News

For the second time this week, the reopening of a busy portion of Louisville’s Spaghetti Junction has been delayed.

The exit ramps from Interstate-65 northbound to I-64 west and east and northbound I-71 have been closed since June 25 as part of the larger Kennedy Bridge repair project.

Despite dim outlooks, the Commonwealth of Kentucky has turned a budget surplus for the second year in a row.

The last fiscal year closed with  an additional $83 million  in  the General Fund. The road fund has a $31 million  surplus.

The extra revenue has two potential uses. First, the state can make emergency payments, like putting additional money to cleaning up tornado damage in Eastern Kentucky.

And it can send money to the rainy day fund to help build back  Surpluses that were spent during the recession.

Planned Parenthood of Indiana has won an administrative victory in its opposition to a state law that seeks to block Medicaid funding for the reproductive services organization.

But the standoff with the state over the 2011 statute is far from over.

A federal hearing officer has upheld an earlier ruling by Medicaid officials that the state law denies women the freedom to choose their health care providers.

The Kentucky Court of Appeals has denied a request from the Cabinet for Health and Family Services that would further prevent the release of certain child abuse records.

Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd ordered the Cabinet to release nearly 180 case documents earlier this year. The Cabinet released some documents but redacted information that could be useful in determining whether the agency is operating appropriately.

Updated at 5:38: The TSA's official response:

“TSA has not been contacted by this passenger. TSA is conducting a thorough review to determine what, if anything, occurred.  TSA holds its employees to high standards and is committed to treating all passengers, including those with disabilities, with respect and courtesy at all times. The agency works with a coalition of more than 70 disability-related groups to better understand the needs and concerns of individuals with disabilities and medical conditions.”

For the second time this summer, a Louisville TV station has been pulled from the Insight Cable lineup.

WLKY's parent company Hearst has been in negotiations with Insight's parent company Time Warner Cable for weeks. The talks have centered around the retransmission agreement, a document that stipulates how much Time Warner pays to rebroadcast WLKY's content.

A major coal company with mines in Appalachia and Western Kentucky has filed for bankruptcy. In a news release, Patriot Coal said it was undertaking the move to facilitate restructuring.

For the first time since the federal government has begun collecting data, natural gas and coal produce virtually the same amount of the country’s electricity.

The Energy Information Administration just crunched its numbers for this past April, and preliminary data shows that both coal and natural gas make up about 32 percent of the country’s total electricity generation.

Information for this story also came from the Associated Press

Jockey John Velazquez says he continues to heal from an injury suffered in a spill last month at Churchill Downs and hopes to be racing again later this month.

Velazquez says doctors have cleared him to begin exercising horses next week.  He suffered a broken collarbone June 16 when the horse he was riding in the ninth race at Churchill broke down.

Velazquez won the Belmont Stakes aboard Union Rags June 9 and is hoping to ride the colt in the Haskell Invitational on July 29.  

Louisville Councilwoman Barbara Shanklin, D-2, has spurned an invitation from Mayor Greg Fischer, citing his administration's comments regarding the use of city grants for an upholstery job training program.

Last Friday, a Fischer spokesman told The Courier-Journal  the program for ex-offenders should have ended on November 14 as ordered by the city and that it appears "city tax dollars are not spent as they’re intended to be." It was discovered that Shanklin continued to fund the program and personally signed an $836 check despite Metro Corrections ending it due to a lack of former inmate referrals.

"The published reports raise concerns with Dr. Shanklin over how the mayor's office has responded," says Democratic Caucus spokesman Tony Hyatt, confirming that Shanklin called Fischer's office to reject an invitation to celebrate renovations at Petersburg Park in District 2 later this week.

According to Hyatt, Shanklin says corrections tried to kill the upholstery training while two people were still going through the course, and that the neighborhood association decided to finish out the last month of training.