FRANKFORT — Around 14,000 families receiving Kentucky Transitional Assistance Program benefits in 2025 didn’t receive most child support owed to them, experts said Thursday.  During the 2027 legislative session, Sen. Craig Richardson, R-Hopkinsville, plans to renew his 2026 push to reform this process. He presented before Thursday’s Interim Joint Committee Judiciary, saying the current process […]

More than 60 people filled a committee room for the “listening session” on data centers set up by Rep. Adam Moore, D-Lexington, with speakers coming from counties including Barren, Boyle, Boyd, Carroll, Daviess, Breckinridge, Madison, Mercer, Mason, Oldham, Fayette, Franklin, Jefferson, Pike and Woodford. All but one of the speakers voiced concerns or outright opposition […]

Republican Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Jonathan Shell is asking Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear to temporarily suspend a prohibition on using untaxed diesel on public roads.  A spokesperson for the governor said his office is reviewing the letter.  Shell sent a Thursday letter to Beshear hoping to “draw your attention to the current emergency impacting farmers — […]

An electric utility serving Western Kentucky counties is telling the state regulator it anticipates keeping its existing coal-fired and natural gas-fired power plants open beyond 2050, a projection amid state and federal efforts seeking to boost fossil fuel-fired power. On Tuesday, Owensboro-based Big Rivers Electric Corporation filed a new integrated resource plan before the Kentucky […]

An email from a Lexington brewery owner about a Sept. 23 fundraiser for one of the Kentucky legislature’s top Republicans has sparked questions about campaign donation laws.  Last week, an email from Andrew Bishop, an owner of Ethereal Brewing, circulated online from a now-deleted Reddit post on the Lexington subreddit. Copies of the email can […]

Speed Kentucky plans to open a $1.47 million facility in Owsley County and employ 60 people who will work on “final assembly and distribution” of the company’s utility task vehicles, Gov. Andy Beshear said Wednesday.  This is the “largest investment and job creation announcement” in the county’s history, Beshear said. Owsley County, in Eastern Kentucky, […]

This story first appeared on WEKU. It’s republished here as part of the Appalachian News Exchange reporting partnership to strength Kentucky journalism. The state Public Service Commission said Tuesday it will not allow a group of stakeholders to intervene in an audit of Kentucky Power’s operations and management. The PSC launched the investigation earlier this year, though […]

This coming Monday — Oct. 5 — is the last day for Kentuckians to register to vote ahead of the November general election.  Registering can be completed online, via mail or by returning voter registration cards to your local County Clerk’s office. As of August, the state has about 3.3 million registered voters.  In order to vote […]

HARRODSBURG — The Mercer County Fiscal Court rejected zoning regulations on Monday that would have allowed the siting of large data centers on land adjacent to a Kentucky Utilities coal-fired power plant. The unanimous vote by county elected officials during a special meeting is the latest development in the rural community following months of contentious […]

OWEN COUNTY, Ky. — She usually had a “stomach of steel.” Most food wouldn’t really bother her. But when Eliza Petzinger had a helping of country ham during her family’s Christmas dinner last year, the strong reaction — stomach discomfort and nausea — came just hours later.  “I was so sick, and so I knew. […]

A decade or so ago I was talking with the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. The conversation turned to healthcare, and I was in a snarky mood.   “How do you like being in the health insurance business?” I asked, clearly looking for an argument over federal healthcare policy, because I had consistently supported single […]

Gov. Andy Beshear created the Governor’s Office of Music last week by executive order, saying the new office will work to connect and support artists through the Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet.  The office will do that, in part, through its Industry Directory, which hopes to “fuel ongoing collaboration and growth” and will feature artists, […]

Kentucky towns are serving as the backdrop of holiday movies, thrillers and “Ethan Almighty,” an upcoming film about the dog who inspired the passage of a Kentucky law criminalizing abuse of dogs and cats.  The bump in film production in the commonwealth can be attributed to Kentucky lawmakers building up the state’s film incentives in […]

My connection to Appalachia didn’t begin when I became a community development professional; it began generations ago. Like many Appalachians, my story is woven into the history of our mountains and the communities that call them home. I chose to spend my career serving Eastern Kentucky because I believe in the people and places that […]

This story was first published in The Edge. Doctors who train in Kentucky will practice in Kentucky. That’s the thinking behind Eastern Kentucky University’s plan to build a medical school at its main campus in Richmond to help address a shortage of primary care and other physicians statewide. The first class of EKU-trained doctors is […]

On Oct. 24, 2021, dressed as a zombie and dancing in Lexington’s annual Thriller Parade, I collapsed from sudden cardiac arrest and died in front of the Kentucky Theatre. Main Street was packed with a thousand zombies and 10,000 spectators, making it impossible for an emergency vehicle to navigate through the horde of zombies. If […]