Many of them will be held at firehouses and the department will also hold its annual Louisville Slugger Field clinic on October 10.

Medical Director Dr. Matt Zahn says for the first time the CDC is recommending a combined seasonal and H1N1 flu shot for everyone over six months old.

“This year right now we have virtually no flu disease in this country and the vaccine is already being distributed around this country, so we anticipate no shortage at all,” he said.

The department will offer free flu shots at 62 Jefferson County public schools, all of which have a high percentage of students getting a free or reduced price lunch.

The authority clarified its position in a meeting Thursday by passing what it calls its strategic objectives. They outline that the Ohio River Bridges Project is two bridges and a reworked Spaghetti Junction. The body says it will not break the project into three separate pieces or consider eliminating parts of it.

Authority member Joe Reagan says it’s possible the authority has not made that clear.

“Our job is to make sure that we understand the facts, that we do the analysis. We’ve been doing that. What’s been missing is a clear message to you and to others is that maybe we haven’t done our job telling you we know where we’re going and what we’re going to do, and now we’ve done that,” he says.

The authority’s actions come amid what some say is growing opposition to either the entire project or the tolls that may be required to finance it. Reagan says some of the opposition may stem from a misunderstanding of what the authority is doing and why. A financing plan for the 4.1 billion dollar project must be complete by the end of the year, and Reagan says the authority has been working on it all year.

During the meeting, the body briefly discussed proposals to split the project into three separate pieces, but concluded that it isn’t feasible. As in previous meetings, several members of the public spoke for and against the project, and the possibility of using tolls to pay for it.

The 71-member ensemble performs in Whitney Hall at the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts on Friday at 8:30pm. (Photo Credit Cliff Watts)

The nation’s third double hand transplant recipient and his team of doctors gathered Thursday to discuss his surgery and progress. It was Rich Edwards’ first public remarks since last week’s operation.

Sitting next to his wife Cindy, Rich Edwards was upbeat and positive just over a week after undergoing a 17-and-a-half hour surgery to replace both of his hands. Edwards, a former chiropractor, became emotional as he spoke about going back to work and regaining the feeling in his hands.

“I would love to go back to chiropractic. I’m hoping that I can. And I know that if I can’t get back to chiropractic at least I can start doing things again that I never used to be able to do. One of my favorite senses was my sense of touch and I love to hold my wife’s hand, feel her skin and I want to do that again,” he said.

Edwards lost the use of his hands in a fire four years ago. He says he’s very grateful to the donor family. Doctors at Jewish Hospital Hand Care Center say Edwards is doing well enough to leave the hospital Friday.      

Edwards is from Oklahoma, but will remain in Louisville for at least the next three months for therapy.

The first of day of furloughs is Friday for many Kentucky government employees.  Last month Gov. Steve Beshear announced the unpaid days off to help balance the budget.

“We’ve worked very hard to look at each furlough plan from each agency to minimize any disruption and at the same time save the maximum amount of money.  We’re going to save roughly $24 million with this furlough policy,” he said.

Friday is the first of six days state workers will have to take off through the end of the fiscal year.  Some, such as corrections employees and mental hospital workers, are exempt from the furloughs. Last month, various agencies began laying off political employees in order to save another $5 million.

The budget requires Beshear to save $131 million this fiscal year.    A Franklin circuit judge Thursday denied a request by some state workers to block the furloughs.

Labor Day weekend events in the Louisville area include the 8th Annual WorldFest celebration tomorrow Friday and Saturday.

The event features food and entertainment from the city’s various ethnic groups.

Margaret Brosko with Metro Parks says Friday’s activities include a naturalization ceremony.

“Four-hundred people will get their citizenship to the United States and they’ve really worked hard to become part of our country. So that will be a huge celebration at 1:00pm at the Kentucky Center. And then they will actually come on over to the big lawn area and have a celebration,” she said.

Brosko says there will be three stages filled with live entertainment both days. There will also be about 150 restaurants, vendors and exhibitors set up on the Belvedere Worldfest runs from 11:00am to 11:00pm both days.

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When a battered woman resorts to violence against her abuser, is she guilty of a crime? Or do her actions qualify as justifiable self-defense?

In the Peabody Award-winning documentary Sisters in Pain, three formerly battered women share their riveting, intimate and honest stories of abuse, arrest, imprisonment, and, finally, freedom.

These women are among the “sisters in pain,” 13 battered women in Kentucky who, in the 1980s and early 1990s, stood up to their brutally abusive husbands and boyfriends, and were subsequently found guilty of violent crimes.

When Kentucky’s Governor Brereton Jones learned of the “sisters in pain” and their stories, he became convinced the women had acted in self-defense. In a controversial move, Jones granted all of the women clemency on his last day in office. This was only the third mass clemency for battered women in U.S. history.

image: Quilt square made by the Sisters in Pain while in prison.

The board met Wednesday to discuss the plan, which had already been delayed by a year while officials cleared up transportation issues with the new elementary assignment plan. Superintendent Sheldon Berman says the elementary school problems will not be an issue with older students.

“The high school and middle school transportation is nowhere near the complex system that the elementary is,” says Berman. “As [transportation director] Rick Caple said, we were able to be very efficient about middle schools and high schools this year and we’ll do that if we implement either or both.”

The board will vote on the delay on the 13th. Berman has offered a compromise. He suggested the board implement the middle school plan next year, but delay the high school assignment plan another year.

“One of the problems with postponement is that it has the appearance that we may delay and we’re not going to move forward and I think this actually gives us the opportunity to move forward,” said Berman.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the JCPS desegregation plan was unconstitutional. A new elementary assignment plan was implemented last year.

Wilson is scheduled to die by lethal injection September 16 for the 1987 murder of restaurant worker Deborah Pooley in Covington.

Circuit Judge Gregory Bartlett on Wednesday rejected a claim by Wilson’s public defenders that more DNA testing should be allowed in the case.

He also ruled that there’s too little evidence to support a claim that the 53 year old Wilson is mentally retarded and ineligible for execution under Kentucky law.

Governor Steve Beshear signed Wilson’s death warrant last month.