News

Kentucky Tea Party groups are planning rallies Tuesday to protest the IRS targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups  for extra review.

Two of Kentucky's largest Tea Party groups will protests outside IRS offices in their respective areas: the Northern Kentucky Tea Party will protest in Cincinnati and Louisville's group will join southern Indiana groups to protest in Louisville.

Louisville Tea Party President Sarah Durand says the protests show that Tea Party groups won't stand by quietly while the controversy unfolds.

"So this is our way of saying something needs to be done, there needs to be more action taken and that we refuse to be silenced," she says.

The Justice Department is opening an investigation into the IRS reviews.

Owensboro police reported clearing 77.1% of violent crimes and nearly 39% of property crimes in 2012. Those figures put them above the national averages of 48% for violent crime and 19% for property crimes.

Police chief Art Ealum says the clearance rate comes from the department's efforts to build close ties with the community. Ealum says the city's relatively small size allows patrol officers to interact with the public in a way an officer in a large metro area can't.

In 2012, the department had 101 full-time officers and five reserve officers. 

Kentucky law enforcement officers are beginning a week of traffic patrols for the Memorial Day holiday focusing on making sure motorists are wearing seat belts. The 2013 "Click It or Ticket" campaign begins Monday and runs through June 2nd.

The Kentucky Office of Highway Safety says Kentucky has an 83% seat belt usage rate. The national rate is 86%. The office says fatalities on Kentucky roadways last year totaled 746, up from 721 in 2011. It says more than half of those killed were not wearing a seat belt.

A drug task force in south-central Kentucky is on the verge of expanding into a third county.

The Bowling Green daily News reports the Barren-Edmonson County Drug Task Force is poised to add Allen County as a partner. The task force is based in Glasgow and investigates drug crimes in Barren and Edmonson counties.

Task force director Jeff Scruggs says the partnership has received approval from city and county governments in Allen County. The final steps are filing and registering paperwork to officially add the third county to the agency.

The Dalai Lama spoke to about 15,000 people at the KFC Yum Center as the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists began his visit.

He spoke for about 40 minutes Sunday and then took questions from the crowd. A line started forming around the arena hours before the speech.

The Dalai Lama started his visit earlier in the day by blessing a temple in suburban Louisville. He handed out prayer scarves at the event and told the crowd there that the temple should be known more as a place of learning than of chanting.