AP - A former transit police officer who allegedly shot dead an unarmed man on an Oakland train platform on New Year's Day was arrested Tuesday in Nevada, officials said.

AP - A white former transit police officer accused of killing an unarmed black man on an Oakland train platform has been arrested in Nevada, 12 days after the shooting inflamed long-running tensions between police and many African-American residents.

AP - A man charged with murdering his girlfriend and her four young children was in jail in Texas early Wednesday awaiting extradition to Oklahoma while investigators searched for a motive.

AP - A peanut butter maker that sells bulk supplies to institutions issued a nationwide recall of peanut butter from one its plants because of possible contamination with salmonella.

AP - A panel of appeals judges is questioning whether former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega should be taken to France to face trial on money laundering charges.

AP - Impeached Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been greeted by stony silence at a swearing-in ceremony for new state Senators who will decide whether to toss him from office.

AP - A skeptical panel of federal appeals judges questioned Wednesday whether former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega has any legal right to challenge his proposed extradition to France to face money laundering charges.

AP - Republican Norm Coleman is proposing that disputed absentee ballots be the first issue taken up in his lawsuit over Minnesota's Senate recount.

AP - The mayor of Racine, Wis., has been accused of attempting to sexually assault a child and possessing child pornography.

AP - The Bush administration says it is removing gray wolves in the western Great Lakes and northern Rocky Mountains from the federal endangered species list.

AP - President-elect Barack Obama wants to jump-start the economy by spending billions on big public works projects and tax cuts. But to the alarm of economists, the nation's governors are working off a different playbook altogether.

AP - A former transit officer has been charged with murder in the shooting death of an unarmed black man that set off violent protests, officials said Wednesday.

AP - State agents arrested the mayor of this southeastern Wisconsin city and planned to charge him with child pornography, attempted sexual assault and other counts, authorities said Wednesday.

AP - The husband of a former Nevada state judge was sentenced Wednesday to three to 10 years in prison for hitting his wife in the head with a frying pan at their home.

AP - Minnesota's disputed Senate election would extend well into February and probably beyond if a three-judge panel hearing a lawsuit by Republican Norm Coleman adopts his proposed trial schedule.

AP - The House voted Wednesday to expand government-sponsored health care to 4 million more children of working families, making a down payment on President-elect Barack Obama's promise to provide universal health care to all Americans who want it.

AP - Asante Bradford gave his bosses nearly three months notice that he would not be at his desk on Jan. 20.

AP - Media buzz and a new poll make the selection of New York's next U.S. senator look like a race between Democratic titans named Cuomo and Kennedy, but the one New Yorker who will make the decision disagrees.

AP - A man charged with strangling his girlfriend and her four young children was in a Texas jail Wednesday awaiting extradition to Oklahoma, where investigators had not yet determined the motive for the killings.

AP - A couple who tried to adopt a boy without telling the biological mother about their own pregnancy, prompting a legal battle, have given up the child, even though the state Supreme Court had ruled in their favor.

AP - Parents or followers of a jailed evangelist have been hiding children sought by state welfare officials, the state director of human resources said Wednesday.

AP - A judge has ruled that a 9-year-old Arizona boy charged with murdering his father and another man will be allowed to meet with a therapist.

AP - An Ohio doctor who was extradited from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus to face charges that he poisoned his wife has been held on a $75 million bond.

AP - A daredevil money manager whose run from ruin was halted when investigators interrupted his suicide attempt at a Florida campground found his legal problems compounded Wednesday as authorities filed federal charges against him in the three-day ordeal.

AP - A former investment officer for the state's educational pension program claims New Mexico taxpayers lost more than $90 million in an alleged 'pay-to-play' scheme in which political contributions to Gov. Bill Richardson influenced the awarding of investment business.

AP - A community college student who was strangled along with her four young children had just broken off her relationship with the burly ex-convict now accused of the slayings, the woman's mother said Wednesday.

AP - Barack Obama's train trip Saturday from Philadelphia to Washington offers people who can't make it for the inauguration to catch a glimpse of the next president.

AP - Minnesota won't have a second senator until February at the earliest after the state Supreme Court gave itself several weeks to consider Democrat Al Franken's request for an expedited election certificate.

AP - Cereal and snack maker Kellogg Co. has asked stores around the country to remove a variety of Austin- and Keebler-brand peanut butter crackers after a recall by a supplier involved in the samonella probe.

AP - Homicide detectives on Wednesday detailed evidence they would have used to bring charges of a second murder against a Japanese businessman if he hadn't hanged himself in jail soon after being brought to California to face allegations that he conspired to kill his wife nearly three decades ago.

AP - A man convicted of murdering three people during a night of robberies more than 13 years ago in Fort Worth was put to death Wednesday evening in the nation's first execution of the year.

AP - An Idaho prosecutor dropped murder counts against two men and instead charged them with involuntary manslaughter in the death of an 11-year-old girl who was trying to walk 10 miles in the snow on Christmas Day.