Category — Louisville, Kentucky

We asked Jefferson County school board members their thoughts on student assignment.

Feeling the heat from unhappy parents, Jefferson County’s board of education says changes may be needed in the district’s new student-assignment plan to offer more school choice and reduce long bus rides.

The Ohio River is rising, with a projection that it will begin approaching flood stage no later than the middle of this week. But unless there is unexpected heavy and steady rain over the next few days, the Louisville area should escape major flooding.

It was a familiar situation: Suburban parents who wanted to keep their children from long bus rides objecting to a system set up to keep the county’s public schools racially and economically diverse. So when four newly elected, conservative school board members in Wake County, N.C., forged a new board majority and then last week announced their plan to toss out the district’s nationally …

Four days into his double murder trial, after seeing the evidence against him and watching the reaction from jurors and the victims’ families, Michael Jennings asked his defense attorney, Sheila Seadler, if he could just plead guilty.

Police in Canada have broken up a gun-smuggling operation in which firearms from Kentucky were brought across the border and sold to organized crime figures, according to Ontario police and news accounts.

Ford may be shifting its focus to small cars to satisfy government mandates and consumer tastes, but there’s still big money to be made selling big trucks. Much is riding on the launch of the new 2011 F-Series Super Duty trucks assembled at Louisville’s Kentucky Truck Plant.

After grabbing a beer and getting his picture taken with a 6-foot-tall Winnie the Pooh, Ted Eckel was ready to relax and watch the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade on Bardstown Road. He stood outside of a bar, holding a beer, waiting for people he knows to march by wearing tutus.

Until two weeks ago, the only earthquake North Oldham High School Spanish teacher Erin Grace had experienced was a minor one in Louisville in April 2008. She thought the shaking was from a train passing her apartment. Then on Feb. 27 a destructive 8.8-magnitude earthquake rocked Chile, where Grace was studying linguistics at the University of Concepción as part of her year as a Rotary Club …

High school students from around Jefferson County competed in science fairs at the University of Louisville Saturday.

While layoffs at Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s HealthCare show health care isn’t recession-proof, other Louisville hospital companies have avoided drastic steps such as mass layoffs.

Two more bills — one involving nurse practitioners and the other to create a registry of people who abuse vulnerable adults — may be dead this legislative session because of a Republican lawmaker’s effort to attach a controversial anti-abortion measure.

Leadership assessments are underway at 10 of Kentucky’s lowest-performing schools, including six in Jefferson County, that could result in major restructuring, including replacing the staff or closing the school.

While House members cut funding for public schools in the budget they passed this week, they were able to find $100,000 for a Christian school in Breathitt County — an appropriation that raises constitutional questions.

FRANKFORT, Ky. — A central Kentucky prosecutor said a gun being carried by a Louisville man who was making threats at Kentucky State University jammed as the man made his way through the university student center.

State regulators are moving rapidly to re-write more than two dozen coal mining permits in advance of an anticipated crackdown by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on water quality.

FRANKFORT, Ky. — Supporters of a measure aimed at getting tough on drunken drivers made another push Friday to get it a hearing in a Senate committee.

A police spokesman says abandoned dogs, cats, roosters, chickens and ducks have been removed from a filthy eastern Kentucky home.

The Ohio River is rising, with a projection that it will begin approaching flood stage by no later than the middle of next week.

FRANKFORT, Ky. — House leadership reacted coolly Friday to a proposal in the Senate to allow Kentucky tracks to operate an electronic game that — while resembling a slot machine — lets players bet on old races.

FRANKFORT, Ky. — Local officials are objecting to a House cost-cutting budget proposal to speed the release of some nonviolent prisoners, saying counties would take a financial hit.

The Transit Authority of River City’s director said Friday that he will change some recommendations for cuts in bus service to TARC’s board, which is scheduled to decide on the service reductions March 22.

Yum! Brands could buy back $470 million worth of its own stock over the next 12 months under authorization from its directors announced Friday.

A quarter of young American adults have no religious affiliation — a higher rate than when previous generations of Americans were their age — but high numbers of them retain beliefs in God, angels and the afterlife.

Legislation that would force utilities to supply electricity that comes from renewable sources like wind and the sun is running into trouble in the Kentucky House — even after lawmakers added provisions to help new coal technologies.

OK, maybe that does not surprise you. Here’s what fans down in Nashville are chowing down on when they are not cheering on their teams.

An accident involving a tractor-trailer truck has slowed traffic on Interstate 64 near the Cochran Hill tunnel, a MetroSafe Communications supervisor said Friday morning.

WorkOne Southern Indiana is offering to reimburse some of what employers pay to provide their workers information technology training.

WASHINGTON — Retail sales posted a surprising increase in February as consumers did not let major snowstorms stop them from racking up purchases. The advance, the biggest since November, provided hope that the recovery from the Great Recession is gaining momentum.

Two Fort Campbell soldiers were killed during an attack in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, according to the military. Sgt. Jonathan J. Richardson, 24, of Bald Knob, Ark., and Pfc. Jason M. Kropat, 25, of White Lake, N.Y., were killed Tuesday.