MIAMI (AP) – An 89-year-old woman whom Robin Givens struck with her sport utility vehicle has filed a civil lawsuit against the actress.

The auto negligence lawsuit filed on behalf of Maria Antonia Alcover does not seek a specific money amount.

Alcover, a Cuban immigrant who came to the United States in 1963, is in a nursing home recovering from the accident that occurred five months ago in the crosswalk of a busy city street at rush hour.

Her lawyer, Steve Jugo, said it’s unclear whether she’ll walk again.

“She is doing better and she didn’t lose her leg, but she says her life has been ruined,” Alcover’s nephew, Tony Garcia, told the Miami Herald.

Witnesses said Alcover had been inching across the road, and wasn’t quite on the sidewalk when the traffic light turned green.

Givens, the ex-wife of former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, turned the corner and swiped Alcover, forcing her to fall backward into the SUV, which crushed her right leg, witnesses said.

Givens, who stayed with Alcover while officials arrived, was issued a traffic summons for failing to use due care when a pedestrian was in the crosswalk, which carries a fine of less than $70, police said.

She pleaded not guilty and appeared in traffic court Wednesday. Her trial was postponed to Sept. 13.

Christopher Nicholas, a Tallahassee attorney defending Givens in the civil case, declined to comment. Givens’ traffic court attorney could not be reached.

Alcover’s civil lawsuit also names Givens’ sister, who owns the 2000 Mercedes SUV Givens was driving.



DETROIT (AP) – An auto parts supplier won’t be allowed to quote race car driver Mario Andretti to promote its products, a federal judge ruled.

In March 2003, Andretti filed a lawsuit in Detroit against California-based Borla Enterprises, a supplier of high-performance exhaust systems and catalytic converters, claiming the company wrongly used his words in an advertisement.

Despite knowing about a four-year deal Andretti signed in November 2001 to endorse products from Borla rival Car Sound Exhaust System Inc., Borla ran advertisements in automobile magazines that included a June 2001 interview in which Andretti praised a Borla product.

The lawsuit was filed in Detroit because many of the publications are based in southeast Michigan, The Detroit News reported in a Friday story.

Borla had offered $15,000 to settle the case and agreed to stop using the Andretti quotation, but Andretti rejected the deal.

U.S. District Judge Robert H. Cleland, noting that Borla agreed not to use the 2001 quote, ruled that Andretti wasn’t entitled to any money and dismissed the lawsuit.

The Italian-born Andretti, 64, retired from racing in 1994.



BOSTON (AP) – U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy will host a monthly public affairs show on cable access stations across Massachusetts beginning next month.

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino is penciled in as the Democrat’s first guest, and the two will discuss the economic impact of next month’s Democratic National Convention, a spokesman for the state’s senior senator said.

Kennedy will tape six shows initially and then decide whether to continue, spokesman David Smith said.

“It’s a pilot project,” he said. “We want to see how well it works, and what the response is.”

The first show will be taped June 25 at Emerson College with the help of graduate students and is scheduled to debut in early July, Smith said. The tape will be offered to 152 public access stations, which can decide whether to air it.

Many members of Congress already produce chat shows in the Senate and House recording studios, then send the tapes to cable access stations in their districts.



HONOLULU (AP) – Six years after his death, “Hawaii Five-O” star Jack Lord is being honored with a bronze bust at one of his favorite walking spots.

The 40-pound sculpture, which begins about mid-chest and is supported by a rocklike pedestal, is scheduled to go on display Saturday during a ceremony at Kahala Mall in East Oahu.

“We decided on Kahala Mall because it was the place where you could always see Jack,” said Doug Mossman, who had recurring roles as Lt. George Kealoha and Frank Kamana on the show. “He’d stroll through the mall in shorts, aloha shirt and straw hat, smiling.”

