CN|2 Politics

The 21st century can be a non-violent century if everyone in the world can apply the best parts of the U.S. political model and practice compassion in their daily lives, the Dalai Lama told a Louisville audience on Sunday. If the 20th century was the century of violence in which 100 million people were killed in conflicts, then the 21st century can be more peaceful and non-violent, he said. Dubbed an international compassionate city in November of 2011 Louisville embraced the 14th... Read more 

It’s time for business and political leaders to focus on a joint economic and education strategy that can diversify industries in Eastern Kentucky and keep college graduates in the area, said Crit Luallen, the former state auditor and potential Democratic candidate for governor. “Coal still matters in Kentucky. And it will be a part of the mix. But it is changing,” Luallen said in the first minute of the interview And because of that change, Eastern Kentucky needs new economic... Read more 

The University of Louisville can keep its tuition increase next year to less than 3 percent as ordered, but the university’s research efforts could be stunted by federal cuts to agencies that provide research grants, the UofL President said. James Ramsey said he’s concerned federal cuts — through budget reductions and the recent across-the-board sequester cuts — will affect both student financial aid funding as well as research grants. One of the top sources for grants has been the National... Read more 

Kentucky has made progress in blunting the scourge of pill abuse and overdoses, but that, in part, has given rise to an equally dangerous drug, according to a public safety expert. Lexington has seen a dozen citizens die from heroin overdoses so far in 2013 after only having one or two in previous years. Clay Mason, who oversees police, fire and emergency management departments in Lexington as the city’s public safety commissioner, told Pure Politics that those who have overdosed cut... Read more 

A Kentucky company is using a $13 million public-private investment to convert a byproduct of burning coal into a needed soil supplement for Kentucky farmers. Elected officials and energy and agriculture industry leaders celebrated Earth Day on Monday at the ceremonial opening of a new processing plant at LG&E’s Mill Creek coal-fired power plant in southern Jefferson County. The Charah, Inc., facility will transform 300,000 tons of gypsum — a byproduct of coal combustion — into sulfur pellets that can... Read more 

With one of the Boston Marathon bombers on the loose Friday, former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson was among the millions of residents in the area asked to stay in their Boston area homes. Police spent Friday setting up a dragnet for Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, the younger brother of slain bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The two suspects, both of Chechen descent, left death and destruction in the wake. Grayson, now the director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard... Read more 

Southern High School is among the half dozen persistently struggling high schools in Jefferson County that is trying to dig itself out of years of academic underachieving. But the school, which is in the heart of Okolona, faces a host of external challenges. More than one in 10 students is homeless. And more than 15 percent of families whose children go to the school live below the poverty line. Plus, the school’s population has been ravaged by academic flight, in... Read more 

While Jefferson County Public Schools— Kentucky’s largest and one of its best-funded systems— has some of the best schools in the state, it also has some of the lowest-performing high schools. Six schools in the Jefferson County school district have been designated as “priority” schools because year after year, their students’ scores and improvement lag behind the rest of the state and the benchmarks they need to hit. Senior Reporter Don Weber visited a school that’s in one of the... Read more 

(WITH LEGISLATIVE WRAP-UP VIDEO) — About midday last Monday, the second-to-last day of the 2013 General Assembly, a visibly frustrated House Speaker Greg Stumbo left Gov. Steve Beshear’s office. Negotiations over pension reform were reaching a pivotal point, but Stumbo knew House Democrats wouldn’t go for a proposal that included lowering the gas tax. The idea, as Beshear and Senate leaders, saw it was that the gas tax decrease would offset tax loophole closures and a reduction of a personal... Read more 

The mining industry in Eastern Kentucky might not be able to bounce back from its recent slide even as coal production in Western Kentucky continues to chug along, said Len Peters, the secretary of the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet. Simple economics seems to be at the heart of a systemic problem with Eastern Kentucky’s future in mining (watch the interview below). That’s one of the reasons why Pike County is no longer the coal capital of Kentucky. Union County... Read more