The News in 2 Minutes

From The Associated Press

Bashas’ stores pull Mexican jalapenos

PHOENIX—All Mexican-grown jalapeno peppers have been pulled from Bashas’ [including the one in Sahuarita] in Arizona after U.S. Food and Drug Administration tests showed some tested positive for salmonella bacteria, a company spokeswoman said Saturday. The peppers were also pulled from Bashas’-owned Food City and AJ’s stores.

The FDA recently tested produce at a company warehouse and told the grocer of the positive test on Friday, Bashas’ spokeswoman Kristy Nied said.

Bashas’ has sanitized its display cases and replaced the peppers with U.S.-grown produce. Stores will give refunds for peppers bought on or before Aug. 1.

The peppers came from one of two distributors, one in Arizona and one in California, Nied said.

“We pulled everything just to be sure,” Nied said. “We get jalapenos from two distributors and not knowing which one we pulled them all.”

She wouldn’t name the distributors until the FDA confirms the exact source of the peppers that tested positive.

Jalapeno and serrano peppers grown in Mexico have become a focus of an investigation into a nationwide salmonella outbreak that has sickened 1,300 people in the United States since June. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has documented 59 illnesses in Arizona.

CDC understated new HIV infections in U.S.

ATLANTA—The number of Americans infected by the AIDS virus each year is much higher than the government has been estimating, U.S. health officials reported, acknowledging that their numbers have understated the level of the epidemic.

The country had roughly 56,300 new HIV infections in 2006 — a dramatic increase from the 40,000 annual estimate used for the past dozen years. The new figure is due to a better blood test and new statistical methods, and not a worsening of the epidemic, officials said.

But it likely will refocus U.S. attention from the effect of AIDS overseas to what the disease is doing to this country, said public health researchers and officials.

“This is the biggest news for public health and HIV/AIDS that we’ve had in a while,” said Julie Scofield, executive director of the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors.

Hundreds protest Kurdish demands

BAGHDAD — More than 1,000 Sunni Arabs and Turkomen rallied Saturday against Kurdish demands to incorporate the oil-rich area around Kirkuk into their autonomous region, on the eve of a special session of parliament aimed at defusing the crisis.

The dispute over Kirkuk and its vast oil wealth has blocked passage of legislation providing for provincial elections this year, a major U.S. goal aimed at reconciling Iraq’s rival ethnic and religious communities.

Protesters in the town of Hawija, west of Kirkuk, carried banners rejecting Kurdish demands for control of Kirkuk, said Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qadir of the Kirkuk police.

The rally ended without any violence, but residents said the atmosphere was tense in Kirkuk, where a suicide bomber killed 25 people Monday during a Kurdish protest.

12-year-old Douglas boy arrested in mom’s slaying

DOUGLAS—A 12-year-old Douglas boy is facing a murder charge after allegedly shooting his mother multiple times after an argument, a Cochise County sheriff’s spokeswoman said Saturday.

Deputies were called to a home just outside Douglas city limits late Friday afternoon and found 34-year-old Sara Madrid shot multiple times, sheriff’s spokeswoman Carol Capas said.

Deputies began first aid and Madrid was taken to a hospital in Douglas, where she died.

The boy was booked into the county juvenile detention center on a first-degree murder charge. Capas did not release his name.

Palestinian infighting in Gaza escalates, 9 killed

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip—Hamas forces battled Fatah-linked fighters with mortars and machine guns in a crowded Gaza neighborhood Saturday, leaving at least nine dead in the worst Palestinian infighting in nine months.

About 88 people were injured, 12 of them children, hospital officials said.

Loud explosions and gunfire could be heard throughout the day in the Gaza City neighborhood of Shijaiyeh, a stronghold of the Fatah-allied Hilles clan. Hamas accuses the clan of hiding suspects responsible for a car bombing last week that killed five activists of the Islamic militant group.

NY girl falls 14 stories, saved by sooty landing

NEW YORK—A 12-year-old girl fell into a chimney on the roof of her apartment building, plummeted 14 stories down the flue and landed almost unscathed in a pile of furnace soot.

Grace Bergere, a young rock drummer, remained hospitalized Saturday for treatment of an injured hip.

The 2-foot-deep pile of ash and dust may have saved her life, cushioning her fall when she crashed into a basement furnace, fire officials said.

Authorities said Grace was showing a cousin, visiting from California, the spectacular view of the city from the top of her family’s West Village apartment building, which has a rooftop deck overlooking the Hudson River.

To get to the highest point Thursday night, she climbed up a 25-foot ladder alongside the big brick chimney. When she reached the top, she fell into the gaping mouth of the chimney and plunged down the narrow flue to the basement.