Gasoline prices down 15 cents
U.S. retail gas prices continued their downward trend, dropping nearly 15 cents a gallon in the past two weeks, according to a survey released Sunday.
The national average for self-serve regular was about $2.28 on Oct. 6, down from about $2.42 two weeks earlier, according to the Lundberg Survey of 7,000 gas stations across the country. Mid-grade prices averaged $2.39 a gallon, while premium cost $2.50.
Gas prices peaked Aug. 11 at $3.02 and have dropped nearly 75 cents since then.
The lowest average price in the survey was in Des Moines, Iowa, at $2.03 a gallon for regular. The highest was in Honolulu, at $2.91.
MIAMI
Navy lawyer denied promotion
The Navy lawyer who led a successful Supreme Court challenge of the Bush administration’s military tribunals for detainees at Guantanamo Bay has been passed over for promotion and will have to leave the military, the Miami Herald reported Sunday.
Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, 44, will retire in March or April under the military’s “up or out” promotion system. Swift said last week he was notified he would not be promoted to commander.
He said the notification came about two weeks after the Supreme Court sided with him and against the White House in the case involving Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who was Osama bin Laden’s driver.
“It was a pleasure to serve,” Swift told the newspaper. He added he would have defended Hamdan even if he had known it would cut short his Navy career.
The Pentagon had no comment Sunday.
Swift plans to continue defending Hamdan as a civilian.
AIRMONT, N.Y.
Dog-sitter killed by pit bull
A woman died after being bitten in the head and throat by a pit bull that she and her sister were watching for a friend.
Jeannine Fusco, 44, was attacked Saturday in the garage of her home in Airmont, in Rockland County, police said.
“They were dog-sitting for an acquaintance, and she let the dog out early in the morning, and when it came back inside the animal went right after her,” said Ramapo police Detective Lt. Brad Weidel told the Journal News.
Police said they found the pit bull in the sisters’ backyard and killed it.
SURRY, Va.
Reactor remains shut down
One of two nuclear reactors at Surry Power Station remained shut down Sunday after two electrical transformers that provide backup power to the plant quit working.
Unit Two was shut down around 6 p.m. Saturday after steam blew out some sheet metal, which landed on a power line that serves one of the backup transformers, according to Dominion Resources Inc., which owns the plant. Officials weren’t sure what caused the second transformer to shut down.
Compiled from wire reports