Chinese crew to head home, judge says

A US judge plans to allow three of six Chinese crew members who have been held in the US since their ship spilled 53,000 gallons of oil into San Francisco Bay to return home in the next few weeks.

The captain and two other crew members who were on the bridge when the Cosco Busan struck the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on Nov. 7 will have to remain technically under arrest another several weeks.

All six had been detained as "material witnesses" to the accident and the criminal case against the ship's American pilot, John Cota, who is charged with two misdemeanor environmental crimes and two felony charges of lying to the US Coast Guard about his medical record.