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.

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

Alice Whitaker, niece of founder Alice Slone, stood in front of the Cordia School on Ky. 1088 in Cordia. (Charles Bertram / Herald-Leader file photo) CORDIA, Ky. — Tensions flared late last month for the second time in six years between the Knott County Board of Education and a remote and beloved settlement school that has fought to preserve its place in the Appalachian community it has served for nearly a century. With students set to return next week, the school district sa

Diversified Gas and Oil Corp. maintains a natural gas compressor station in Letcher County it believes it can leverage into an off-grid power generation data center project. Local economic development officials signed an agreement with the company and a real-estate firm called Maverick Holdings to explore the project for about a year. (Austin R. Ramsey / Herald-Leader) LETCHER COUNTY, Ky. — Plans are taking shape for the development of a major, 100 megawatt off-grid power gen

Morgan Hayes pets an ostrich at an Alpha Roost Farms pen near Danville. The new ostrich-meat producer is filling a niche market opening up for people developing red-meat allergies from Alpha-Gal Syndrome. (Austin R. Ramsey / Herald-Leader) A lifelong cattleman and animal nutrition expert, Brent Williams had spent decades around livestock. Beef wasn’t just a part of his diet; it was a part of his identity. “My nickname since fifth grade has been Beef,” he said. “Beef has been

SB 39 would restrict game wardens from enforcing most fishing regulations on private lakes and ponds. (Austin R. Ramsey / Herald-Leader) JOHNSON COUNTY, Ky. — Legislation awaiting a final vote in the Kentucky Senate would strip state game wardens of their ability to enforce most fishing laws on private land and settle a growing controversy between regulators and angler groups who want to stock non-native, hybrid bass. Momentum for the bill, sponsored by Sen. Gary Boswell, R-O

An exterior view of the Kentucky State Capitol building in Frankfort, as seen Feb. 8, 2025. (Tasha Poullard / Herald-Leader) The GOP supermajority in Frankfort and Kentucky’s environmental advocacy groups don’t always see eye-to-eye, but this legislative session, lawmakers and green activists are focused on the same issue: artificial intelligence and the opportunities and risks data centers pose to the commonwealth. Energy- and resource-intensive data centers represent a boon

Hazard city officials plan to ask the Kentucky Supreme Court to consider their legal battle challenging the state’s defunct tier system for local restaurant taxes. (Ryan C. Hermens / Herald-Leader) The Kentucky Court of Appeals has denied a petition for a rehearing from an Eastern Kentucky city attempting to levy a 3% restaurant tax, but the city’s attorneys intend to appeal the ruling on the grounds the amended state law underpinning local taxing authority is unconstitutiona

Rural Martin County, Kentucky, remains one of the most underfunded water systems in America, contaminated by a devastated coal slurry spill more than 25 years ago. I used this short series to shine light on efforts underway in the community to clear up the community's water and reputation. The Curtis Crum Reservoir in Martin County, Ky., is seen Oct. 2, 2018. Water is pumped from the Tug Fork River and stored here before being treated and delivered to residents. (Alex Slitz /

Among the number of advisory boards that have been cut by the White House is one that gave guidance on the dangers of lithium ion batteries on aircraft. (Bruce Bennett / Getty Images) The Trump administration this year has eliminated about 160 expert advisory committees across the federal government, almost a third of them over the recommendations of the agencies that oversee them, in by far the biggest purge of nonpartisan regulatory advice in the nearly three decades in whi

New Orleans Public Radio coastal reporter Tegan Wendland and I spent months scouring documents and interviewing sources for a five-part investigative series that uncovered decades of overuse, unregulated pumping by industries and agriculture, and scant oversight or action from legislative committees in rural Louisiana. Known For Its Floods, Louisiana Is Running Dangerously Short of Groundwater Louisiana is known for its losing battle against rising seas and increasingly frequ

Analysis of arrests in 15 cities reveals most GeorgeFloyd protesters were charged with misdemeanors and lived within the metro area where they were arrested. Protesters arrested after the May 25 death of George Floyd were a diverse, young group of people who demonstrated close to home and were charged largely with nonviolent crimes, according to a Washington Post review of data on more than 2,600 people detained in 15 cities. The data contradicts suggestions by President Trum

Police found Alani Hutchins, 16, slain in a car in June. A stray bullet hit Michael Goodlow III, 4, in the head on the Fourth of July. Someone shot Victrail Mora, 14, in the back of the head near the steps to his mother’s apartment on Aug. 12. At least 17 children have died violently in St. Louis this year, a tally that has shocked residents and underscored a widening racial crime disparity in that city and others amid the coronavirus pandemic. As the upward trajectory of cri

After days of sharp pain shooting up her left abdomen, Rose Wong hobbled from her history class to the student health center at Duke University. A nurse pressed on the 20-year-old’s belly and told her it felt like gas. Wong questioned the diagnosis but said the nurse dismissed her doubts and sent her to the campus pharmacy to pick up Gas-X that afternoon in February 2019. The next morning, Wong doubled over in pain, and a roommate drove her to a nearby emergency room in Durha

Since demonstrations against racial inequality and police brutality erupted two weeks ago in the District, more than 400 people have been arrested, most for curfew violations or looting, and city law enforcement officials said they have seen no evidence so far that organized groups came to carry out violence. The most common charge was for violating a curfew that was in place for four days. Many other cases involve minor assault or destruction of property. President Trump has

In the two weeks that saw an uprising against racial injustice and police brutality spread from the streets of Minneapolis to cities across America, the specter of violent, left-wing militants invoked by President Trump and a chorus of conservative voices has yet to materialize. Instead, multiracial crowds have appeared in every corner of the United States, as the president sent more than a dozen tweets blaming clashes with police on antifa, the label associated with anti-fas

I had the exciting opportunity to put my video editing skills to task working alongside a team of features videographers at The Weather...

W hen she and her children were forced to leave their last apartment in Owensboro nearly 10 years ago, she thought there was nowhere else...