Shuttle crew heads back to Earth

Space shuttle Endeavour and its crew of seven departed the international space station Friday, ending a 12-day visit that left the orbiting complex with more modern and deluxe living quarters.

Thanks to Endeavour’s delivery and the practically nonstop work of all 10 space travelers, the space station has almost everything it needs to accommodate a larger crew. NASA hopes to double the space station’s population —- currently at three —- by the middle of next year.

The shuttle, whose crew includes Georgia Tech graduates Col. Eric Boe, Lt. Col. Robert “Shane” Kimbrough and Sandra Magnus, is due back on Earth Sunday.

Wake held for shooting victims

A wake was held at St. Thomas Syrian Orthodox Knanaya Church in Clifton, N.J., the scene of a shooting that killed Dennis John Mallosseri and Reshma James. James’ estranged husband, Joseph Palliparuth, who was captured earlier this week in the central Georgia town of Monroe, has been charged in the case.

CDC: Pot pies sickened 401

Federal investigators raised to 401 the number of cases of salmonella linked to the Banquet pot pies recalled last year by ConAgra Foods Inc. The Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued its final report on the fall 2007 outbreak and recall, which affected 41 states.

Port workers get new ID cards

Seaport workers in several states will begin using new identification cards under federal rules intended to tighten security at the nation’s ports. Among ports affected are those in Georgia, the Carolinas, northern Florida, Texas, New York, Connecticut, Minnesota and states bordering Lake Michigan.

Officials plead with parents

Nebraska officials are encouraging parents who thought about abandoning their children under the state’s old safe-haven law to instead call 211 for help. But the people who run the emergency shelters that 211 hotline callers are referred to said they’re often too jammed to help. A Georgia boy was among those abandoned before the law was changed to limit it to newborns.

Robbery possible in anchor death

Robbery may have been the motive in the bludgeoning death of a popular Little Rock, Ark., television news anchor, police said, adding that the man arrested this week in the case is also wanted in a rape. But Lt. Terry L. Hastings, a police spokesman, said it was still not known where the man, Curtis L. Vance, first spotted the anchor, Anne Pressly, 26; why he chose her as a victim; or what prompted the savage attack. Pressly was found beaten and bloody in her bed Oct. 20 and died five days later without regaining consciousness.

Melamine level now established

Federal Food and Drug Administration regulators set a safety threshold for the industrial chemical melamine that is greater than the amount found so far in U.S.-made infant formula. They insisted that formula with melamine content under the threshold is safe. The FDA had stated it was unable to set a safe level for melamine in infant formula before a recent report that the formula of two major U.S. manufacturers was contaminated with melamine or a related chemical.