Apparent Fossett IDs found

Apparent Fossett IDs found

MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. — A hiker in a rugged part of eastern California found a pilot’s license and other items that appear to belong to Steve Fossett, the adventurer who vanished on a solo flight in a borrowed plane more than a year ago, authorities said Wednesday.

The information on the pilot license — including Fossett’s name, address, date of birth and certificate number — was sent in a photograph to the Federal Aviation Administration, and all matched the agency’s records, spokesman Ian Gregor said.

The hiker, Preston Morrow, said he found an FAA identity card, a pilot’s license, a third ID and $1,005 in cash tangled in a bush off a trail just west of the town of Mammoth Lakes on Monday.

Fossett, whose exploits included circumnavigating the globe in a balloon, disappeared Sept. 3, 2007, after taking off in a single-engine plane. A judge declared Fossett legally dead in February after a search for the famed aviator that covered 20,000 square miles.

Somalia OKs foreign force

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Somalia authorized foreign powers Wednesday to use force against pirates holding a ship loaded with tanks for $20 million ransom, raising the stakes for bandits being watched by the U.S. Navy.

There was no indication, however, that the Americans or anyone else was preparing to take action.

Last week’s hijacking of the Ukrainian cargo ship MV Faina — carrying 33 Soviet-made T-72 tanks, rifles and heavy weapons — was the highest-profile act of piracy off this Horn of Africa nation this year. Several U.S. ships patrolled nearby, and American helicopters buzzed overhead.

Moscow also has sent a warship to protect the few Russian hostages on board, but it was a week away from the coast of central Somalia where the Faina has been anchored since Sept. 25. Most of the 20 crew members are Ukrainian or Latvian, and one Russian has died, apparently of illness.

Simpson’s defense rests

LAS VEGAS — O.J. Simpson’s defense rested its case Wednesday without calling the former football star to the stand. Instead, his lawyers wrapped up with a voice mail from a key prosecution witness offering to tailor his testimony if he was paid enough.

Lawyers for Simpson’s co-defendant, Clarence “C.J.” Stewart, called only one witness before resting their case. Stewart’s cousin, Linda Lockheart, said Stewart was elsewhere, entertaining friends, when Simpson and others gathered to plan a hotel room confrontation with two sports memorabilia dealers.

Simpson and Stewart have pleaded not guilty to 12 criminal charges, including armed robbery and kidnapping. Each man could face five years to life in prison if convicted in the Sept. 13, 2007, confrontation.

Tainted candy in Conn.

HARTFORD, Conn. — An industrial chemical blamed for sickening thousands of infants in China was found in candy in four Connecticut stores this week, a state official said Wednesday.

Days after contaminated White Rabbit Creamy Candy was found in California, Connecticut Consumer Protection Commissioner Jerry Farrell Jr. said tests found melamine in bags of the candy sold at two New Haven stores, a West Hartford market and an East Haven store.

Anyone who has the candy should destroy it, Farrell said.

The contamination has been blamed for the deaths of four children and kidney ailments among 54,000 others. More than 13,000 children have been hospitalized and 27 people arrested in connection with the tainting.

Cleveland arson charges

CLEVELAND — A man already in prison on drug and weapons charges was indicted Wednesday in a 2005 house fire that killed nine people, including eight children at a birthday sleepover.

Antun Lewis, 24, of Cleveland, was charged with arson in the house fire in May 2005 in a poor neighborhood that outraged residents across Cleveland. Lewis could face the death penalty if convicted.

Friends and relatives of the victims had expressed frustration with the slow investigation by federal, county and city authorities.

EU monitoring in Georgia

KARALETI, Georgia — European Union monitors in white shirts and bright blue berets began patrolling a buffer zone Wednesday outside the breakaway region of South Ossetia that has been controlled by Russian troops and separatists since an August war in Georgia.

The deployment paves the way for a promised Russian pullback of its remaining troops from areas they occupied outside South Ossetia and another separatist region in Georgia.

Associated Press