It has been an unusual journey for Chen Guangcheng, but the Chinese dissident has finally landed at Newark’s airport to begin his fellowship at New York University Law School. Chen, his wife, and two children left for the Beijing airport late Saturday, after only a few hours advance notice and without knowing where they were going until already en route. The Chinese dissident, who took refuge in the U.S. Embassy after escaping from house arrest, was in the center of what could have become a diplomatic crisis as China and the United States struggled to agree on his destiny. Before boarding the flight, Chen told friends he still feared his remaining family would face retribution from the Chinese government.

Meeting at Camp David on Saturday, heads of the G8 pressed German chancellor Angela Merkel for growth policies to pull Europe's ailing economies out of recession. President Obama found broad support for his argument that Germany's insistence on across-the-board austerity has failed to solve the crisis, and that governments should invest in jobs and growth. French president Fraçois Hollande said he would present a plan for euro bonds, one proposed measure to relieve indebted governments that Germany has opposed. The leaders did acknowledge, however, that deficits had to be addressed, including through austerity measures.

One 16-year-old girl is dead Saturday after a bombing at an Italian girls’ school that some say bears signs of a Mafia strike. Two explosive devices seem to have gone off in garbage bins as students lined up to start their day. The school in the south of Italy is named for the wife of a slain anti-Mafia judge. The bombing comes soon after the 20-year anniversary of the murder of judge Giovanni Falcone and his wife. “You can understand the symbolism of this and what it all signifies,” Mimmo Consales, mayor of the town of Brindisi, told reporters. Schools in the area were closed after the attack and investigators, including a top anti-Mafia prosecutor, were meeting Saturday.

Friends and relatives of the Kennedy family gathered Saturday to remember the life of Mary Richardson Kennedy at St. Patrick’s Church in Bedford, N.Y. Her casket arrived just after 10 a.m., and was carried into the church by two of her children, one of her sisters, and the family gardener who discovered her body. Caroline Kennedy and Joe Kennedy attended the service, as did friends and celebrities including Larry David, Dan Aykroyd, and Chevy Chase. “She just lived her life to the fullest,” tearful sister-in-law Kerry Kennedy said. “She did everything she could for her friends and she loved her children more than anything else.” After Kennedy’s suicide was discovered Wednesday, a feud erupted between her relatives and the Kennedys over the memorial services.

It’s been quite the week for Mark Zuckerberg. On Monday the Facebook founder celebrated his 28th birthday, and on Friday he took his company public. One day later, the Facebook founder and Priscilla Chan wed in Palo Alto, Calif. The ceremony was held in Zuckerberg’s backyard with about 100 guests who all thought they were there to celebrate Chan’s recent graduation from medical school. Contrary to the lovelorn Zuckerberg portrayed in The Social Network, the two have been dating since they met at Harvard nine years ago.

Google confirmed that Chinese authorities have green-lighted the purchase of Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. The merger had already been approved by the U.S. Justice Department and European Union regulators in February, but was waiting on approval from regulators in Taiwan, Israel, and lastly China. The Chinese Anti-Monopoly Bureau originally dragged its heels on the purchase, possibly in relation to the tense history the country has with Google. With the purchase, Google is set to acquire 17,000 patents along with a mobile-handset maker to complement the company’s Android operating system.

Obama’s public endorsement of gay marriage has continued to spawn imitators. The board of directors of the leading civil-rights organization, the NAACP, voted Saturday to endorse same-sex marriage, citing the American value of equality for all. “Civil marriage is a civil right and a matter of civil law,” NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous said in a statement. “The NAACP’s support for marriage equality is deeply rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and equal protection of all people.” The public move could further solidify the already stong black vote behind President Obama in the upcoming election.

Nine people were killed when a vehicle carrying a suicide bomber detonated in a military compound’s parking lot Saturday, according to state media. The explosion reportedly also wounded dozens, and damaged nearby cars, trucks, and other structures. According to the report, the vehicle driven by the suicide bomber was carrying more than 2,000 pounds of explosives when it went off, gouging out a crater 2.5 meters deep. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the strike. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group based in Britain, confirmed that the bomb went off near two military buildings in the city of Deir al-Zour. U.N. observers were also reported to be visiting the site of the blast.

NBC's Community has had its share of ups and downs. After being put on a midseason hiatus, fans rallied behind the show and forced the network to bring it back. Now that it's been renewed for a fourth season—albeit a slimmed down 13 episodes—creator Dan Harmon was fired, sending ripples through the Twittersphere. Harmon took to his website to tell fans that he has no idea why he was let go. “Why’d Sony want me gone?” Harmon wrote. “I can’t answer that because I’ve been in as much contact with them as you have."

Terminator 3 actor Nick Stahl has sent an email out to friends assuring them he’s all right, according to TMZ. Stahl, who was reported missing by his wife on May 9, reportedly wrote that he has plans to check into a rehab facility. The missing-persons report filed by his wife says the star had been acting erratically and getting high around their 2-year-old daughter. The LAPD says the missing-persons case will remain open until there is more evidence to prove he’s OK.

