California: Astronauts observe last manned moonshot

Thirty years have passed, but no amount of time could dim the vivid memory Eugene Cernan has of being the last person to leave footprints on the moon.

“It’s like you would want to freeze that moment and take it home with you. But you can’t,” Cernan recalled Friday night as he joined fellow Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt and other aviation pioneers at a dinner to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the last manned mission to the moon.

The dinner in Beverly Hills was a benefit for the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, which supports advanced education for college students of science and technology.

Washington, D.C.: $100 million gift given to Kennedy Center

A $100 million gift to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the largest in its history, will help build an education center and a new eight-acre plaza to improve access to the center from downtown Washington.

The plaza, to be built over several freeways that now cut the Kennedy Center off from downtown, also will contain a new museum of performing arts. The project is expected to be completed in the next decade.

The gift from the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation is the first major donation to pay for the $650 million project.

Last December, the Reynolds foundation gave the Kennedy Center $10 million to finance a 10-year series of programs.

Detroit: Officer suspended in handcuff beating

A police officer is being suspended without pay for allegedly kicking a motorist and beating him with a pair of handcuffs – an incident captured on a video inside the police car, officials said.

The suspension of Officer Robert Feld Sr. will take effect Friday for the Nov. 14 incident during the arrest of a motorist on suspicion of drunken driving, Deputy Chief Gary Brown told the Detroit Free Press.

Brown said Feld was already serving a suspension in a separate incident involving mistreatment of a prisoner.

A decision on whether Feld would be criminally charged could be made by Monday, prosecutors said.

Feld allegedly kicked the driver twice, kneed him in the back and struck him in the head with a pair of department-issued metal handcuffs. The driver was taken to a hospital for treatment of the head wound.

California: Mayoral race outcome decided by cutting cards

It wasn’t the number of votes that elected this town’s mayor – it was the luck of the draw.

Candidates Pat Farmer and Charles Turner each came in with 546 votes in the November election in Waterford. Because there’s no special election ordinance set up to handle ties, state law calls for the winner to be decided by chance.

The deck of cards was cut Thursday evening. Turner drew a queen of diamonds, and Farmer pulled a 10 of hearts. Turner then took his seat with the city council and began his third term as mayor. Farmer sat down in the public section.

Virginia: Practicing Wiccan sues for discrimination

A woman who practices a religion rooted in witchcraft is suing county officials for refusing to add her name to a list of clergy invited to open board meetings with a prayer.

The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed the lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court on behalf of Cynthia Simpson, a Wiccan.

The lawsuit claims the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors discriminated against Simpson based on her religion by inviting Christian clergy to deliver invocations while refusing to allow her to do so.

Chesterfield County Administrator Lane Ramsey said the board could invite whomever it wished to give the invocation.

The lawsuit said county supervisors ridiculed Simpson and her faith. An Oct. 5 article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch quoted Supervisor Renny B. Humphrey as saying, “I hope she’s a good witch like Glinda,” the witch in “The Wizard of Oz.” Humphrey also said: “There is always Halloween.”

Dallas: American Airlines seeks to freeze pay

American Airlines, the world’s largest carrier, is asking employees to forgo pay raises they are due next year to help the company stem massive losses.

American, whose parent company lost nearly $3 billion in the first nine months of this year, said canceling pay raises would save $130 million.

Chairman and chief executive Donald Carty has said the company needs to cut $4 billion in annual costs and has found about half of that by laying off workers, mothballing planes, canceling orders for new jets, reducing food service and other changes.