Compiled from staff and wire reports

MIDDLETOWN - A partnership of public and private developers will break ground Tuesday on a project to build 17 homes in a neighborhood previously considered blighted.

The first two homes in the Maple Park Square development - along Illinois, Tytus and Webber avenues - will be completed by December. The $4 million project will be complete by late 2004.

The development, adjacent to a 1.7-acre public park, is intended to reduce blight in the area, officials said. Home prices start at $130,000.

The development partners include the city of Middletown, Neighborhood Housing Service Inc., Oberer Residential Construction and Fannie Mae.

Officials relinquish county-owned cars

WARREN, Ohio - Some officials in Trumbull County, where an $8 million budget deficit resulted in more than 100 layoffs and a tax increase, are giving up their county-owned cars.

Prosecutor Dennis Watkins has turned over the keys to his taxpayer-owned vehicle. It will be part of a county motor vehicle pool and occasionally will be used by Watkins for business. County Commissioner James Tsagaris plans to relinquish his county-owned vehicle.

Tsagaris said more than 10 other county officials who drive taxpayer-purchased vehicles home should do the same. Earlier this year, commissioners eliminated the deficit by laying off employees and doubling the county's piggyback sales tax.

Corrections doctor admits he's sex addict

LOUISVILLE - The Kentucky Corrections Department's acting medical director is an admitted sex addict who has been accused of improperly touching four women who work for the department.

Dr. H. Douglass Crall has been barred from practicing anywhere but in the Corrections Department, a Louisville newspaper reported Sunday. Crall was first hired by the department as a doctor at the Luther Luckett Corrections Complex in La Grange in 1998, and was promoted to acting director - earning more than $150,000 annually - in 2002.

The former Paducah obstetrician-gynecologist lost his medical license in 1994 after being accused of unethical conduct for having sex with about 10 female patients in Kentucky, as well as nurses, staff members and other health professionals. Crall had his license reinstated in 1998 on the condition that he give up his specialty; practice exclusively within Corrections; and have a chaperone present if he was to see women patients.

School to house 100 at nearby colleges

INDIANAPOLIS - Butler University will house more than 100 students at nearby colleges after a surge in enrollment led to its largest-ever freshman class.

University officials will house 71 students, mostly upperclassmen, at an apartment complex more than 40 blocks from Butler's campus.

Seventeen students will live in a residence hall a few miles away at Marian College, and 21 others will live in apartments at Christian Theological Seminary, a half-block from Butler fraternities.

About 210 students had to settle for bunking in threes in 12-by-12-foot dorm rooms, using lofts and bunk beds to create space.

Butler expects about 970 freshmen on the 4,300-student campus this fall, while it had hoped for 915.

Ky. may lose two crime-lab computers

LOUISVILLE - The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives may strip Kentucky of two crime-fighting computers that have been virtually unused for nearly three years because of the state's fiscal problems.

The computers - worth nearly a half-million dollars - are designed to help police match bullets and guns based on distinctive markings a particular weapon leaves on spent ammunition. But the state says it can't afford to hire people to operate them.