In the news

WORLD

LONDON – The moon darkened, reddened, and turned shades of gray and orange Saturday night during the first total lunar eclipse in nearly three years, thrilling stargazers and astronomers around the world.

The Earth’s shadow took more than six hours to crawl across the moon’s surface, eating it into a crescent shape before engulfing it completely in a spectacle at least partly visible on every continent.

About a dozen amateur astronomers braved the cold and mud outside the Croydon Observatory in southeast London to watch the start of the eclipse.

“It’s starting to go!” said Alex Gikas, 8, a Cub Scout who was studying for his astronomy badge. “I’ve never seen anything like it before. I’m really excited.”

By the time of the greatest eclipse, shortly after 5:44 p.m. EST, the light of the full moon was replaced by near-total obscurity.

“It was really very dark,” said Paul Harper, chairman of the Croydon Astronomical Society, who estimated the moon had lost over four-fifths of its luminosity. “It was quite a nice one.”

Lunar eclipses occur when the Earth passes between the sun and the moon. It is an uncommon event because the moon spends most of its time either above or below the plane of Earth’s orbit.

NATION

MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. – A man suspected of killing and dismembering his wife was captured Sunday as he fled searchers, running through snow in northern Michigan, police said.

Stephen Grant had been the subject of a manhunt since police discovered what they believe to be the torso and other body parts of his wife, Tara Lynn Grant, in and around the couple’s house in a suburb of Detroit.

Grant was arrested in Bliss Township in northern Michigan, some 225 miles from his home, after an air and ground search by local, state and federal agencies, according to the Emmet County sheriff’s department.

Grant didn’t struggle when he was caught in the cold weather, Macomb County Sheriff Mark Hackel said. Temperatures in the area of his capture were in the teens and 20s late Saturday and early Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.

“He was not in the condition to run anymore or obviously to flee,” the sheriff said.

Hackel said Grant was taken to a hospital with signs of frostbite or hypothermia. Grant was in serious condition, said Barbara Allen, a spokeswoman for Northern Michigan Hospital in Petoskey. She said she couldn’t release any other information.

STATE & LOCAL

RICHMOND – Tobacco giant Philip Morris USA will give $200,000 toward establishing the United States National Slavery Museum, planned for Fredericksburg, museum officials announced last week.

The cash will be used to hire additional staff and develop marketing and fundraising efforts for the $200 million museum along the Rappahannock River, expected to open next year.

The gift is the result of ongoing cooperation between the tobacco company and leaders of the museum, which will document the history of blacks, enslaved and often made to farm, among other things, tobacco.

“I really believe they understand the importance of this historic initiative and they understand our mission, which is to present a more complete rendering of the complex topic of slavery,” Museum Director Vonita Foster said.

Following assertions by museum founders, large corporations have shied from giving to a project linked with slavery. Recent years have seen several corporations forced to take a look at their company’s historical links to the sale and enslavement of blacks.

Foster pointed out that Philip Morris’ present-day American arm was established in 1902, well after slavery was abolished.