“Facebook was not just an IPO,” James A. Bianco, president of trading firm Bianco Research, told reporters Friday. “It was supposed to be something that would excite the retail investor. But that didn’t happen.” In light of the social network’s lackluster debut Friday, some analysts are already cautioning investors to be wary of the stock, with at least one in New York already recommending that buyers “sell.” “While we like the company, we’re troubled by investors’ perception of the risks,” Brian Wieser, an analyst for Pivotal Research Group, told reporters. “It’s priced for perfection and that’s clearly implausible.” Only a few market watchers have passed judgment on the stock so far, and most will be watching the social-network’s ticker closely Monday as trading resumes. “None of this is to take away from the fantastic success of the company,” Wieser said. “It’s just not consistent with the economics.”

As diplomats prepare for talks on Iran’s nuclear ambitions next week in Baghdad, the Islamic Republic said Saturday that sanctions against the country would have to be lifted for discussions to go smoothly. A spokesman for the country’s foreign ministry said that the sanctions imposed by the West are without legal justification and that “no one in Iran is happy about the sanctions.” Iran, which denies the effectiveness of sanctions, has recently grown more aggressive with its demands that punitive measures against its trade and banking entities be lifted. “If the West thinks we will give up our rights due to sanctions, they are definitely mistaken,” the spokesman said.

President Obama will continue to meet with European leaders Saturday at Camp David in a weekend of intense diplomacy. Europe’s currency crisis will be the main subject of talks at the Maryland presidential retreat Saturday before Obama heads off to Chicago, where he and NATO leaders are scheduled to hold a two-day meeting on the war in Afghanistan. Votes across Europe in the past few weeks have demonstrated an unwillingness to rely too heavily on austerity measures as a way of combating the fiscal crisis, and on Friday Obama showed he was in agreement with new French President Francois Hollande on at least some points, saying cost-cutting should be combined with a “strong growth agenda.”

New Republican laws are trying to block the vote, say Obama advisers. The president’s reelection campaign has launched a massive, months-long effort to help voters ensure their votes are counted come November. Republican-led legislatures across the country have passed a series of law that make it more difficult to organize registration drives, as well as imposing stringent requirements on the forms of identification allowed. Obama’s campaign was able to energize young voters and minorities in 2008, and hopes to do so again—but these are precisely the groups that the GOP-backed laws are designed to target, Democratic strategists have said. A dozen states passed stricter voter-ID laws in 2011, four of which were struck down by Democratic governors.

Will Smith does not like to be smooched on the red carpet, as an Ukrainian reporter learned the hard way at the Moscow premiere of Men in Black 3 on Friday. The reporter went in for a hug, then seems to have tried to plant a wet one when Smith pushed him back. “Come on, man,” Smith sniped back. “What the hell is your problem, buddy?” According to TMZ, the reporter is a TV personality whose act involves kissing celebrities. “Sorry, he kissed me on my mouth,” Smith said as he made his way down the rest of the red carpet. “The joker is lucky I didn’t sucker punch him.”

Three men arrested during a raid by Chicago police earlier this week are to be charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism Saturday. Allegedly, the three men, all between the ages of 20 and 24, tried to make Molotov cocktails to use during protests of this weekend’s NATO summit in the city. Attorney Sarah Gelsomino told reporters that the three men are “absolutely in shock and have no idea where these charges are coming from.” Six other people were arrested in the raid, but were released Friday without being charged. One of those six, Darrin Annussek of Philadelphia, denied that there were materials in the apartment to construct incendiary devices when the police made their raid.

“I know he was scared,” said a young Miami girl who was speaking to Trayvon Martin not long before the Florida teen was shot by George Zimmerman. In an interview with a state prosecutor, the girl, who has not been identified because she is a minor, said that Martin described a “crazy and creepy” man following him and that she heard Martin say what sounded like “get off, get off” before the call was dropped. “He was breathing hard,” said the girl in the interview recorded April 2. “His voice kind of changed. I know he was scared. His voice was getting kind of low.”

Weeks after a dramatic escape from house arrest, a perilous race across hundreds of miles, and an international donnybrook that strained relations between America and China, a United Airlines flight bearing activist Chen Guangcheng took off from Beijing bound for the U.S. on Saturday. In a phone call to friends earlier Saturday, Chen reportedly voiced concerns about the safety of the friends and relatives he’s leaving behind. The 40-year-old human rights attorney and his family were taken from the hospital where Chen had sought medical treatment after leaving the U.S. Embassy to Beijing International Airport. Chen and his family have business-class seats on the flight to Newark, which took off at about 5:30 p.m. local time.

The planned launch of the privately-built SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral was shut down by computers in the last half-second Saturday due to engine trouble. The rocket was bound for the International Space Station. Gwynne Shotwell, president of SpaceX, told reporters that chamber pressure in one of the engines might mean it has to be replaced before a successful launch but that a replacement engine is available. Another launch attempt may be made as early as Tuesday. NASA has been working with SpaceX, as well as other private companies, to develop alternative plans for space exploration after the discontinuation of the shuttle program.