Reporting

I covered the data center fight in Mercer County by finding the twist: the county paused development while the city of Burgin weighed annexation that could bypass it. I obtained emails and texts through open records requests showing the project's 1.3-gigawatt scale and school officials' months of discussion, then interviewed residents, the mayor, and Shaker Village's CEO.

Adam Anderson, an employee at N.c. Bailey general contracting in Fleming-Neon, clears a parking lot of mud after floodwaters rushed through Main Street early Friday morning. (Austin R. Ramsey / Herald-Leader) FLEMING-NEON, Ky. — Bonnie Kincer has rebuilt the little flower shop and dance studio she owns on Main Street in Fleming-Neon twice, after destructive Eastern Kentucky floods tore through the old theater building in 2022 and again in 2025. On Friday morning, as she surve

Construction scaffolding surrounds the Grand Central Rotunda of the Kentucky State Capitol building, currently undergoing construction on January 6, 2026, in Frankfort, Ky. (Tasha Poullard / Herald-Leader) Kentucky could forgo billions of dollars in state sales tax revenue if even a handful of the massive data center projects proposed across the commonwealth qualify for a tax exemption lawmakers expanded statewide last year, according to a new analysis. The potential cost dwa