Reporting

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

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

As part of my practicum studies at The Washington Post — and a relationship I fostered with the general assignment desk there — I joined a team of reporters telling the unique stories of people the region had lost as a result of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The series chronicled the local tragedies and brought a human element to the numbers we'd grown used to seeing and reading about in the news. Longtime Miriam's Kitchen Employee Dies of Coronavirus Complications After Da