Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 2, 1995                   TAG: 9508020069
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

IN THE NATION

ATLANTA - A federal judge upheld Georgia's law requiring a minute of silent meditation at the start of each school day.

U.S. District Judge Frank Mays Hull ruled Monday in the case of teacher Brian Bown, who was fired from South Gwinnett High School last year after refusing to hold the moment of silence and walking out of the school.

Bown then challenged the law in federal court.

``We will be appealing,'' his lawyer, Steve Leibel, said Tuesday. ``We believe the statute promotes school prayer, entangles the government in school prayer.''

- Associated Press

Prisoners' lawsuits can be `frivolous'

WASHINGTON - Bad haircuts, tight underwear and late magazines were among the causes of prisoners' lawsuits denounced Tuesday as ``frivolous'' by attorneys general from across the nation.

Urging Congress to impose tighter restrictions on prisoners' civil-rights filings in federal courts, the state attorneys general said the lawsuits cost millions of dollars each year to defend.

Among the top 10 ``frivolous'' inmate lawsuits were a $1 million lawsuit over melted ice cream; a $25,000 claim over a bad haircut; a $5 million federal lawsuit over lost sunglasses; a lawsuit over state-issued underwear that was too tight a dispute over an inmate's right to pray loudly at 4 a.m.; and disputes over the removal of park benches, the right to have soap on a rope and the delivery of Rolling Stone magazine.

- Associated Press