NC POLITICIAN WRITES RESIGNATION LETTER IN KLINGON: INDIAN TRAIL, N.C. (AP) — Call it a politician boldly going where no one has gone before.
On Thursday, David Waddell used the Klingon language to write his letter of resignation from the Indian Trail Town Council in North Carolina.
Waddell says he opted to use Klingon, the language of a warrior race on the "Star Trek" TV shows and movies, as an inside joke. Mayor Michael Alvarez is calling the letter unprofessional.
Waddell says he is resigning at the end of this month. His four-year term expires in December 2015.
Waddell says he also needs to devote time to mounting a write-in campaign on the Constitution Party's platform against U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan.
FLORIDA SPACE CENTER HOME TO SECRET SPACECRAFT: CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The Kennedy Space Center will be the testing site for a top-secret Air Force space plane.
Boeing is the contractor working on the spacecraft, and the company announced Friday that it will convert a former space shuttle building for the X-37B orbital test vehicle program.
An undisclosed number of workers will recover, refurbish and relaunch the 29-foot-long unmanned spacecraft.
The Air Force launched the most recent flight of the unmanned spacecraft from Florida's Space Coast more than a year ago.
It was the second flight for the original X-37B space plane. The craft circled the planet for seven months in 2010. A second X-37B spacecraft spent more than a year in orbit.
The mystery machines are about one-quarter the size of NASA's old space shuttles and can land automatically on a runway.
COLORADO TEACHER ACCUSED OF SEEKING TOPLESS PICTURES: FRUITA, Colo. (AP) — A Colorado junior high school teacher has been accused of asking female students to send him topless photos.
Randy Majors, 58, was arrested this week on eight felony counts related to sexual exploitation of children in western Colorado, according to court records. He was released Thursday on $20,000 bond.
Police began investigating in November after a mother told police she found a Facebook message from the teacher asking her 16-year-old daughter to send nude pictures without telling anyone.
Shortly afterward, Majors turned over his laptop to Fruita police, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. He also acknowledged asking several girls for pictures, the warrant said.
Fruita police records identify at least four teenage girls who exchanged messages with Majors, including a 17-year-old who sent a picture of herself wearing a tank top.
Majors continued to ask for topless photos days after police took his computer and questioned him about the allegations, the warrant said.
'GONE WITH THE WIND' ACTRESS DIES AT 98: CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — The oldest surviving cast member of "Gone with the Wind" has died in South Carolina. She was 98.
Alicia Rhett played India Wilkes in the 1939 film starring Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable.
Kimberly Farfone Borts is spokeswoman for the Bishop Gadsden Episcopal Retirement Community in Charleston, S.C. She told The Associated Press that Rhett died about 5 p.m. Friday at Gadsden, where she had lived since August 2002.
In the movie, India Wilkes is a sister of Ashley Wilkes, with whom Scarlett O'Hara is deeply in love before Ashley marries his cousin and Scarlett becomes involved with Rhett Butler.
The news release says Alicia Rhett was born Feb. 1, 1915, in Savannah, Ga.
US OKS $5K FINE AGAINST VA. TECH FOR '07 MASSACRE: RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Friday agreed to a second fine against Virginia Tech stemming from the April 2007 campus massacre that left 33 dead.
The $5,000 penalty follows a $27,500 fine Duncan approved against Tech in December 2012. The larger fine was assessed against Tech for failure to issue a timely warning on the morning of the April 16, 2007, shooting on the Blacksburg campus.
The latest fine is based on what federal education officials called Tech's inconsistent timely warning policies at the time of the shootings.
Both fines were issued under the federal Clery Act, which requires schools to issue timely warnings of campus threats.
