After an eight-year hiatus, the Dance Theatre of Harlem Company is back on the road, and its first stop is Louisville.

Founded in New York City in 1969 by Arthur Mitchell, Dance Theatre of Harlem is a rigorous ballet training program with an internationally-acclaimed professional dance company committed to racial diversity in ballet. The organization struggled financially in the years after September 11, 2001, and suspended its company in 2004. 

The Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional because it discriminates against same-sex couples, a second federal appeals court has ruled.

NPR's Joel Rose reports that it took the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York less than a month to come to its decision. As he tells our Newscast Desk:

Centre College officials say their moment in the national political spotlight was worth the Kentucky school's investment in hosting last week's vice presidential debate.

On orders from the Oregon Supreme Court, more than 1,200 confidential files the Boy Scouts of America kept on suspected child molesters from the 1960s through 1985 have been made public.

Commonly referred to as the organization's "perversion files," they give the public a first and intimate look at how the Boy Scouts handled allegations of sexual abuse. In some cases, they show how some volunteers were booted from the organization, then snuck back in, only to be kicked out again when parents or scouts made allegations of sexual abuse.

The Boy Scouts of America has released piles of documents that make up what the organization calls "perversion files." The files outline about 5,000 alleged cases of abuse within the scouts between 1947 and 2005.

The radio documentary that BoingBoing called  a "must listen" is coming to WFPL.

BURN: An Energy Journal is a two-part special that explores "the Impact of Individuals, New Ideas and Revolutionary Technologies on National Energy Policy."

Tonight (Thursday, October 18), we'll broadcast part one: Voting on America's energy future—from hydraulic fracturing to the power of wind. 

The Sierra Club and Kentuckians for the Commonwealth have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in hopes of blocking a surface mine permit in eastern Kentucky.

Much like the first presidential debate, there was no mention of climate change in the second match-up between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. But there was more talk about energy than during the first debate.

And, predictably, there was lots of work to be done by fact-checkers in the day following.

One of the most intense exchanges of the night was over oil and gas production on federal lands. Romney said production of oil on government land is down 14 percent, and production of gas is down nine percent.

One of the country's most effective environmental laws-- the Clean Water Act--turns 40 today.

The act has been setting water quality standards and regulating pollution for the nation's streams, lakes and wetlands since being signed by a bipartisan Congress in 1972.

“Before 1972, this nation approached water quality as ‘the dilution is the solution to pollution,” said Hank Graddy of Kentucky Watershed Watch, in a breakout session at the Healthy Farms, Local Foods Conference last weekend.

This week on our new audio diary series, "The Big Break," Louisville Ballet trainee Claire Horrocks moonlights as a teacher, while Actors Theatre apprentice Samantha Beach works a fundraiser for the theater's annual Humana Festival. Kentucky Opera studio artist Brad Raymond figures out how to make his busy rehearsal schedule accommodate his second job and his first love. 

Learn more about our audio diarists, who report in every Thursday about life in Louisville's professional arts companies.