Your online purchases could alleviate some of Kentucky's budget woes.

The federal legislation that allows states to collect sales taxes from more online retailers would benefit the Kentucky state budget, argues a policy group focused on economic policy.

If such legislation passed, Kentucky could gain $130 million to $200 million in revenue per year, the state's Blue Ribbon Tax Commission has estimated.

Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie says Capitol Hill lawmakers should take some of the blame for the scandal at the Internal Revenue Service.

The Republican made the charge during a Wednesday hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Massie is a member of the panel looking into the improper IRS scrutiny of conservative organizations seeking tax-exempt status.   He says Congress has created tax laws that are misinterpreted and misapplied.  

Louisville Metro Councilwoman Attica Scott’s push to demolish the worst vacant and abandoned properties in District 1 has ignited a debate between residents and neighborhood leaders on how to tackle the problem.

The "Bringing Down the House" initiative is part of Metro Government’s overall effort to raze houses officials argued cannot be rehabilitated.

In January, Scott appropriated $25,000 in discretionary funds to pay for just over half a dozen demolitions mostly in the Parkland neighborhood.

Just this week, Scott's office announced one of those targeted properties located a 3020 Hale Avenue was torn down by city crews. It is the second house to be razed on that block in recent months, and another on Virginia Avenue was demolished last year.

In the announcement, Scott said this is an intentional attempt to clean up a scourge of empty structures. But neighborhood activists such as Chickasaw Federation President Donovan Taylor say tearing down those properties is not the answer, adding more should be done to refurbish those homes.

"There's a blight that comes with vacancy in the form of overgrown grass, liter and blight. And demolishing the homes does not eliminate that primary primary. You’re killing the fabric of the neighborhood when you may have a block that once had 20 homes that now only have 10 homes," he says. "We have on house on Cecil and Greenwood that during the summer the grass becomes so high that you can barely see the home because it’s between two vacant lots."

Louisville’s Central High School principal Daniel Withers did something Thursday morning that hasn’t been done at the school for over a decade.

He went for a swim.

When the pool closed in 2000 it was serving well over 1,000 people a month, according to Metro Parks, which last managed the pool. The pool is only the second JCPS pool—the other one is located at Shawnee High School—serving the estimated thousands of middle and high school swimmers in the district.

Ahead of his much-anticipated speech Thursday afternoon at the National Defense University, there's word that President Obama:

Drones

There were 340,000 first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week, down 23,000 from the week before, the Employment and Training Administration reports.

If you were hoping to cash in that Borders gift card for the latest Dan Brown novel — or at least hoping to get some cash for it — you're too late.

A Manhattan federal judge on Wednesday ruled that the bankrupt and defunct book chain owes nothing to the roughly 17.7 million people who hold $210.5 million in unredeemed gift cards.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter says it would be unfair to Borders Group's other creditors to let gift-card holders pursue recoveries, Reuters reports:

The devastation near Oklahoma City this week is the latest reminder of the tremendous damage tornadoes and other cataclysmic storms can inflict. The reminders are frequent. Last year, in our own region, we had the late-winter tornado in Henryville, which wiped out the town and united the region in relief efforts. Later in the year, Hurricane Sandy ravaged the East Coast. 

Update 4:55 p.m. Thursday: The boil water advisory has been lifted.

So a Louisville Water Company contractor was working on a water main replacement and the main was cut, causing residents of the Windsor Forest neighborhood to lose water service.

With that, a boil water advisory has been issued Wednesday afternoon for the southwestern Louisville neighborhood "until water quality tests confirm the water is safe to drink." (See map for details on that area.) 

A Louisville Metro Police officer is facing misconduct charges after he allegedly asked a woman to expose herself and later touched her improperly.

Officer Joe Burden is accused of asking the women to partially strip her clothes in October, after detaining her during a call to service and falsely telling her she had a warrant—and that other officers wanted her arrested, according to a criminal complaint summons. She complied.

Soon after, the woman filed a complaint with LMPD’s Public Integrity Unit.