Around The Region

Cincinnati airport terminal evacuated\nHEBRON, Ky. -- Police evacuated the main terminal at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport for three hours on Sunday after a passenger tried to board a plane with a cigar cutter in his boot. \nWhen a screener at a security checkpoint found the small knife, the man ran into a secure area of the terminal, said Kathleen Bergen, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Transportation.\nThe man was arrested, Bergen said. She could not provide details.\nThe terminal, which handles 92 percent of the airport's traffic, was shut down at 9:10 a.m., and the three concourses were evacuated and searched. All reopened by 12:10 p.m., and passengers were allowed back in after being re-screened, Bergen said.\nPassengers on the 10 flights that left the airport during the evacuation were screened upon arrival at their destinations, she said.\nBergen said the Transportation Security Administration was investigating.\nTippecanoe judges rule differently in meth search cases\nLAFAYETTE -- One Tippecanoe County judge has ruled for police and another judge against them in cases testing whether officers can search people suspected of buying legal items that can be used to make an illegal drug.\nJudge Thomas H. Busch found that an officer had sufficient grounds to search the bags of two men outside a store where he had just observed one of the men buying products that can be used to make methamphetamine.\nIn two cases with somewhat different circumstances, however, Judge Don Johnson recently ruled police did not have authority to search customers they stopped outside stores based on tips from employees. Prosecutors said they planned to appeal one of the rulings.\n"It seems that the judges are doing what they should be doing, which is looking at the facts and circumstances of each case individually," deputy prosecutor Mike Dowler told the Journal and Courier for a story published Saturday. "What we're doing is applying very broad constitutional principles to a new law."\nCold pills, fuel, lithium batteries and other relatively common items can be used to make the highly addictive stimulant. It is illegal under state law to possess two or more meth ingredients with the intent of manufacturing the drug.\nPolice in Lafayette and other cities in Indiana have asked retailers to alert them when customers buy large quantities of items that are potential meth ingredients.\nBusch said the case in which he ruled last month differed from those Johnson overturned because police had reasonable suspicion the man had at least two meth ingredients in his bag and had made repeated purchases of such items.\nDowler is scheduled to argue another similar case at an evidence suppression hearing before Busch on Wednesday.\n10 Indiana charter schools win $150,000 grants\nINDIANAPOLIS -- Ten Indiana charter schools will each receive $150,000 federal grants to help cover start-up costs when they open their doors this fall.\nThe 10 schools will receive the one-year grants under the federal government's Public Charter Schools Program, Suellen Reed, the state superintendent of public instruction, said Friday.\nStart-up money has been in doubt because a state law authorizing the schools does not provide them with money for the August to January period. Under the state Department of Education's interpretation of the law, the schools are not eligible for state operating money until the start of the calendar year -- the same funding cycle used for public schools.\nEach of the charter schools receiving the grants are being awarded $125,000 to implement their charters and $25,000 for planning.\nThose schools could seek federal funding extensions after the upcoming school year, and charter schools beginning operations over the next two years also could be eligible for federal help, Reed said.\nCharter schools are independent, taxpayer-funded public schools free of many state rules and regulations. They are designed to be more innovative in teaching and administrative practices than traditional public schools.