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While Kentucky students as a whole made small gains in graduation rates during the 2010-2011 school year, Jefferson County Public Schools students fell slightly backwards in most major categories.

In all major categories--including gender and race-- JCPS continues to fall at least 7 percentage points behind the state. This has been consistent with the four previous years the Kentucky Department of Education has provided.

The JCPS total graduation rate dropped from 69.3 percent in 2010 data to 67.8 percent in 2011 bringing the number closer to its 2008 rate of 67.7.

Amy Harder of the National Journal has a story out today about the United Mine Workers of America, and the union's reluctance to back either presidential candidate this year.

Harder went to Fairmont, West Virginia and spoke with UMWA official (and Democratic member of the state House of Delegates) Mike Caputo.

Comparing Papa John's pizza to "the ass of a raccoon that drowned in your birdbath" political satirist Stephen Colbert mocked founder and CEO John Schnatter for his opposition to the Affordable Care Act.

Schnatter, who is a well-known Republican fundraiser, said President Obama's health care overhaul will increase the cost of pizza and hurt business. Since then, he has been criticized for being a cheapskate and mistreating employees, with threats of a boycott by Democratic activists.

Watch below:

The Colbert Report
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It's official: last month's heat wave (which cooked Louisville as well as most other states in the region) was the hottest ever on record in the continental U.S. According to an Associated Press story, this beats the record set during the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.

A diverse pool of candidates has filed for Jefferson County’s three open school board seats.  The most recent is local radio host Tom Mitchell, who plans on running an anti-student assignment campaign, according to reports by the Courier-Journal.

As the deadline to file nears--Aug. 14--some are hoping interest in the races increases. That idea was included in  former Courier-Journal editor David Hawpe's opening speech at the Louisville Forum Wednesday afternoon.

A political action committee founded by former Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Governor Howard Dean is backing Shelli Yoder in Indiana’s Ninth Congressional District race.

Democracy for America unveiled six key races for Congress on Wednesday that the organization will focus on in the 2012 election. The PAC is aimed at building a dozen "progressive powerhouse" in the House and this is the first crop attempting to give Democratic challengers a booster in their general election bids.

Yoder is challenging Republican incumbent Todd Young, but has struggled to keep face with the GOP freshman's fundraising totals.

She says it is an honor to receive Dean’s support and she hopes it will give her campaign a boost.

"We are continuing to work hard and we’re doing everything we can to win back this seat. I think that the 9th District, folks weren’t really paying attention to the race. But in the last few weeks we’ve certainly have work as hard as we can making sure that voters feel like they will have a voice and an opportunity to gain back that voice come November 6," he says.

Former Indiana Supreme Court Justice Randall Shepard will lead a task force looking into the state of legal education across America.

The panel was appointed by the American Bar Association.   Shepard says it will examine the way schools prepare their students to practice law, and the economic state of the profession.

Despite speculation of greater ambitions, U.S. Senator Rand Paul is likely to stay in his current position if Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is elected this fall. 

In the Indiana Senate race, polling has shown Republican Richard Mourdock is having trouble gaining traction with moderate voters in his battle with Democratic Congressman Joe Donnelly and a fundraising letter may indicate why.

It was Mourdock's ties to the Tea Party that helped him upset longtime Sen. Dick Lugar in the GOP primary, but days after his victory a message to voters continued to attack Lugar as a traitor to the conservative movement.

From Howey Politics Indiana:

"Conservatives scored a tremendous victory in Indiana just a few weeks ago," the Mourdock letter read. "Against all odds and with the establishment working day and night to defeat me, we retired a 36-year entrenched incumbent senator, who routinely betrayed conservative voters to push through some of the most radical aspects of President Obama's agenda."

Alpha Natural Resources--a coal company with mines in eastern Kentucky, as well as throughout Appalachia--reported its second quarter earnings this morning and the news wasn't good.

The company had a net loss of $2.2 billion in the second quarter of 2012. That compares to a $50 million loss for the same period last year.

From the company's announcement: