NEW YORK – Spammers are increasingly sneaking their messages past e-mail filters by sending their pitches as images rather than text, spam experts say. The images fool some filters because they have no easy way of knowing whether a graphical file contains an innocent photograph of a friend’s birthday party …

AIKEN, S.C. – A 57-year-old Aiken man is wanted in the death of his mother, who was found last week covered with a blanket in bushes in front of her home, police say. A murder warrant has been issued for Craig B. Baldwin, who lived with his mother in an …

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Authorities said they found pipe bombs and a jar containing the potentially deadly poison ricin while searching a home in suburban Nashville. The ricin was found sealed in a baby food jar in a shed at the home of William Micheal Matthews, according to a joint statement …

GROTON, Conn. – A Learjet registered to religious broadcaster Pat Robertson crashed in Long Island Sound while flying in heavy fog Friday, killing both pilots, authorities said. All three passengers escaped without serious injury. Robertson was not aboard. The twin-engine Learjet 35 went down a half-mile short of the runway …

VENICE, Calif. – A teenage student was fatally shot in a Venice High School parking lot Monday after a fight broke out, authorities said. Augustine Contreras, a 17-year-old junior at Venice High, was taken to a hospital in critical condition where he later died, said Officer Mike Lopez. The shooting …

NEW YORK – A Gambino family captain done in by the testimony of an undercover FBI agent and hours of government tapes was convicted Tuesday of racketeering — a verdict his lawyer said almost guarantees he will die in prison. Gregory DePalma, 74, had an oxygen tube in his nose …

PALMYRA, Pa. – Parents who visit their children at lunch would be required to eat school food rather than bring the children fast-food lunches under a proposed wellness policy in the Palmyra Area School District. That doesn’t set well with some parents. Lori Swisher, who has three children at Forge …

HANFORD, Calif. – A Marine who followed orders to photograph corpses of Iraqis allegedly slain by members of his unit last fall claims post-traumatic stress drove him to commit felonies while on leave, his mother said. Lance Cpl. Roel Ryan Briones, 21, is accused of stealing a truck and crashing …

GREENSBORO, N.C. – The city of Greensboro should not apologize for its role in the 1979 Klan-Nazi shootings that resulted in the deaths of five people, the mayor said, despite a commission’s recommendation that the city issue an apology. Mayor Keith Holliday pointed to city leaders’ previous expression of “regrets” …

FORT MEADE, Maryland – A military jury convicted an Army dog handler of tormenting an Abu Ghraib detainee in a trial that produced evidence of high-level pressure and ground-level confusion about interrogations at the prison in Iraq. Sgt. Santos A. Cardona is the 11th soldier convicted of crimes stemming from …