Mass evacuations from US towns north of Boston were underway Thursday after dozens of fires and suspected gas explosions erupted, police said, leaving at least 10 residents injured, one critically.

The Senate on Wednesday confirmed President Barack Obama's pick to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr., who is currently commandant of the Marine Corps, is expected to take over Oct. 1 for Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, who will retire after a 41-year Army career.

Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev filed a motion Monday demanding a new trial, less than two weeks after he was sentenced to death for attacking the city's marathon in 2013.

The preliminary motion did not stipulate grounds for a new trial, other than to say it was "required in the interests of justice."

A small plane crashed into a U.S. home Sunday killing all three of the people on board, while the house's occupants escaped a devastating blaze that erupted immediately, officials said.

"The four occupants of the single-family home were able to get out of the building before it became fully engulfed in flames," the Massachusetts State Police said in a statement.

Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Wednesday apologized in court for the first time to his victims for the suffering he caused, moments before being formally sentenced to death by a federal judge.

The U.S. citizen of Chechen descent was sentenced to death on six counts over the 2013 bombings, one of the worst assaults on U.S. soil since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was back in court Wednesday to be sentenced to death by a U.S. federal judge at an emotionally charged hearing where he will be offered a chance to speak.

He and his brother, who was shot dead by police, carried out the 2013 double bombings at the Boston Marathon, which were one of the most spectacular assaults on U.S. soil since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

A taxi driver friend of the Boston bombers was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison Thursday for obstructing the FBI investigation into the bloody 2013 attacks.

Khairullozhon Matanov, a legal immigrant from Kyrgyzstan, is the fourth friend of the Tsarnaev brothers to be jailed for impeding investigators in the days after the marathon attacks.

U.S. officials filed criminal charges Friday against two alleged supporters of the Islamic State group, who authorities said were linked to a third man fatally shot last week by Boston police.

The U.S. Justice Department charged David Wright, 25, of Everett, Massachusetts, with providing material support for the Islamic State group. Also charged was Nicholas Rovinski, 24, of Warwick, Rhode Island.

U.S. authorities on Monday released video footage that shows the fatal shooting by law enforcement of a black Muslim man in Boston who was accused of planning to behead police officers.

The grainy video was filmed by a surveillance camera at a Burger King about 50 yards (meters) from where the confrontation with Usaamah Rahim, a 26-year-old security guard, took place in a parking lot last week.

U.S. authorities on Monday released video of a black Muslim man as he is shot dead by police and the FBI in Boston.

The suspect is accused of having planned to behead police officers.