Crews have begun a second major step in the replacement of the 82 year old Milton-Madison Bridge over the Ohio River.

A 727-foot section of steel truss will be hoisted into place today on temporary piers alongside the existing bridge.

The 2,000 ton section was preassembled on the Kentucky side of the river and is being floated to the site on barges.

The Kentucky Division of Water and the Kentucky Geological Survey are putting an emphasis on groundwater protection as part of a national observance tomorrow: the annual Protect Your Groundwater Day.

Groundwater is exactly what it sounds like…it’s the water that’s on the ground, in rock crevices, or that flows into streams or rivers. It’s also essential to the drinking water for many communities, whether through wells or springs.

Louisville Metro Councilwoman Attica Woodson Scott, D-1, is welcoming Mayor Greg Fischer to her district for his ‘Talk to Greg’ forum on Monday.

The meeting will give residents a chance to talk directly with Fischer and other city officials about services such as public works, police and parks.

Scott says constituents have a number of issues they want to discuss with the mayor, such as violent crime, and vacant and abandoned properties, which are plaguing District 1.

"The lack of economic development and growth in the district with little to no retail or sit-down restaurants throughout both the west and southwest parts of the district," she says. "People are going to be very concerned about domestic violence and gun violence, and what’s really being down by the administration to address that. So a wealth of issues are going to be brought up."

The new season at Actors Theatre of Louisville is off to a rousing start with an energized and stylish contemporary production of William Shakespeare's “Romeo and Juliet.” The season opener is both a homecoming for the director, Louisville native Tony Speciale, and a bright sign of things to come for the theater with new artistic director Les Waters at the helm.

It’s now estimated that 750-thousand people, two and a half percent of the population, died in the American Civil War, from 1861 to 1865. A new documentary from filmmaker Ric Burns explores how the scale of the war’s carnage forced Americans and woefully unprepared government officials to deal with death on a massive scale.

It’s called Death and the Civil War and will premiere on September 18 as part of the American Experience series on PBS. WFPL's Rick Howlett caught up with Ric Burns Friday on Byline.

Warning that business is afraid of President Obama's policies, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., joined ABC's This Week for a roundtable discussion on Sunday to discuss the sluggish economic recovery and the presidential race.

The latest figures show the economy added a meager 96,000 jobs in August and that unemployment fell to 8.1 percent because 368,000 people quit looking for work. The panelist on This Week centered on Mr. Obama's record and the lack of specifics offered by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to fix the economy.

A noticeable disagreement was between Paul and New York Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman on whether public sector jobs have increased or not since Mr. Obama took office.

Check it out:

Public radio and television talk-show host Tavis Smiley will be in Kentucky this month as the keynote speaker at a forum on poverty and the shrinking middle-class.

Smiley is known to most as a journalist and political commentator, but most recently he’s taken on the title of advocate for the poor.

In “The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto”, a new book co-authored with Cornel West, he argues that poverty is the new American norm and that neither political party is paying much attention. The statistics are daunting, as a radio documentary conducted by NPR earlier this year showed just that.

After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the federal health care law pushed by President Obama, Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear announced that Kentucky would create a state health insurance exchange and eligible for federal subsidies under the new law. Also in Indiana. So how will it work? We found out Friday on Byline, with Julie Appleby, a senior correspondent for the nonprofit news service Kaiser Health News (a program of the Henry J.

The Louisville Cards improved to 2-0 on the season with a 35-7 victory today over visiting Missouri State.

Teddy Bridgewater threw two touchdown  passes, U of L’s running backs added two more scores and Matthew Nakatani kicked two field goals for the 23rd ranked Cards.   The Bears dropped to 0-2.

U of L faces North Carolina next week at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium. 

The Kentucky Wildcats rolled over Kent State 47-14 in Lexington. UK evens its record to 1-1 and will host Western Kentucky next Saturday night

Friday on Byline, we talked about the just-completed Democratic National Convention.  Our panelists were CN2’s Ryan Alessi, who joined us by phone from Charlotte, WFPL political editor Phillip M. Bailey, and Kentucky Public Radio’s Kenny Colston. 

Panelists discuss the reaction to the speeches, the different impressions of the TV audience versus the live audience, votes of Kentucky delegates, the limited participation of Kentucky politicians, the shifting electoral map, and speculation on voter turnout.