Thursday, January 27, 2011
East Kentucky Broadcasting Capsule News....Kentucky
- With blood drives called off as harsh winter weather keeps repeating itself, the American Red Cross region that covers eastern Kentucky is short about several hundred units of blood. The organization has put out a national appeal for donors to help make up the deficit, and officials say they're responding.
- The Keeneland Library has been awarded a grant to help preserve collections of work by photographer Bert Morgan and caricaturist Pierre "Peb" Bellocq. The library says the National Endowment for the Humanities Preservation Assistant Grant will buy preservation supplies to properly house the collections while they are inventoried and assessed.
- Officials in Bellevue are considering passing a law to try to keep bedbugs from spreading once warmer weather arrives. The Bellevue City Council will consider a proposal that would require people setting out for trash collection any furniture that is infested with bedbugs to cover it with plastic.
- Voters in a south-central Kentucky precinct will decide in March whether to allow sales of wine at Park Mammoth Resort. Edmonson County Fiscal Court at its meeting Monday set the special election for March 29. The county is dry.
- Police in western Kentucky are investigating the death of a 14-month-old girl found in a 5-gallon bucket of bleached water. Fulton Police Chief Terry Powell says the child was in the care of a baby sitter while the mother worked when discovered in the kitchen of a residence Monday night.
- Edmonson County officials plan to order the county clerk to repay more than $21,000, the amount the state auditor says the clerk's office overspent on salaries. Edmonson County Attorney Greg Vincent says the auditor's office found the problem about four months ago in County Clerk Larry "Butch" Carroll's budget.
- A group of high school students in western Kentucky is working to build and program a robot so they can compete in a national competition. It is the first time students from Calloway County High School and Murray High School have teamed together to compete in the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology Robotics Competition.
- A judge has indefinitely postponed a trial that would have determined Comair's negligence in an August 2006 plane crash in Lexington that killed 49 people. U.S. District Judge Karl Forester earlier this month ordered that no new date be set for the trial, which was scheduled for Feb. 1. Forester granted the delay at Comair's request so the company may file a motion to end the punitive damages portion of the case.
- A plea bargain by a Tennessee man has resolved a DUI crash case in which a soft drink company driver was killed near Murray. James P'Poole entered a guilty plea Monday to second-degree manslaughter in a 2009 crash that killed Donny G. Houston of Camden, Tenn. The 22-year-old P'Poole is from Clarksville, Tenn. Police said P'Poole's truck sideswiped the Pepsi-Cola truck being driven by Houston, causing it to run off of U.S. 641, strike a tree and catch fire.
- With a scandal-free term in office and $3.5 million raised for his re-election bid, Governor Steve Beshear has drawn no serious opponent in the Democratic primary election. Only Harlan County scrap metal dealer Otis Hensley, a perennial candidate whose best showing was 3 percent of the Democratic vote in 2003, has said he intends to enter the race.
- The Big Blue Slam is now underway presented by the Kentucky Blood Center. It's a competition between the state and Florida to see who can donate the most blood. All donors receive a free T-shirt and are eligible to win a trip for two to the SEC Tournament in Atlanta. The package includes lower arena tickets for all sessions and a three night stay at Atlanta Downtown Marriott. The Donor Center in Pikeville is open Monday through Friday...9a-7p.
- Several inches of snow fell Wednesday in some parts of Kentucky. About 3 to 5 inches fell in western Kentucky, with 1 to 2 inches in the northeast and 1 to 3 inches in the southeast. The Lyon County sheriff's department says 46 year old Charles Sivells died after he got out of his pickup after losing control on the ice-covered road on Interstate 24, then was hit about five minutes later when a second pickup went out of control.
- Kentucky State Police are investigating after they say Tabitha Slone was shot Tuesday on Ogden Branch Road, outside Hindman in Knott County. Police believe Bart Slone shot her before turning the gun and fatally shooting himself.
- Wednesday, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell filed legislation he says will save taxpayers $617 million over 10 years by ending partial federal funding for presidential campaigns. McConnell says unused funds could be returned to the U.S. Treasury to reduce the deficit. Wednesday, the House approved a measure eliminating the checkoff box on income tax returns allowing people to dedicate $3 to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund.
- A civil lawsuit filed against actress Suzanne Somers has been dismissed. Louisville businessman and attorney John Shannon Bouchillon claimed he wasn't told the truth before or after making a $400,000 investment in Suzanne's Kitchen, a store he opened in late 2006 in Lexington but closed a few months later. Somers testified her name and likeness were used to promote the store, but the company was run by former Kentucky Governor John Y. Brown.
- Elbert Adams, 69. died Wednesday morning after his pickup truck collided head on with an SUV on a snowy road in Somerset in Pulaski County.
- Former Cumberland Drug Pharmacy owner/pharmacist Ernie Watts and former part owner/pharmacist Rodney Stacey have agreed to pay the U.S. Government $10,000 each for failing to report the theft of nearly 70,000 prescription pills which were missing from the pharmacy between December 2005 and October 2007. Law requires that a pharmacist notify the DEA within 24 hours of a theft.
- Laurel County Sheriff's Deputies arrested Jasper McQueen and his wife, Winifred McQueen, after investigators searched a home about three miles north of London and found more than 100 one-step meth labs and 54 generators, making it the largest meth seizure in the county to date.
- Science scores for Kentucky's fourth and eighth graders on the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress topped national averages.
- Jeanette Pridemore and Jacob Pridemore, the wife and son of retired Fayette County Detention Center employee Randy Pridemore, has filed a federal lawsuit alleging the city, its jail, the police department and several city employees are to blame for his suicide last September. Pridemore was arrested following a domestic dispute with Jeanette Pridemore.
- Passport Health Plan’s main contractor, AmeriHealth Mercy Plan, has agreed to pay more than $2 million in damages to the Kentucky Medicaid program to settle a fraud investigation. Attorney General Jack Conway says a whistleblower reported that AmeriHealth falsely reported data to the state on the number of Medicaid recipients who received cervical cancer screenings in 2009. The false numbers allowed AmeriHealth to receive more than $677,000 in bonus money under the terms of its contract.
- A Franklin County judge has denied pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca's request for a new trial in a case in which it was ordered in October 2009 to pay $20.5 million over inflated prescription drug prices for Medicaid reimbursements. Attorney General Jack Conway's office said Wednesday that civil penalties amounted to nearly $5.4 million, with another $396,000 in interest. AstraZeneca spokesman Tony Jewell said the Wilmington, Del.-company disagrees with the verdict and will push for a reversal.
- Former University of Kentucky basketball star Jamal Mashburn, who also played 13 years in the NBA, called Wednesday for state lawmakers to approve a proposal that would gradually raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18. Legislation under consideration in Kentucky would increase the minimum age for legally quitting school to 17 in 2015 and to 18 in 2016.
- The Obama administration's own experts say proposed new coal mining regulations to protect streams would trim production to the point that 7,000 of the nation's estimated 80,600 coal mining jobs would be lost. The rules are supposed to replace Bush-era regulations.
- Republican U.S. Senator Rand Paul has filed legislation calling for a full audit of the Federal Reserve. The bill, co-sponsored by Senators Jim DeMint of South Carolina and David Vitter of Louisiana, would remove restrictions now in place that prevent the Government Accountability Office from conducting Federal Reserve audits.
# posted by Homer Owens @ 12:25 AM 
