Sunday, April 17, 2011
EKB Capsule News...Kentucky...4-18-'11
Last week, Leslie County deputies responded to a complaint of two people asleep inside a car at Bowling's Grocery on Middlefork Road. They arrested Chasidy Sizemore and Michael Tolbert after discovering the two had copper wiring in the trunk of their car, which was found to belong to Blue Diamond Coal. Police also found drugs in the car. Each was charged with public intoxication and theft by unlawful taking.
- U.S. Representative Hal Rogers (KY-05) hailed the hard-fought implementation of Florida's Prescription Drug Monitoring System. After months of pleading by federal and state officials, in a congressional hearing, Governor Rick Scott reversed his stance in opposition to Florida’s PDMP roll-out and testified that the Florida Department of Health has begun implementation of the database. Governor Scott's decision comes just weeks after Rogers and other officials, including Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear and U.S. Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, expressed sharp criticism for his refusal to implement the state's monitoring system which was passed into law in 2009.
Morehead State University president Wayne Andrews says the Eagles' run to the third round of the NCAA men's basketball tournament has provided positive exposure for the school, which is trying to boost enrollment for the coming year. Andrews said Morehead State officials have a goal of raising enrollment to 10,000 students and he expects to add about 400 freshmen in the coming fall semester. The university enrollment in 2010 was about 9,000 students. Morehead State defeated the University of Louisville before losing to the University of Richmond in the NCAA tournament.
- A boat filled with Alpha Phi sorority sisters broke free on the Ohio River, spinning away from a dock and colliding with another ship carrying a Gamma Phi Beta sorority party. No injuries were reported when the two boats, belonging to B&B Riverboats and carrying hundreds of Miami University students from Ohio, hit at about 8:00 P.M. EDT Friday. Catherine Jones says her group was told earlier in the night that the cruise was canceled because of the weather, but that their party would go on as scheduled. The U.S. Coast Guard was called to the scene.
- A western Kentucky school board and the federal Environmental Protection Agency have reached a settlement over a mercury spill at a high school in November 2006. The Calloway County School Board approved the settlement last week, under which the board will pay $30,670 for the EPA's removal work at Calloway County High School. Calloway County Superintendent Kennith Bargo says the original bill was $190,000, so the settlement is a "win-win." Officials say a student brought the mercury to school and let others play with it before the spill. The school closed for several days while the cleanup took place. Exposure to metallic mercury can cause permanent brain damage, according to the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
- Three teenagers, two 14-year-olds and a 15-year-old, are charged with assaulting a mentally disabled man on April 7th, sending him to the University of Louisville Hospital with skull fractures and multiple broken bones. Police say the man was waiting for a bus after leaving Louisville Slugger Field following the Bats season opening game. Police say the teens attacked the man, but were gone by the time officers arrived. Investigators arrested the three on Friday. All three are charged with second-degree assault. Because the teens are juveniles, their names are not being released. The man attacked is out of the hospital and at home.
- Twenty-five year old Colby L. Williams changed his plea to guilty at a hearing late last week in U.S. District Court in Springfield, admitting to having illicit sex with a 14-year-old girl while traveling with a missionary group in the Mediterranean country of Cyprus in 2007. Court documents indicate that Team Expansion of Louisville, Ky., arranged for Williams to return to the U.S. when the complaint was brought to the missionary group's attention. Williams signed consent forms for agents to search his laptop computer and other electronic items, and texts of explicit conversations between Williams and the girl were discovered on the computer. Williams lived in Joplin before his November 2009 arrest.
- About 255,300 Kentucky residents and more than 2.1 million people in a wide swath of the central U.S. have registered to participate in the region's largest earthquake disaster preparedness drill. The Kentucky Division of Emergency Management is asking participants to "drop, cover, and hold on," at 10:15 a.m. CDT April 28. Spokesman Buddy Rogers says the region's next big earthquake can't be predicted but damage will range in the billions of dollars. Schools, businesses, individual citizens, and government officials will participate in the exercise. Dubbed the Great Central U.S. ShakeOut, the drill will be a prelude to a weeklong national earthquake preparedness exercise starting on May 16. Kentucky is in the New Madrid Seismic Zone. Experts estimate that the 1811-1812 New Madrid earthquakes were a maximum magnitude 7.0.
Americans are paying more for food and gas, a trend that threatens to slow the economy at a crucial time. So far, the spike in such necessities hasn't stopped businesses from stepping up hiring or slowed factory production, which rose in March for the ninth straight month. Still, higher gas prices have led some economists to lower their forecasts for growth for the January-March quarter. Consumer prices rose 0.5 percent last month, the Labor Department said Friday. Nearly all of the gains came from pricier gas and food.
# posted by Homer Owens @ 9:56 PM 
