Two weeks from today, Louisville Metro Government will host its fifth annual Youth Opportunity Showcase.
The event brings employers to the convention center downtown and invites teens and young adults to meet with the employees to apply for summer jobs. Mayor Jerry Abramson says it’s an important choice for young people.
“The choice is either hanging out for the summer, doing nothing, generating no extra revenue, providing no opportunity for themselves, or getting up in the morning, going to work, putting some money in their purses or wallets, and giving them a chance to understand the workplace situation,” says Abramson.
Home Depot, UPS, Churchill Downs and Kentucky Kingdom will be among the employers hiring at the event.
It’s set for February 13th.
Crews are on the roads in Louisville clearing snow.
Several inches of snow fell last night and snow is expected to continue until about noon. Louisville Metro Government has crews on the roads and state crews are clearing the interstates in one-hour cycles.
Transportation Cabinet spokesperson Andrea Clifford says the state crews will continue to work throughout the day.
“Definitely through the afternoon and possibly into the evening, we will even have crews out monitoring for refreezing, monitoring for slick spots and doing spot treatment as necessary,” she says.
Clifford says snowfall was worse in southern and eastern Kentucky, though no state roads were declared impassible.
From WFPL’s Haley Hart
The annual College Goal Sunday event will be held January 31 to help college-bound students in 2010 fill out the necessary forms to receive financial aid. The sessions will take place in Louisville, Elizabethtown, and Campbellsville starting at 2pm.
Kim Dolan, an outreach counselor for Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority, says that filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA form, is the first step in making college more affordable.
“It is really an essential application for students to get their hands on the majority of funds that are going to help them pay for school…including grants, work study funds, student loans, even institutions—we use it for some institution funds.”
Financial aid professionals will be available to guide students through the FAFSA form line-by-line, and some sites will offer Spanish interpreters. More information is at wfpl.org, search on “college.”
All College Goal Sunday 2010 events are at 2 p.m. Sunday, January 31
Louisville:
-Jefferson Community & Technical College Downtown Campus, VTI Building, 110 West Chestnut Street
-Southwest Campus, Administration Building Auditorium 1000 Community College Drive
-Male High School, Gheens Center, 4409 Preston Highway
Elizabethtown:
-Elizabethtown Community & Technical College Room 303, Occupational Technical Building, 600 College Street Road
Campbellsville:
Campbellsville University Hawkins Athletic Complex: 1 University Drive
Friday, January 29, 2010
State of the News
The deadlines have passed, and now we know who’s in the running to fill Congressman John Yarmuth’s seat, Senator Jim Bunning’s seat, and, of course, to be the next mayor of our fair city. But that’s not all that made headlines this week in Louisville, or on a bigger stage – you may have heard there was a fairly important speech given to a joint session of Congress earlier this week as well. We’ll catch up on these and other stories with the folks who covered them, on this Friday’s edition of State of the News.
From Lisa Autry, Kentucky Public Radio/WKYU, Bowling Green
U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul will get some help from his father this weekend. Texas Congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul will headline a fundraiser Saturday in Louisville.
Rand Paul, a Bowling Green eye doctor, says this will likely be his father’s only trip to Kentucky during the campaign.
“He’s got his own primary and his own things to worrry about. Plus I want to make this election…it has to be about me presenting the message and can I present the message to Kentucky’s Republicans and eventually Kentucky’s independents….do they want me to present the message and go to Washington. So it is about me,” he said.
This week Rand Paul accused GOP leaders in Washington of meddling in Kentucky’s U.S. Senate race by trying to hand-pick the party nominee. Paul was referring to fellow Republican Trey Grayson, who has enjoyed fundraising help from the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Grayson’s campaign manager, Nate Hodson, countered by calling Paul the hand-picked candidate of “out-of-state Libertarian crusaders.” Grayson and Rand Paul are among six Republicans and five Democrats seeking the seat that will be left vacant by the retirement of Republican Jim Bunning.
A federal jury has acquitted former Kentucky Transportation Secretary Bill Nighbert and road contractor Leonard Lawson of all counts in their Lexington bid-rigging trial.
The two were were accused of taking part in a scheme to leak confidential cost estimates for highway projects to Lawson prior to the bidding process.
Several charges were thrown out this week by the presiding judge, but Nighbert and Lawson remained on trial for other offenses, including conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
The jury began deliberations Thursday and returned the verdict Friday afternoon.
Kentucky Public Radio’s Tony McVeigh
Death penalty opponents dominated testimony at a public hearing in Frankfort on Kentucky’s recently published procedures for executing death row inmates.
Late last year, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled the state’s protocol for executing death row inmates was improperly adopted, and halted further executions. In compliance with the ruling, the protocol was made public.
Now, the public has been given a chance to comment on the procedures. Nineteen people spoke, including Assistant Public Advocate David Barron, who represents several death row inmates. He questions why Kentucky’s lethal injection procedure still involves a three-drug cocktail.
“There is now no reason to do so,” says Barron. “Ohio has carried out two executions using just a barbiturate.”
The Justice Cabinet has until February 15th to respond to public comments, before presenting the execution protocol to a legislative oversight committee. The ultimate decision on re-adoption, or revisions to the procedure, lies with Gov. Steve Beshear.
