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Gov. Steve Beshear says negotiations on a lease deal to reopen the Kentucky Kingdom amusement park are close, and he’s “excited” about the progress being made.

Beshear made his comments on WHAS-radio this week, saying, “I think it’s fair to say that we’re fairly close to negotiating a lease and if we get there and the fair board approves that, then the next step would be for the bidder to come up with the financing on it.”

So U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell is unpopular but still beats all Democratic rivals in hypothetical 2014 re-election matchups, according to data from Public Policy Polling.

That's important. But who is better liked, John Calipari or Rick Pitino? Which NFL team do Kentuckians prefer, anyway? PPP asked survey respondents these question, too, and a handful of other miscellaneous queries.

In a new survey released Wednesday, Public Policy Polling found that in a hypothetical 2016 presidential race Democratic Hillary Clinton leads Republican Sen. Rand Paul in Kentucky.

Clinton is the outgoing U.S. Secretary of State who many Democrats want to run in four years, while Paul is a rising GOP star and Tea Party favorite. Both are rumored presidential candidates at this point, but the PPP survey shows Clinton ahead of Paul by a 5-point margin in the commonwealth at 47-to-42 percent.

A large reason for Clinton's lead is that she is far more popular in Kentucky than President Obama, who has struggled amongst state Democrats.

From PPP:

Clinton has a 48/42 favorability rating with Kentucky voters. By comparison Barack Obama's approval rating is 38/59.

Louisville native Jennifer Lawrence has earned her second Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for outstanding performance by a female actor in a lead role , this time for the comedy Silver Linings Playbook.

Lawrence, 22, was nominated in the same category in 2010 for her breakout role in the indie drama Winter's Bone. Natalie Portman won the award, handed out in early 2011, for her performance in Black Swan.

Indiana's recently ousted state school superintendent is Florida's new education commissioner.

The State Board of Education selected Tony Bennett, a Republican who lost a bid for re-election in Indiana last month, today in Tampa.

The board picked Bennett from a slate of three finalists.

The others were Murray State University President Randy Dunn, who once served as state superintendent in Illinois, and Arlington, Va., education consultant Charles Hokanson, a former deputy assistant U.S. secretary of education in President George W. Bush's administration.

A Dutch man has accomplished something that's been under planning for years in Kentucky -- the construction of a life-sized replica of Noah's Ark, using biblical specs.

Kentucky Arts Council chair Todd Lowe is the recipient of the 2012 James Welch, Sr. Arts Leadership Award. Lowe was honored by the Fund for the Arts Saturday night at the opening of Louisville Ballet’s “The Brown-Forman Nutcracker” for his commitment to volunteer arts leadership.

Praising the broad reach of his work and leadership in Louisville and across the Commonwealth, Fund for the Arts president and CEO Barbara Sexton Smith says Lowe is “the quintessential servant leader.”  

The Army says it’s time to test the stability of aging rocket fuel stored at the Bluegrass Army Depot inRichmond.

This winter, propellant from 44 rockets will be removed, with most of it trucked to New Jersey for safety tests. Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Grice, who commands the operation, says there will be numerous safeguards in place. The biggest risk is the accidental ignition of a rocket motor.

Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is the most unpopular Senator in the country, according to a new survey conducted by Public Policy Polling released Tuesday.

The poll shows that among Kentucky voters, McConnell has just a 37 percent approval rating along with a 55 percent disapproval and has only one-third of independents. But the GOP leaders is still ahead of all Democratic threats in 2014, including actress Ashley Judd, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Crimes and Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer.

From PPP:

The reason McConnell does decently well in the head to head match ups despite his poor approval numbers is that even though a lot of Republicans dislike him, most of them would still vote for him in a general election before they would support a Democrat.

An education co-op representing 23 central Kentucky school districts has won $40 million in race to the Top grant funding.

The Kentucky Department of Education won $17 million in funding last year, but this is the first time the U.S. Department of Education has made Race to the Top grants available to school districts.