Expect lower airfares

Expect lower airfares

Air travelers suffering from summer sticker shock might find some relief this autumn.

With demand for air travel falling faster than Olympic swimming records, some carriers are slashing autumn fares to levels not seen since oil prices began skyrocketing last year.

“It’s a good time to fly if you want to put up with the grief,” said Joe Brancatelli, editor of the business travel Web site JoeSentMe.com.

The latest dip in oil prices — to $113.77 a barrel at Friday’s close from a peak of about $145 last month — is giving airlines some room to lower fares.

Ex-Marine to face trial

SAN DIEGO — When the trial of a former Marine begins Tuesday in a federal court in Riverside, it will mark the first time a little-known federal law has been used to prosecute a former Marine or soldier for actions taken during combat.

A jury of civilians will decide the fate of former Marine Sgt. Jose Nazario, 27, who is accused in the killing of four Iraqi prisoners in Fallujah on Nov. 9, 2004.

The law wasn’t crafted to target military personnel. Passed by Congress in 2000, the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act was designed to allow the prosecution of civilians employed by the U.S. Department of Defense for crimes committed while overseas on official business.

The act was meant to close a loophole that allowed civilians to escape prosecution for serious crimes because they are not subject to military law and U.S. prosecutors lack jurisdiction.

Nazario is being tried in federal court because he had left active duty when the Naval Criminal Investigative Service began its investigation. Two other Marine sergeants, still on active duty, are set for courts-martial at Camp Pendleton with Marine jurors.

Suicide bomber kills 15

BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber killed 15 people, including at least six U.S.-backed Sunni Arab fighters, Sunday night near a crowded outdoor market in eastern Baghdad, security officials and local leaders said.

At least 30 people were wounded in the attack near the historic Abu Hanifa Mosque, in the Sunni district of Adhamiya. Women and children were among the dead, said Abu Abed, the head of the U.S.-funded Sons of Iraq security group in Adhamiya.

There were contradictory accounts about the incident. One police officer said the male bomber was disguised as a woman and arrived on foot; another said the attacker was not dressed as a woman and arrived on a bike.

More and more, militant groups have been using female suicide bombers to evade checkpoints and security checks because custom bars Iraqi men from frisking women.

Mummified remains ID’d

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Nine years of sleuthing, advanced DNA science and cutting-edge forensic techniques have finally put a name to a mummified hand and arm found in an Alaska glacier.

The remains belong to Francis Joseph Van Zandt, a 36-year-old merchant marine from Roanoke, Va., who was on a plane rumored to contain a cargo of gold when it smashed into the side of a mountain 60 years ago. Thirty people died in the crash.

“This is the oldest identification of fingerprints by post-mortem remains,” said latent fingerprint expert Mike Grimm Sr., during a teleconference Friday, during which the two pilots who found the remains in 1999, genetic scientists and genealogists talked about the discovery.

Twenty-four merchant marines and six crewmen were flying from China to New York City on March 12, 1948, when the DC-4 slammed into Mount Sanford, perhaps because the pilots were blinded by an unusually intense aurora borealis that night. The wreckage disappeared into the glacier within a few days.

Rescued from Calif. mine

SONORA, Calif. — A man was rescued from an abandoned gold mine Sunday after tumbling more than 100 feet and spending two nights at the bottom of the dark shaft, authorities said.

A search-and-rescue team pulled Darvis Lee Jr., 34, from the mine around 6 a.m. after lowering a rescue worker and a mesh basket into the chasm, the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Department said. He was treated at a hospital for back and leg injuries and released.

Lee, of Sonora, fell down the 100-foot shaft while exploring the mine Friday night. Authorities were contacted Saturday after a friend who went with him realized Lee had not returned home.

His rescue was briefly delayed while authorities waited for a search team to arrive from Los Angeles, about 300 miles to the southeast.

Combined dispatches