Grant may aid jobless in N. Ky.

WASHINGTON - Unemployed workers in three Northern Kentucky counties may be eligible for help finding and training for a new job through a federal grant for Kentucky announced by U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, a Southgate Republican.

The $10.7 million grant, to be administered by the Kentucky Cabinet for Workforce Development, will be available to more than 1,700 unemployed Kentuckians in 31 counties, including Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties.

The grant will pay for assistance, including job placement, basic skills training, workshops, classroom training and other support services.

Judge clears release of records in inquiry

FRANKFORT - A judge Friday lifted a restraining order that barred the release of records of an investigation of a former Kentucky State Police commissioner.

The case is unusual because it pits the Justice Cabinet against Attorney General Ben Chandler's office as well as WHAS-TV, which requested the investigative file under the Kentucky Open Records Act.

The Louisville station and its reporter, Mark Hebert, asked for records pertaining to a possible sexual harassment allegation by a female state trooper against former commissioner Jerry Lovitt.

Mr. Lovitt, who was commissioner from 1993 to 1995, is now an administrator for the city of Nicholasville. He denied any wrongdoing in an interview with WHAS-TV, and he was never charged. A message left at his office on Friday by the Associated Press was not returned.

The Justice Cabinet declined to release its records, citing the trooper's privacy. The attorney general's office, whose opinions are legally binding in disputes over public records or meetings, sided with the TV station and ruled that the case file should be open. The Justice Cabinet appealed that ruling to Franklin County Circuit Court.

At the same time, Mr. Chandler's office, acting on a separate open-records request from Mr. Hebert, began preparing to release portions of its own copy of the file. That prompted Justice to sue.

5 plead not guilty in assault on student

MOREHEAD, Ky. - Five men charged with sexually assaulting a Morehead State University student in her dorm last fall pleaded not guilty in Rowan County Circuit Court on Friday.

Entering the pleas were Nathan Blackburn, 18, of Pikeville; Jordan H. Tackett, 19, of Jenkins; Trevor K. Duncan, 19, of Olympia; Quinton L. Martindale, 18, of Louisville and Calvin G. Roach, 18, of Louisville.

Circuit Judge Beth Lewis Maze scheduled a July 28 trial for the five.