him.

NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) – A federal judge has temporarily blocked an auction house from selling basketball great Kobe Bryant’s jerseys, championship rings and other memorabilia worth up to $1 million in a case stemming from a dispute between the Los Angeles Laker and his mother.

The All-Star guard has asked the courts to halt the sale of his belongings, which are in possession of his mother, Pamela Bryant, saying he had not been consulted and only learned of the sale in a press release issued by Goldin Auctions.

NEW YORK/NEWARK, May 7 (Reuters) – New Jersey Governor Chris
Christie, who has struggled with obesity for much of his adult
life, said on Tuesday he underwent lap band surgery in February
to lose weight, a move he said had nothing to do with a possible
run for the White House in 2016.

The blunt-spoken, popular Republican said he made the
decision to protect his health and his family.

NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) – A U.S. magistrate judge sentenced Grammy-winning hip hop artist Lauryn Hill to three months in prison, three months in home confinement and a $60,000 fine on Monday for federal tax evasion.

Hill pleaded guilty last year to three counts of failing to file tax returns on more than $1.8 million of income between 2005 and 2007 and faced up to three years in prison.

NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) – A U.S. judge sentenced Grammy-winning hip hop artist Lauryn Hill to three months in prison, three months in home confinement and a $50,000 (32,171 pounds) fine on Monday for federal tax evasion.

Hill had pleaded guilty last year to three counts of failing to file tax returns on more than $1.8 million between 2005 and 2007 and could have been sentenced to three years in prison.

NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) – Hip hop artist Lauryn Hill, on the eve of her scheduled sentencing on federal tax evasion charges, has paid off the balance of more than $900,000 she owed in back taxes and penalties, her attorney said on Sunday.

The Grammy-winning musician is scheduled for sentencing on Monday in U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey on three charges she failed to file tax returns on more than $1.8 million between 2005 and 2007.