Government

Kayla Bebout received the Commissioner's Meritorious Service Award.

Serving in his second four-year term, Quarles has been mentioned as a possible candidate for governor in 2023 and has been a vocal critic of Beshear throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

The dispute is over one of several measures passed by the GOP-led legislature this year shifting the governor’s powers to state offices currently controlled by Republicans.

The committee chair will be Rich Maddux, a former manufacturing plant executive who with his wife now runs The Rabbit’s Basket, an urban farm.

The governor said the public officers named in the bill deserve protection, but that a different measure passed by the legislature this year already does that — Senate Bill 267, the anti-doxxing bill he signed into law Thursday.

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called COVID-19 vaccines a “modern medical miracle” and urged Kentuckians to continue to get vaccinated.

The Hopkinsville office is one of 13 Kentucky Career Centers that will begin seeing clients by appointment.

It’s unclear if $200 million in tax breaks the General Assembly passed this year are in violation of the federal act’s ban on states using the funds to offset cuts. The plan requires states to pay back the federal government if that happens.

The committee’s first charge is to learn and educate the public in an “unbiased manner” on partisan versus nonpartisan elections and to explore the “basis for changing the present system.”

The General Assembly overrode a veto by Gov. Andy Beshear, who said the legislation would cost the state $200,000 to identify noncustodial parents. The federal government pays for the food benefits.

The legislature dedicated $300 million to expand broadband internet in underserved parts of the state, $250 million for water and wastewater projects, $575 million to start repaying the state’s unemployment insurance loans, and $127 million for school construction and renovation.

The American Jobs Plan includes an estimated $650 billion to rebuild roads, bridges, highways and ports. There's also $400 billion for home care of elderly and disabled Americans.