hUtah university stages vigil for crash victims

hUtah university stagesvigil for crash victims
LOGAN, Utah -- Chris Huntsaker attaches drip paper to candles at Utah State in Logan for a candlelight vigil. Eight agricultural students and their instructor died in a rollover crash Monday near Tremonton, Utah, while coming back to college from a field trip.
The left rear tire apparently blew out as the driver -- 45-year-old instructor Evan Parker -- tried to pass another vehicle on Interstate 84, patrol Lt. Ed Michaud said. He said speed was a factor.
The vigil was Tuesday.
Amtrak announces plansto raise ticket prices
WASHINGTON -- Amtrak announced Tuesday that ticket prices nationwide would increase an average of $3 to $4 starting next Tuesday.
Acela Express and long distance coach trains will see a 7 percent fare increase, while regional and long distance sleeper trains will rise by 5 percent.
The fare increases were described by Amtrak as an important component of its fiscal 2006 budget to cover its increases in current and anticipated expenses, including the cost of fuel which has risen 40 percent in the past year.
Starting Oct. 16, the approximately 18,000 Northeast Corridor commuters who have monthly passes will see a 10 percent increase. The currently monthly fares -- which vary depending on destinations -- are currently discounted at 70 percent. The discount will be adjusted to 60 percent, Amtrak said. In February 2006, that discount will be adjusted to 50 percent.
Hostage says she gavedrugs to accused gunman
ATLANTA -- Ashley Smith, the woman who says she persuaded suspected courthouse gunman Brian Nichols to release her by talking about her faith, discloses in a new book that she gave him methamphetamine during the hostage ordeal.
Smith did not share that detail with authorities at the time. But investigators said she came clean about the drugs when they interviewed her months later. They said they have no plans to charge her with drug possession.
In her book, "Unlikely Angel," released Tuesday, Smith says Nichols had her bound on her bed with masking tape and an extension cord. She says he asked for marijuana, but she did not have any, and she dug into her illegal stash of crystal meth instead.
Smith, a 27-year-old widowed mother who gained widespread praise for her level-headedness, says the seven-hour hostage ordeal in March led to the realization that she was a drug addict, and she says she has not used drugs since the night before she was taken captive.
Hinckley hearing
WASHINGTON -- A prosecutor argued Tuesday that John Hinckley still thinks women are making romantic overtures to him when they are not, the kind of misperception that led him to shoot President Reagan 24 years ago.
In federal court, Hinckley's lawyer said the presidential assailant's interactions with women pose no danger to anyone and that Hinckley should be granted extended visits to his parents' home in Virginia.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman is considering whether to allow Hinckley to make six trips to his parents' home in Williamsburg, Va., a three-hour drive from the forensic hospital where the presidential assailant has been held.
New Kon-Tiki expedition
OSLO, Norway -- An effort to recreate the late Thor Heyerdahl's famed 101-day Pacific crossing aboard the Kon-Tiki balsa raft resumed Tuesday after a postponement forced by last year's southern Asia tsunami.
The team, which includes the Norwegian adventurer's grandson, Olav Heyerdahl, plans to sail from Peru in late April, a year later than originally scheduled.
"It is very good. It is fun. And now the financing is in place," the 28-year-old Heyerdahl said of the $900,000 project.
After the Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami that killed thousands in southern Asia, the team postponed the project for a year because key sponsors had diverted funds to help victims.
Associated Press