Kentucky

Democrats have been trying to pressure Mitch McConnell to take up election security measures that passed out of the House of Representatives earlier this year, but the Senate majority leader has shown little willingness to do so.

In his home state of Kentucky, McConnell has been dogged by protesters calling him "Moscow Mitch" — one of the few epithets he dislikes. A billboard in his hometown of Louisville now urges his constituents to "Tell Mitch McConnell: Stop Blocking Election Security Funding."

The day report cards go home in backpacks is an important moment for students, who will show their families just how well things are going at school. But in an era of school accountability, students aren’t the only ones who receive grades. The Kentucky Department of Education will soon release its annual report cards that score individual public schools. And this year’s school report cards will include a new feature — a final grade.

Well, it’s not exactly a grade, like in neighboring Indiana where schools get an A to F score just like their students. In Kentucky, schools will receive one to five stars. Kentucky Commissioner of Education Wayne Lewis said this will improve the state’s school report cards, which in the past have offered lots of data about schools, but no final score.

As Hurricane Dorian threatens the U.S. mainland, Kentucky is sending help to its neighbors to the south. 

The American Red Cross has sent more than two dozen volunteers to work in shelters, assisting those displaced from their homes with food and other needs.  Jennifer Capps is executive director of the American Red Cross of South Central Kentucky. 

“Monday night, more than 12,000 people stayed in 171 Red Cross shelters and community shelters in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, so we anticipate as the storm continues north, those numbers will grow," said Capps.

Kentucky’s ailing pension funds might finally start getting healthier, according to estimates provided to lawmakers on Monday.

The pot of money used to send out retirement checks to most of Kentucky’s public workers — KERS non-hazardous — is currently among the worst-funded in the nation at 12.9 percent.

But Rich Robben, Executive Director of the Office of Investments for Kentucky Retirement Systems, says that after massive infusions of cash into the pension system by the legislature in recent years, that funding level might go up by 2 percentage points next year.

Kentucky has a complicated relationship with tobacco. At one time the plant was the biggest cash crop in the state. But that’s changed dramatically. Back in 1999, Kentucky farmers harvested 221,000 acres. Last year, the yield had plummeted to only 68,000 aces of tobacco.

For the Tribble family of Mercer County, this means a husband having to leave work as a full-time farmer for a public service job. But as WFPL’s Lisa Gillespie reports, Rhonda Tribble doesn’t want people to use tobacco products — but she wishes it wouldn’t go away altogether.

A Kentucky Democrat hoping to take Republican Mitch McConnell's U.S. Senate seat says the country needs stricter background checks for gun owners.

But Amy McGrath isn’t in favor of an assault weapons ban.

In comments made during an interview with WKU Public Radio, McGrath said if elected to the U.S. Senate, she’d push the chamber to take up measures she says are backed by both gunowners and those who don’t own firearms.

A bipartisan group of Kentucky lawmakers has proposed a bill that would allow police or family members to ask a court to temporarily take guns away from people if they present a danger to themselves or others.

In Kentucky, running away from home or constantly skipping school could get a kid locked up in a juvenile hall for days. Those acts, called status offenses, aren't serious crimes, but for years Kentucky and other states treated them as though they were.

That first brush with the juvenile justice system can often lead to more trouble if authorities focus on punishment, not the underlying reasons for the bad behavior.

But there's growing evidence that the tough approach doesn't work. Kentucky has joined many other states that are trying something different.

On the first day of August, just two weeks before most Kentucky schools start class, there were 2,974 vacancies posted for public school educators across the state. Kentucky Commissioner of Education Wayne Lewis says that’s a serious problem. 

“We see more districts, that begin the academic year — where kids are showing up in classrooms — and they have not filled positions,” Lewis said.

And in some cases, he says students may even finish the school year with a long term substitute or a teacher who is not fully certified.

Four Midwestern states have infant mortality rates “significantly higher” than the U.S. average, a new report from the Centers for Disease Control says.