Compiled from staff and wire reports

Mallory pushes forbridge amenities

COLUMBUS - Cincinnati needs to improve its image, says state Sen. Mark Mallory, and cleaning up the Purple People Bridge is a good place to start.

Mallory, D-Cincinnati, met with state and local officials Tuesday to discuss brightening up the Cincinnati side of the bridge with flowers, park benches and other colorful amenities already in place on the Kentucky side.

The Purple People Bridge opened to pedestrians in April, but people who cross from the tourist-friendly Newport area often turn back because the Cincinnati side is so ugly, Mallory said.

The beautification project is expected to cost about $400,000. Officials are hoping to fund the plan entirely with federal dollars if the city is able to submit a proposal to the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments by the end of the year.

Theft is alleged from disabled man

HAMILTON - A 46-year-old Middletown woman is accused of stealing nearly $6,000 from a man who uses a wheelchair.

In a Butler County grand jury indictment made public Wednesday, Brenda D. Thompson is charged with theft from a disabled adult.

If convicted, Thompson faces a prison term of one to five years. She would have faced only six to 18 months if the victim did not have a disability, prosecutors said.

The unnamed victim had been socializing with Thompson June 2 and invited her to come to his residence in Middletown. That is where she allegedly stole a fanny pack that contained nearly $6,000, said Joe Statzer, administrative director of the Butler County Prosecutor's Office.

Thompson is to appear in court Sept. 2.

Arbitrator orders fired officer rehired

A Cincinnati police officer fired for having sex twice while on duty, and then lying about it, will get his job back.

An arbitrator's decision received by the city Tuesday ordered that Officer Robert E. Johnson be reinstated and given back pay. His dismissal was reduced to a five-day suspension without pay by an arbitrator who said the city couldn't prove Johnson - before he lied - had seen a department policy prohibiting making false statements. At the time, the policy was newly enacted.

Johnson and Officer Robert Kidd were fired last December after Kandy Linthicum said they picked her up in November 2001 when she was celebrating her 40th birthday.

The officers took her home and she had sex with them, but Linthicum said the officers knew she was too intoxicated to consent. Johnson returned on another day and had sex with her again.

Kidd's arbitration hearing has not occurred.

Jury finds boy, 16, guilty of killing

A Hamilton County jury convicted 16-year-old Bryan Whitlow Wednesday of killing a woman and wounding three others when he fired seven shots into a crowd last September.

More than a half-dozen Hamilton County sheriff's deputies were in the courtroom as the verdict was read because a fight had erupted between a relative of the victim and a member of the suspect's family earlier this week.

Whitlow was 15 when he fatally shot Rita Michelle Walter, 38, of Winton Terrace on Denham Street in North Fairmount.

Prosecutors said the shooting was gang-related.

Whitlow, who was tried as an adult, could face life in prison. He will be sentenced Sept. 11.

New Arbor members can get 10 seedlings

Anyone who joins the National Arbor Day Foundation in August will receive 10 flowering dogwood seedlings for the price of a $10 membership.

The trees will be shipped postpaid at the right time for planting in the fall, with planting instructions. The 6- to 12-inch seedlings are guaranteed to grow.

Members also receive a subscription to the bimonthly publication Arbor Day and The Tree Book, which has information about tree planting and care.

Send $10 by Aug. 31 to Ten Dogwoods, National Arbor Day Foundation, 100 Arbor Ave., Nebraska City, NE 68410.

Soldier finds danger not just in Iraq

GARY, Ind. - A soldier who spent months in harm's way in Iraq finally returned home, only to awaken on his first night back to find his bedroom in flames.

Hours after being greeted in an emotional homecoming Aug. 14, Army Pfc. Nick Crawford awoke in his bedroom to his girlfriend's screams of "fire!"

Crawford broke some windows, hit the floor and then crawled to the stairs as his stepfather, Tim Somers, tried to douse the fire with an extinguisher.

The house and nearly all of the family's possessions were destroyed by the fire, the cause of which has not been determined.

Crawford's mother, Gaylia Somers, had picked her son up at Fort Stewart, Ga., only a few days earlier.