Liam Niemeyer covers government and policy in Kentucky and its impacts throughout the Commonwealth for the Kentucky Lantern. He most recently spent four years reporting award-winning stories for WKMS Public Radio in Murray.
Kentucky’s tobacco industry has shrunk dramatically over the past two decades, leaving the farmers who remain to reckon with not only an economic shift, but the loss of generations of tradition and community.
Gov. Andy Beshear is redirecting $2.5 million in state housing funds to erase an estimated $250 million in medical debt for more than 130,000 Kentuckians, a move one Republican lawmaker says was not what legislators intended.
After the ordinance unanimously passed, Democratic Woodford County Judge-Executive James Kay told the fiscal court that the court “made it our clear, proactive commitment to Woodford County to keep us being one of the most special places on earth.”
The key fiscal trigger in question that was not met is a requirement that General Fund receipts for the fiscal year exceed spending by the amount of funding it would take to cut the income tax rate by one percentage point.
The governor said his executive order would implement an array of protections against the potential impacts of data centers, though some experts have questioned how much legal “teeth” his order has without the backing of specific state laws addressing data centers.
Gov. Andy Beshear is ordering Kentucky regulators to protect residents and ratepayers from potential harms tied to data centers, including higher utility bills and impacts on air and water.
