AP - A California beef processor that voluntarily recalled tons of hamburger meat due to salmonella fears last week was slapped with animal handling citations last year in a government review of meatpacking plants, records show.

AP - The helicopter pilot killed in last weekend's mid-air collision above the Hudson River routinely flew tourists and VIPs around the Manhattan skyline.

AP - Silent surroundings almost tease the ears as clouds skitter across the top of this eastern corner of Maine. The wind, barely audible, swishes through beech and fir trees crowding the hills of a region area so remote it's part of the state's Unorganized Territory.

AP - Authorities were continuing their search Wednesday morning for a man suspected of firing a shotgun at the entrance to a busy San Francisco Bay area bridge, killing a toll collector and one other person.

AP - After his Juarez cartel boss was arrested in Mexico last year, Jose Daniel Gonzalez Galeana left town — taking refuge in a high-end El Paso neighborhood.

AP - The U.S. government and Swiss banking giant UBS AG have reached a long-awaited agreement in a case over secret Swiss bank accounts for alleged American tax evaders, lawyers for both sides told a federal judge Wednesday.

AP - A small scrap of T-shirt, about six inches square, smoky gray-brown. A black sock, missing the heel. They were all that remained of the clothes Darren Tolsma was wearing when he died on Continental Connection Flight 3407. His wife, Robin, wanted them back.

AP - Jurors are deliberating for the second day to decide the fate of a 23-year-old man charged with aiding terror groups abroad.

AP - A 23-year-old man was convicted Wednesday of aiding terrorist groups by sending videotapes of U.S. landmarks overseas, after a federal jury rejected his arguments that his chatter about jihad was 'empty talk.'

AP - A Roman Catholic prayer service is being held in Manhattan for five Italian victims of the air collision over the Hudson River.

AP - A rural North Carolina school district with a proud military tradition has surrendered to a Quaker peace activist's request for access to high school students so she can warn them about joining the military, attorneys said Wednesday.

AP - A man suspected of gunning down his girlfriend and another person at the entrance to a busy San Francisco Bay toll bridge was arrested after an overnight manhunt, police said Wednesday.

AP - The Swiss and U.S. governments announced a deal Wednesday to settle American demands for the identities of suspected tax dodgers, despite Switzerland's vaunted bank secrecy. But they kept all details under wraps, including how many of the 52,000 names sought by the IRS from banking giant UBS AG will be revealed.

AP - Police had been watching Vincent Goff for years, convinced he was the masked man who sexually assaulted couples at gunpoint on the Mississippi coast. But before investigators closed in, they say Goff picked the wrong victim and was beaten nearly to death with his own rifle.

AP - One of California's largest and most influential gay rights groups says it prefers to wait until the 2012 election to ask voters to repeal the state's same-sex marriage ban.

AP - A rural North Carolina school district with a proud military tradition is allowing a Quaker peace activist a chance to coax high school students away from careers in the armed forces, attorneys said Wednesday.

AP - The case of a puppy that used to have five legs and was saved from a Coney Island animal show is going before a court TV judge in Chicago.

AP - Five Italian tourists killed in the air collision over the Hudson River were taken in five hearses to Kennedy Airport for their final trip home Wednesday as divers recovered 30 pieces of the helicopter they were riding in from the river.

AP - A third man has pleaded guilty in a case involving Americans who went to Somalia to fight with Islamic militants.

AP - A federal judge says a Tennessee school's ban on Confederate clothing was a reasonable attempt to prevent disruptions because of previous racial threats at the school.

AP - Jackie Harpst expected a busy summer at her nonprofit housing agency, as work crews backed by Nebraska's share of $5 billion in federal stimulus money headed out to seal windows and spread insulation.

AP - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is halting its search for World War I-era chemical weapons in a Washington, D.C., neighborhood after workers found an open glass flask containing traces of the chemical agent mustard.

AP - California gay rights groups are at odds over when to ask voters to repeal the state's same-sex marriage ban, with one of the largest organizations saying Wednesday it would wait until 2012 and another announcing it would shoot for 2010.

AP - A health insurer whose TV commercials promised 'peace of mind' for just $5 a day must stop running the national ads and pay a fine of $700,000 after New York officials accused it of leaving patients only with huge hospital bills.

AP - Waiting in line at the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions, Lawrence Cafero Jr. can't help but feel a bit guilty.

AP - After one of the most expensive natural disasters in U.S. history, Cedar Rapids plans to turn a flood-prone strip of land next to the Cedar River into a 220-acre greenway. But a few stubborn homeowners and businesses are refusing to leave.

AP - A rural North Carolina school district with a proud military tradition is allowing a Quaker peace activist a chance to compete with military recruiters at steering high school students to careers, attorneys said Wednesday.

AP - A 23-year-old Georgia man was convicted Wednesday of aiding terrorist groups by sending videotapes of U.S. landmarks overseas and plotting to support 'violent jihad' after a federal jury rejected his arguments that it was empty talk.

AP - A seldom-employed psychopath was sentenced to 120 years in prison Wednesday for making a huge cache of child pornography that shows him sexually assaulting a dozen children, including infants at a girlfriend's in-home day care.

AP - One of the two TV reporters who were freed after being imprisoned in North Korea said Wednesday she hopes her story will lead to more public awareness of the plight of journalists held captive around the world.

AP - In a state where basketball is king, Rick Pitino cuts quite the fine figure. Designer suits, Italian dress shoes, best-selling books on how to succeed on the court and in life, a hit TV commercial with fellow college coaching titans Bobby Knight, Mike Krzyzewski and Roy Williams, a devout Roman Catholic whose priest friend often leads the Louisville team in pregame prayer.

AP - A former chief of staff for Bill Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas faces felony charges accusing her of smuggling a knife and 48 tattoo needles onto the state's death row.

AP - Thanks to a Chicago TV judge, a Coney Island freak show operator is up $4,000 but down a five-legged puppy.