Schwarzenegger won’t be cited

Los Angeles Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s weekend motorcycle crash left him with a fat lip and a political black eye, but he won’t be charged with a driving violation, officials said Wednesday.

Schwarzenegger was on his Harley-Davidson, with his 12-year-old son in a sidecar, when he collided Sunday with a car on a winding canyon road. Police said he was driving without a motorcycle license, but the city attorney declined to file any charges after reviewing the accident report.

“The city attorney will not file any charges,” said Officer Grace Brady, a police spokeswoman. Even though police concluded he was unlicensed, the department “cannot go back and cite the governor because we did not witness the driving.”

The low-speed accident turned into a political embarrassment for the governor, who acknowledged he had driven a motorcycle for years without the proper license. He told reporters he “never thought about it.”

Although Los Angeles police have concluded the governor was driving illegally, the state Division of Motor Vehicles and the California Highway Patrol maintain that because his motorcycle had a sidecar attached when he crashed, it was legal for Schwarzenegger to operate it with just the standard driver’s license that he holds.

Houston schools adopting merit pay

Houston Houston is about to become the biggest school district in the nation to tie teachers’ pay to their students’ test scores.

School Superintendent Abe Saavedra wants to offer teachers as much as $3,000 more per school year if their students improve on state and national tests. The program could eventually grow to as much as $10,000 in merit pay.

The school board is set to vote on the plan today. Five of the nine board members have said they support it.

“School systems traditionally have been paying the best teacher the same amount as we pay the worst teacher, based on the number of years they have been teaching,” Saavedra said. “It doesn’t make sense that we would pay the best what we’re paying the worst. That’s why it’s going to change.”

Opponents argue that the plan focuses too much on test scores and would be unfair to teachers outside core subjects.

Alaska volcano disrupts air traffic

Anchorage, Alaska A volcano on an uninhabited island erupted early Wednesday, spewing ash about five miles into the sky and prompting air traffic authorities to warn planes to steer clear of the cloud.

The ash from Augustine Volcano was not expected to reach Anchorage, the state’s most populous city nearly 200 miles to the northeast, meteorologists said.

Flights were restricted temporarily in a five-mile radius around the volcano and for 50,000 feet above it, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Mike Fergus. The ash can clog jet engines.

United Express flight has unruly passenger

Salt Lake City A woman scuffled with flight attendants and another passenger on a United Express flight Wednesday, then claimed a bomb was on board after the plane was diverted, authorities said.

No bomb was found aboard the aircraft, which left Eugene, Ore., for Denver but was diverted to Salt Lake City. The woman was charged with interference with a flight crew.

Bogdana Georgieva, 35, threw a passenger into the aisle, began yelling, tried to remove her shirt and threw items at other passengers, court documents said.

The pilot diverted the plane to Salt Lake City. During the landing, Georgieva ran toward the cockpit and was stopped by flight attendants, with whom she got in another scuffle, documents said. Passengers subdued her.

After the plane landed, Georgieva tried to run from police and said there was a bomb on the aircraft, documents said. The plane was evacuated and checked for explosives. Passengers were allowed back, and the flight continued to Denver, said FBI agent Patrick J. Kiernan.

Georgieva, 35, of Bulgaria, was sent to a Salt Lake City hospital for evaluation.