News

The National Weather Service has confirmed that an EF-2 tornado touched down in Warren County Kentucky northeast of Bowling Green as strong storms moved through the region early Wednesday morning.

A NWS survey team is currently investigating the damage along with local emergency management and media members. The track of this tornado likely extends farther northeast outside of Warren County, thus, details will be forth coming as the survey team continues the investigation.

An EF-0 tornado touched down southwest of Bradfordsville in Marion County, Kentucky. This tornado did damage along Calvary Road where a mobile home was destroyed and a small shed slid off its foundation. 2 minor injuries occurred with this tornado.

This is an entry by WKYU-FM in the category of Continuing Coverage for the 2013 PRNDI awards.

This entry contains a feature report and two interviews done by WKYU-FM's Joe Corcoran.

In 2012, WKU graduate and former swimmer Claire Donahue had a great chance at qualifying for the U.S. Olympic women's swim team. In the first part of our entry, Joe put together a preview piece on all the work Claire had done to prepare for Olympic qualifying in Knoxville, Tennessee.

The second part is an interview with Claire the day after she qualified for the U.S. team.

General Motors is enhancing its footprint in Bowling Green. Officials gathered at the Corvette plant Wednesday to announce a $3.5 million investment. The automaker is moving its performance built center from Michigan to Bowling Green.

The center specializes in building high performance engines. GM Manufacturing Manager Arvin Jones says the move is expected to create or retain 20 jobs. 

“We’re working out the details with the international union and ourselves on how we’re going to bring those folks down, but they have the right to follow the work," said Jones.

A recently-released poll shows that a majority of Kentuckians support expanded gambling.

In the Courier-Journal Bluegrass Poll, 60 percent of those polled said they support expansion. For the first time, a majority Eastern Kentucky resident support gambling. 

The support is for a so-called clean gambling bill, which would not include any protections for horse racing tracks.

That's the approach Governor Steve Beshear is planning for his next gambling push. But opponents of gambling say any potential bill will fail because supporters can’t choose a single strategy. Also, only one track, Churchill Downs, has endorsed Beshear's plan.

A new report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows a big gap between Kentucky’s income levels on who pays taxes.

The report says Kentucky’s top 1 percent income bracket pays roughly 5 percent of the state’s income, while the bottom 20 percent pays 9 percent.

Middle income levels are saddled with a higher percent, the report said.

Jason Bailey, director of the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, says the numbers show tax reform needs to happen quickly in Kentucky to better balance the burdens.

“This is one of the big issues that tax reform needs to address, the issue of the fairness of the tax system and the fact that there is inequity in who pays,” he said.

Lawmakers are likely to put off taking up recommendations by the state’s latest tax reform commission until a special session later this year.