Government

Feds: Justice coal companies have no defense against move to hold them in contempt

BY: - August 30, 2024

Federal attorneys asking a court to hold 23 of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice’s family-owned coal companies in contempt for nonpayment of health and safety fines entered a filing this week saying the companies shouldn’t have entered into a payment plan if they knew they couldn’t honor it. The filing, entered Tuesday in the U.S. […]

Governments often struggle with massive new IT projects

BY: - August 30, 2024

Idaho’s state government was facing a problem. In 2018, its 86 state agencies were operating with a mix of outdated, mismatched business systems that ran internal processes like payroll and human resources. Some of the programs dated back to the 1980s, and many were written in programming languages they don’t teach in engineering schools anymore. […]

Grossberg not welcome at local party events as embarrassments mount for Louisville Democrats

BY: - August 29, 2024

The Louisville Democratic Party is asking Rep. Daniel Grossberg to “temporarily refrain from participating” in the party’s events amid a Legislative Ethics Commission investigation. Meanwhile, the executive director of the state Democratic Party said situations involving a few state representatives from Louisville have “certainly been concerning” but pushed back on suggestions that they could hurt […]

Utilities that opposed Kentucky’s new energy planning commission are now part of it

BY: - August 29, 2024

Gov. Andy Beshear has filled two seats on a new energy planning commission with utility executives who, like Beshear, opposed the commission’s creation. Kentucky lawmakers earlier this year created the Energy Planning and Inventory Commission (EPIC) to slow the retirement of power plants fueled by coal and natural gas. Investor-owned utilities and environmentalists opposed the […]

Americans’ perception of AI is generally negative, though they see ‘beneficial applications’

BY: - August 28, 2024

A vast majority of Americans feel negatively about artificial intelligence and how it will impact their futures, though they also report they don’t fully understand how and why the technology is currently being used. The sentiments came from a survey conducted this summer by think tank Heartland Forward, which used Aaru, an AI-powered polling group […]

Louisville residents warn legislative task force against splitting up their school district

BY: - August 27, 2024

LOUISVILLE — Several speakers, including Jefferson County Public Schools students, warned a legislative task force against breaking up Kentucky’s largest school district in a Tuesday evening meeting.? However, the co-chairs of the Efficient and Effective School Governance Task Force said deciding to split the district, which serves almost 97,000 students, was not under its purview. […]

Vape retailers move to reinstate their legal challenge of 2024 Kentucky law

BY: - August 27, 2024

Kentucky vape retailers plan to appeal the dismissal of their challenge to a 2024 state ban on selling some vaping roducts. A Franklin Circuit judge in late July dismissed their lawsuit challenging the 2024 law. Greg Troutman with the Kentucky Smoke Free Association, which represents vape retailers, filed a notice of appeal Tuesday with the […]

Kentucky could be in violation of federal law without more community-based mental health care

BY: - August 27, 2024

LOUISVILLE — The U.S. Department of Justice says it has “reasonable cause” to believe Kentucky is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act in Jefferson County.? This finding comes after a two-year federal investigation “focused on whether Kentucky subjects adults with serious mental illness to unnecessary segregation in psychiatric hospitals in Louisville.”? In a 30-page report […]

Inpatient mental health treatment now available to more Kentucky boys in state care

BY: - August 27, 2024

Eligible boys in the care of the Kentucky Department for Community Based Services or Juvenile Justice system who need “complex mental and behavioral health care” can now access inpatient treatment in Owensboro, the Cabinet for Health and Family Services announced Tuesday. Called The BIRCH, the 10-bed inpatient program operates out of RiverValley Behavioral Health’s adolescent […]

Democratic state lawmaker arrested for driving under the influence

BY: - August 27, 2024

Kentucky state Rep. Beverly Chester-Burton was arrested for driving under the influence in Jefferson County early Tuesday morning.? Chester-Burton, a 62-year-old Democratic lawmaker from Shivley, was arrested around 1 a.m. on Garrs Lane in Shivley, a spokesperson for the Shively Police Department told the Kentucky Lantern. She was charged with reckless driving and a second […]

Kentucky Attorney General Coleman moves to block Hazard’s restaurant tax, calls it ‘unlawful’

BY: - August 26, 2024

The Eastern Kentucky city of Hazard is facing another legal obstacle in its effort to begin collecting a restaurant tax. Attorney General Russell Coleman is appealing a Franklin Circuit Court order that said Hazard was eligible to? pursue the tax. He called it “an unlawful tax” for the city of about 5,200. The restaurant tax, […]

Kentucky Auditor Ball sues Beshear for access to computerized records of abuse, neglect

BY: - August 26, 2024

Kentucky Auditor Allison Ball has filed a lawsuit against the Beshear administration in Franklin Circuit Court in her ongoing effort to ensure the office of the ombudsman has access to information about abuse and neglect cases. This move comes after Ball and the administration have gone back and forth on access for the past two […]