Fixing 3rd party API 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' error - angularjs

Question

I have an Angular application, currently an HTML file I open but it will soon be converted to a server/accessed through localhost. I use $http to access a 3rd party API (I have no control over its responses; most of the API calls work, but some don't and throw the error:
XMLHttpRequest cannot load http://api.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/?format=json&api_key=RJEnADgGbCjfJYi0z8vuVnelYXn2Smud2Dfi2u2F&q=susage. No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource. Origin 'null' is therefore not allowed access. The response had HTTP status code 404.
The API calls that throw that error are the searches that return 0 results (in the example, the database returns no results for "susage"). In the Network tab, the response can't be loaded and no response headers are listed; for other working API calls, under Response Headers, the necessary "Access-Control-Allow-Origin:*" is present.
The API definitely forms a response and tries to send it back, but fails for whatever reason. Visiting the posted url shows that response.
Why do only the empty searches throw the error when API understands and has a response for both calls, and how do I fix it? I would prefer that my frontend communicates with the API directly, as opposed to communicating with my backend which in turn communicates with the API.
For comparison, a search with results (spelling 'sausage' correctly) vs a search without results: http://imgur.com/a/ihhI1
The $http code:
return $http.get('http://api.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/?format=json', {
params: {
api_key: usdaKey,
q: query
}
})

Answer 1

In order to expose the "-1" status (timeout) to the UI, I changed the service method to simply return the promise, like this:
var search = function(query) {
return $http.get('http://api.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/?format=json', {
params: {
api_key: usdaKey,
q: query
}
});
};
Then you can handle the error in your controller, like this:
$scope.search = function(query) {
$scope.items = [];
$scope.err = null;
foodInfo.search(query).then(function(response) {
console.log(response);
$scope.items = response.data.list.item;
}, function(e) {
console.log('Error status: ' + e.status);
if (e.status === -1) {
$scope.err = 'No data found';
}
});
};