Trader Joe’s recalls peanut butter linked to 29 salmonella cases

WASHINGTON (AP) — The grocery store chain Trader Joe’s is recalling peanut butter that has been linked to 29 salmonella illnesses in 18 states. The Food and Drug Administration and the federal Centers for Disease Control said Saturday that the store’s Creamy Salted Valencia Peanut …

NM fair booth pulls targets depicting bin Laden

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- A shooting gallery booth at the New Mexico State Fair has pulled targets depicting Osama bin Laden and other Arab-dressed figures after complaints that they were racist. The “Live Combat” attraction at the fair that ends Sunday allows fairgoers to shoot paintballs …

Police: Flight attendant stole passenger’s iPad

OREGON CITY, Ore. -- Police say a Nevada man who lost his iPad on an airplane used an app called Find My iPad to locate it inside the Oregon home of a flight attendant. Officers in Oregon City, outside Portland, arrested 43-year-old Wendy Ronelle Dye …

Ann Romney’s plane makes emergency landing after smoke fills cabin

DENVER — A plane carrying Ann Romney, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s wife, made an emergency landing Friday afternoon after smoke filled the cabin. No injuries were reported.

An apparent electrical fire forced the detour on the flight from Omaha, Neb., to Los Angeles, campaign …

Mauled NY man: I wanted ‘to be one with the tiger’

NEW YORK — Before his tangle with a Bronx Zoo tiger, David Villalobos adorned his Facebook page with New Age odes to Mother Earth and affirmations such as “Be love and fearless.”

Police said Saturday that Villalobos had told detectives that he leaped from an …

Space shuttle Endeavour flies by Golden Gate Bridge

LOS ANGELES — Space shuttle Endeavour crisscrossed California Friday in a last aerial hurrah before retiring to a Los Angeles museum. Hitching a ride on top of a jumbo jet, the pair departed Edwards Air Force Base, 100 miles north of Los Angeles, circling the …

Police: Facebooking hostage-taker surrenders in Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH — A suicidal man who held a businessman hostage inside a downtown Pittsburgh office building for more than five hours Friday, posting Facebook updates during the standoff, surrendered to authorities without incident, police said. Klein Michael Thaxton, 22, surrendered just before 2 p.m., and …

Romney tries to seize mantle of change

Now it’s Mitt Romney who wants to be the candidate of change. Romney is seizing on President Barack Obama’s comment that “you can’t change Washington from the inside.” Grasping for a way to right his campaign and appeal to independents, the Republican nominee says he has what it takes to end the nasty partisanship in the nation’s capital.

Leader guilty of hate crimes in Ohio Amish attacks

CLEVELAND — The leader of an Amish breakaway group was convicted Thursday of hate crimes in beard- and hair-cutting attacks against members of his own faith following a dispute over religious differences. A federal jury found Samuel Mullet Sr. guilty of orchestrating the cuttings of …

Colorado suspect in court, this time without red hair

CENTENNIAL, Colo. — For the first time with hair that’s brown instead of a wild shade of orangish-red, the suspect in Colorado’s movie theater shooting appeared in court Thursday as prosecutors gave up their fight to see a notebook he sent to a university psychiatrist, …

Endeavour to honor Giffords with Tucson flyover

HOUSTON — NASA says the space shuttle Endeavour will honor former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords with a flyover of her hometown, Tucson, on its way from Texas to a California museum where it will be displayed. NASA spokeswoman Lisa Malone says Thursday’s flyover was requested …

FBI asked to keep data on anti-Sikh hate crimes

WASHINGTON — The son of a massacre victim at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin asked the Obama administration on Wednesday to begin collecting statistics on hate crimes against Sikhs.

Harpreet Singh Saini, 18, told a Senate hearing he wanted to give his late mother “the …

3 arrested for setting off homemade bombs on Mass. man’s lawn

BRIDGEWATER, Mass. — Three people have pleaded not guilty to charges connected to the explosion of five homemade bombs on a Bridgewater man’s front lawn.

Twenty-two-year-old Ryan Whealan, 23-year-old Daniel Linehan and 23-year-old Erin O’Leary were arraigned Wednesday in Brockton District Court after turning themselves …

Student shot outside DC school; suspect in custody

WASHINGTON — A suspect is in custody after a shooting on the grounds of a District of Columbia public high school that injured a student.

The shooting took place Wednesday afternoon outside Coolidge Senior High School as classes were being dismissed.

Police say a male …

Justice Department faulted in Fast and Furious gun-trafficking operation

The Justice Department’s internal watchdog on Wednesday faulted the agency for misguided strategies, errors in judgment and management failures during a bungled gun-trafficking probe in Arizona that resulted in hundreds of weapons turning up at crime scenes in the U.S. and Mexico.