COVINGTON — The Northern Kentucky Bar Foundation will announce the group's first scholarship specifically designed to assist minority law students at the annual NAACP Lawyers Luncheon.

        The scholarship will help final-year minority law students with bar exam expenses.

        The NAACP Lawyers Luncheon will be at noon today at The Madison at 700 Madison Ave. in Covington.

        The keynote speaker will be William E. Cofield, president of the Kentucky Conference of NAACP Branches.

        The goal of the annual luncheon is to help identify and address legal issues facing minorities in Northern Kentucky.

        Kenton Circuit Court Judge Patricia Summe will be presented with the NAACP's annual Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Vision and Unity Award. It is the first time a member of the Northern Kentucky Bar Association has received the award.

Bakery safe dropped; man is arrested

        COVINGTON — A 21-year-old Covington man was arrested after a safe was stolen from WildFlour Bakery on Greenup Street.

        Robert Evans, 21, of Covington is charged with one count of third-degree burglary.

        Covington police said they spotted a man in the area of Fourth and Garrard streets early Monday trying to carry a safe. They said he ran off, leaving the safe behind, when he saw police.

        Officers were able to identify and arrest Mr. Evans after lifting fingerprints from the bakery, police said.

Falwell declines to meet with gays

        PADUCAH - The Rev. Jerry Falwell spoke to a large crowd about the role of religion since the terrorist attacks, but a group of gays and lesbians was unable to express its views to the evangelist.

        Speaking at the Heartland Worship Center crusade Monday night, Mr. Falwell said many people turned to the church for solace in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, but he thinks it stopped short of a national revival.

        “But I do think that people were feeling a sense of vulnerability that we haven't felt for a long time,” he said.

        “It made us realize that we're part of the rest of the world, and we're vulnerable. I think we pray more as a nation.”

        Mr. Falwell was unable to meet with the group of gays and lesbians from Paducah and elsewhere in Kentucky, citing his tight schedule.

        The group wanted to express its views of his preaching against homosexuality.

        “I would love to give them an audience, but unfortunately I won't have time,” Mr. Falwell said said. “If they want to write me, I'll be most happy to respond.”

Ex-actor, candidate sues over prison time

        ASHLAND - A gubernatorial candidate and former tough-guy actor has filed a $310 million lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice in which he asks for damages for the nearly three years he spent in federal prison.

        Sonny Landham served 31 months after being convicted of making threatening and obscene phone calls to his now ex-wife in northeastern Kentucky.

        That conviction was later overturned by an appeals court that concluded last year that while comments Mr. Landham made in phone calls were emotionally charged, they were neither threats nor obscene.

        Mr. Landham, who played in action movies with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Eddie Murphy, filed the lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Ashland, the same venue that sentenced him to prison.

        “There is no amount of compensation that will give me back the 31 months,” Mr. Landham said. “The government must be shown that this can never happen again.”

        Mr. Landham said he was imprisoned for using the same kinds of harsh words that many spouses exchange in heated arguments. After his release from prison, Mr. Landham settled in Ashland, from where he has launched a campaign for the Republican nomination for governor.

        Mr. Landham claims in the lawsuit, which he filed without legal representation, that the Department of Justice and others violated his constitutional rights by unjustly imprisoning him in 1998.

        Gregory F. Van Tatenhove, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Mountain Eagle owners honored

        WHITESBURG - The owners of a weekly newspaper in eastern Kentucky are the recipients of a lifetime achievement award from the Society of Professional Journalists.

        Tom and Pat Gish of the Mountain Eagle of Whitesburg received the Helen Thomas Award in Fort Worth, Texas, on Saturday.

        Al Cross, president of the journalism society and a reporter for the Courier-Journal of Louisville, said the Gishes' lives have been consumed, and sometimes put at risk, by the journalism they've practiced.

        “Their careers could make a great book, or even a motion picture,” Mr. Cross said.

        In 1974, the newspaper office was firebombed. A Whitesburg police officer was found guilty of hiring young men to burn the building.

        The Gishes were given a glass sculpture and plaque that honor them for working amid daunting odds and many tribulations to inspire generations of American journalists.

        “They have taken on corrupt politicians, lousy schools and rapacious coal companies, and suffered for it,” Mr. Cross said.

Pentagon 9-11 victim gets special memorial

        MOREHEAD - A former Navy weather specialist who was killed in the terrorist attack on the Pentagon last year has been honored in an unusual way.

        Edward Thomas Earhart now has an underwater mountain in the Pacific Ocean named after him.

        Mr. Earhart, an aerographer's mate first class, died when a hijacked airliner was crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

        Representatives of the Navy, Naval Ice Center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration presented a plaque and map of the mountain to Mr. Earhart's family Tuesday evening.

        A science major at Morehead State University, Mr. Earhart left his studies in 1995 to join the Navy. Until 2000, he was stationed at the Naval Pacific Meteorology and Oceanography Center in Pearl Harbor.

        In 2001, he transferred to the Pentagon, where he specialized in weather forecasting for naval air and sea exercises.

        Earhart Seamount is in the South Pacific, about 2,000 miles northwest of Honolulu.

        A neighboring underwater mountain has been named in honor of Mr. Earhart's co-worker, Matthew Flocco, an aerographer's mate second class, who also died in the attack on the Pentagon.

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