North Carolina

England to be court-martialed for prisoner abuse scandal

Army Pfc. Lynndie England, who has come to symbolize the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal, will face a court-martial, one of her lawyers said.

The Army will announce the court-martial on Monday and may schedule the military trial to begin in January, defense attorney Rhidian Orr said Friday.

An Army spokesman at Fort Bragg, where England has been assigned while her case is pending, confirmed that a decision regarding the case is scheduled to be released Monday. The decision rests with Lt. Gen. John Vines, commander of the 18th Airborne Corps at the post.

England, 21, is one of seven members of the 372nd Military Police Company of Cresaptown, Md., charged with the abuse that occurred last year at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

Hollywood

Oil, media giant dies at 79

Billionaire Marvin Davis, a former oilman who sold his 20th Century Fox studios to Rupert Murdoch in the 1980s, died Saturday at his Beverly Hills home. He was 79.

Davis died surrounded by his family after a long illness, his publicist Allan Mayer said.

Davis had also owned the Pebble Beach Co. and the Beverly Hills Hotel. Nicknamed “Mr. Wildcatter,” he started his road to fortune in oil and gas exploration, later expanding into real estate and the entertainment industry.

Last week, Davis’s fortune was valued at $5.8 billion by Forbes magazine, where he placed 30th on the annual ranking of billionaires.

Davis bought 20th Century Fox studios in 1981. In 1984, he recruited Barry Diller, then head of Paramount, to run the studio. The following year, he sold Fox to Murdoch and it is now part of the media mogul’s News Corp.

Over the years, Davis made attempts to buy CBS, NBC and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.