Recent Articles

FRANKFORT--Cities, counties, school districts and other local government entities would have new ways to increase investment revenue under a bill approved today by the House Local Government Committee.

Editor's Note - It is dire days in Frankfort when a bill sponsored by a Democratic lawmaker makes it out of committee and to the full House.

Paducah will be one of the sites of the one year anniversary commemoration of the Women's March.

The event will be held at the Cherry Civic Center from 1 - 4 on Sunday, January 21st.

The "Window of Opportunity" for Kentucky leadership to leverage major forces of change into a successful strategic action plan to either keep power or take power, is from January of 2018 through November of 2020. These 27 months will be critical to transforming West Kentucky's political platform model.

At stake is who or which political party will have the power to draw state and federal political districts in 2021 and set the stage for moving Kentucky political leadership into the 21st Century.

The Futurist predicts...

Governor Bevin's proposed budget cuts 6.25% of state spending and will eliminate 70 state programs. He will negotiate. After his State of the Commonwealth address on Tuesday evening, his office issued the following statement:

"Gov. Bevin noted that some budget reductions could be avoided if the General Assembly enacts meaningful pension reform this session. Tax reform could also have significant impact and lead to a less austere budget.

A list of the programs on the chopping block follows.

The fabric and tapestry of American cultural is complex as it is simple. Our daily life is woven and projected through time and space as a series of how we react to opportunities and challenges, as well as order and chaos.

According to a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - In 2017, there were 16 weather and climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each across the United States.

Thirty women from seventeen counties and 19 cities are in the largest class in the Emerge Kentucky program.

Two Purchase women are in the class and on the ballot.

Murray State closed Tuesday, January 16th.

Martin Luther King programs across the region cancelled.

The Discovery Park of America is closed Tuesday.

Area schools called off.

Winter waited until mid January to slam western Kentucky - but slam it did.

Rep. Will Coursey of Symsonia will not be running for reelection. The 6th District Kentucky House member will instead run for Marshall County judge executive.

He's not the only Democratic House member leaving Frankfort after this session.

On Tuesday, January 16^th, Governor Bevin will depart from earlier executives and combine the budget address with a state of the state address to both houses of the General Assembly. His remarks will air on KET at 6:00 CDT.

It does not promise to be a fun session.

...Over at the Hickman County Library, Carol Porter, catalog and acquisitions librarian, in her "Lookin' Round Your Library" article sent out holiday greetings from Mrs. Nadine Walker, Director, and volunteers Aline Walker, Gladys Rolan, LaVerne Schwartz, Cherry Pyron, and Barbara Rumley.

"'Christmas Gift' we use to holler to each other. Each trying to be first as we greeted each other in the full Christmas spirit of love!" Edna Lynn Radford remembered that holiday season...

...Although we have a nearly four-month regular session of the General Assembly coming up in January, the Governor is determined to spend upwards of $65,000 per day to convene the legislature on state pensions. Will history repeat itself with another round of rushed legislation that is not thoroughly vetted through the committee and legislative processes?

The fate of the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) is resting on the edge of a Midwestern rusty knife edge. The fate of another trade deal may be a predictor of NAFTA's fate. Within days of his election, Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Trans Pacific Partnership.

American farmers were scheduled to be biggest winner's with TPP.

Military spending on naval weapons affect Kentucky's bottom line.

Hundreds turned out to listen to talented musicians sing and play. There were plenty of chances for everyone to join in singing old favorites.

Photo slide show follows.

Young children need to learn their ABCs and numbers to advance in school, but they'll need good social and emotional skills to advance in life, an early children expert told a group of state lawmakers today.

"If you want academic success, it requires social and emotional learning," said Dr. Tom Lottman, a senior director and researcher with Children, Inc., an early childhood development agency in Northern Kentucky.

Organized labor marched in an hour-long parade through downtown Paducah on Labor Day. Floats, flatbeds, big trucks, fancy cars and the Shriners made a long line on a perfect September Monday.

The theme of this year's parade "Still Standing."

Follow the jump for the slide show and story.

Pensions in Kentucky regarded as the "inviolable contract" are under siege. Supporters of Governor Bevin's position on converting retirement to a 401K plans believe that changing times require changing retirement plans. Retirees and state workers strenuously disagree.

Fueling the distress many of them are feeling is the release of a 113 page report "Pension Performance and Best Practices Analysis"...

Collin Morris, News Editor at Murray State News, did some digging in the wake of this summer's on campus dorm explosion at New Richmond Hall which left one employee badly injured. His research found that MSU and several other universities in Kentucky lack gas detection devices in the buildings that use natural gas.

Why would universities lack equipment that most homeowners purchase at the local hardware store?

OHS is a combined program of individual singers and groups and congregational singing. Sharing their talents will be singers ranging from the young to the very senior citizens. The Old Hymn Sing is unique in the choices of hymns written before 1950. To be historically accurate, singers don't use electric instruments or recorded accompaniment. Several will be playing guitars or piano. Others will sing a cappella.

Ben Chandler came to the Purchase Area Development (PADD) meeting last Monday to share some bad news: Kentucky is not healthy. In fact, the Commonwealth ranks 45^th in economic outcomes, a statistic that takes health into account.

Hemp is quickly becoming the Holy Grail for Western Kentucky farmers. The promise of a new crop that can be animal feed, people food, medicine, fabric, and a building material is a siren call for agriculture.

Senator Rand Paul spent some time in Calloway County recently listening to an extended elevator pitch at the Scott Lowe Farm. The farm grows over 700 acres of hemp and has capacity for 200 more acres.

Senator Paul and State Representative Richard Heath, Graves, McCracken, heard farmer Joseph Kelly discuss the potential for hemp, among other uses, as a food source. There's just one problem: the crop is still considered a Class A drug by the federal government.

Our new reality of life is rapidly spiraling back to the beginning of the 20th Century. Most experts will agree that history does repeat its events and trends exactly. Yet, history can and does reflect the events of 100 years ago.

The forces unleashed in the time period of 1900 through 1920 set and framed the energy of the entire 20th century politics, government, economics, resources, and war. Those forces are still at work in the 21st as recent events show.

What follows are short definitions of political terms.

(Clinton, KY - August 20, 2017) - The scene could have been a setting for a scene in a John Grisham novel. On a hot and humid night in mid August, rows of white folding chairs meandered across the lawn of the historic courthouse. On a Sunday evening in a very small town in a very small county, one hundred twenty men, women and children gathered on the courthouse lawn to sing, speak, pray and light candles in a service of healing and harmony.

The New Kentucky Project founders Matt Jones of Kentucky Sports Radio (KSR) and former Kentucky Auditor Adam Edelen brought their roadshow on Wednesday evening to the historic 1857 Hotel in downtown Paducah last week.

They brought news of a change in the media landscape in 2017.

They are launching a news site for Kentuckians unconnected to traditional networks and outlets.