Mossman and Esperanza Isaac, a “Hawaii Five-O” fan in England, co-chaired the nonprofit Jack Lord Memorial Fund, which raised the $10,000 for the bust sculpted by Hawaii artist Lynn Weiler Liverton.

Lord, whose real name was John Joseph Patrick Ryan, died at 77 in 1998 at his Kahala home from congestive heart failure. He was a dominating and often intimidating figure on the “Hawaii Five-O” set as he portrayed no-nonsense detective Steve McGarrett on the series that ran from 1968-80.

Lord is revered in Hawaii and credited with being the first star to require that local actors be given roles because he thought they were needed to capture the flavor of Hawaii. His wife, Marie, still lives in the couple’s Kahala residence.



PUEBLO, Colo. (AP) – Until this week, Jane Seymour hadn’t seen the inspiration for the setting of “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.”

The British-born actress had never visited Pueblo before and laughed as she said the trip brought her the closest she’d ever been to Dr. Quinn’s fictional home in Colorado.

Seymour said she tried to assess whether the TV set matched the real thing as she arrived Wednesday in southern Colorado.

“I was trying to figure out if we pulled it off,” she said. “I think we did!”

Seymour gave the keynote address at the YWCA’s third annual Tribute to Women awards dinner. The 53-year-old won a Golden Globe for the show, which ran from 1993-98, but she downplays such awards in favor of her work with humanitarian organizations.

“I think probably what I’ve realized is the privilege that I have in having a voice,” said the actress, who speaks against hate around the world. The issue is personal for Seymour, whose mother survived a concentration camp.

“My great desire is that there would be no more religious wars,” she said. “How wonderful it would be if we could teach our children that we have to find a way to live with one another.”

As the mother of six children from several marriages, Seymour chuckled at the suggestion she might have started those lessons at home.

“Yes, our family definitely is a success story in terms of balance and tolerance,” she said.



NEW YORK (AP) – No bride is immune to pre-wedding jitters, and singer Melissa Etheridge says she was no exception.

Last fall, she married actress Tammy Lynn Michaels and worried about the details of the event, until she finally accepted that she couldn’t control everything.

“If you both know that things will go wrong and that it will all be just be an experience and you’re not expecting perfection or something on that day,” she told AP Radio, “that day will be just be a coming together and a celebration of your love and your partnership. Then it will be perfect in its imperfection.”

Etheridge said that, ironically, one of her problems was finding the right wedding music.

“I asked so many of my friends to sing at my wedding and they were like, ‘Uh, do I have to?”‘ she said.

For a while she thought she would sing at the ceremony until it occurred to her that this was her wedding – not a performance – and someone else should take care of it. Even with the music finally settled, she still had her lingering doubts about the day.

“I remember being nervous,” the 43-year-old said. “I remember thinking for a moment a few days before with Tammy, ‘Oh my gosh, I hope this is everything you wanted.’ And she said, ‘Oh no, don’t you understand? As long as you show up, then the rest is just extra.”‘



FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) – Organizers of the Frankfurt Book Fair have awarded its annual peace prize to Hungarian author Peter Esterhazy, whose early books slammed the drudgery of everyday life under communism.

The Budapest-born Esterhazy, 53, represented a “very perceptive voice of a generation born in the wake of destruction through terror and violence, whose resurrection took form in sadness and irony,” the award citation said.

Esterhazy achieved international fame in 1979 with “A Novel of Production,” recounting a data worker’s absurd struggle with petty everyday work.

Three years later, his “A Little Hungarian Pornography” more explicitly attacked communism, making him both a target of the authorities and a champion of reformers.

Esterhazy first studied mathematics and worked as a computer specialist before embarking on his literary career in the late 1970s.

His most recent book, published this year, is the 920-page “Celestial Harmonies,” which some critics consider his magnum opus. It recounts the story of his noble ancestors.

Esterhazy is to receive the prize Oct. 10 at the end of the weeklong book fair, organizers said Wednesday.

AP-ES-06-18-04 1318EDT



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