Nation in brief

Prayer blocked from graduation

A federal judge on Friday blocked a southern Kentucky high school from including prayers in its graduation ceremony, prompting students to begin reciting the Lord’s Prayer during the opening remarks.

About 200 students interrupted the principal’s comments with the prayer, drawing thunderous applause and a standing ovation from the crowd.

Earlier in the day, a judge banned prayers from the ceremony in response to a lawsuit filed this week by the American Civil Liberties Union. The lawsuit sought a restraining order on behalf of an unidentified student at Russell County High School in Russell Springs, 90 miles south of Louisville.

Later in the ceremony, senior Megan Chapman told the crowd that God had guided her since childhood. She was interrupted repeatedly by cheering as she urged her classmates to trust in God as they go through life.

Leonardtown, Md.

School locked down over gun scare

Officers in riot gear searched four locked-down schools Friday after a student and his grandmother reported seeing someone put a handgun in a backpack and approach the building.

No weapons were found, but some students at the school complex said they feared for their lives during the seven-hour lockdown and kept thinking of the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado.

“Everybody was really scared and worried,” said senior Chris Laney, 17.

Leonardtown High School was locked down along with an adjoining middle school, a technical school and an alternative learning school.

The student and grandmother who reported the gun said they thought it was another student who brought it into the school, but they were unable to identify him inside the school building.

Houston

DeLay ‘hammered’ in documentary

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, given the nickname “the hammer” during his political career, can add one more title to his resume: reluctant movie star.

The Texas Republican was the focus of a new documentary that premiered Friday night in Houston examining the scandals that drove him from office.

The film, titled “The Big Buy: How Tom DeLay Stole Congress,” features interviews with Democratic and Republican lawmakers from Texas, as well as liberal stalwarts such as Molly Ivins and Jim Hightower.

DeLay, who plans to resign from the House on June 9, did not talk with the filmmakers.

The film will be shown this weekend in theaters in Houston and Dallas and then released to other cities.