News

Kentucky's new exchange for people on the market for healthcare now has a name and  a website.

It'll be called Kynect—pronounced "connect." People can access it at kynect.ky.gov. A phone line will be running in August.

Kynect will be fully operational in time for October open health insurance enrollment.

Once running, Kynect will help Kentucky residents or employers find and compare prices for health insurance coverage. It's part of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

Carrie Banahan, the health exchange's executive director,  says the online portal will work much like online shopping.

Federal investigators have concluded that the crew of a cargo ship ignored radioed and visual warnings about lights being out on a western Kentucky bridge in the moments leading up to a wreck. 

National Transportation Safety Board investigators said on Tuesday that the crew of the Delta Mariner used only visual cues and went under the wrong span of the Eggner's Ferry Bridge near Aurora, Ky., in January 2012.  The wreck tore down a 322-foot span of the bridge over the Tennessee River. 

Investigators also concluded that white warning lights on the bridge had been out for several years and other lights shorted out before the wreck.  The missing span halted traffic on U.S. 68 between the western shore of Kentucky Lake and the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. 

As the scandal surrounding the targeting of tea party groups by the IRS continues,  some Kentucky tea party activists are upset with Senator Mitch McConnell's role in the process—even as the state party is asking them to support him.

In Kentucky, only the statewide 9/12 project has come forward to acknowledge that they were targeted and that they were rejecting the IRS' apology on the matter.

But that hasn't stopped Kentucky politicians, including McConnell, from consistently pointing to the issue. He's demanded a full investigation into the matter.

The Republican Party of Kentucky is circulating a letter to back up McConnell on his efforts, asking tea party activists in Kentucky to sign it.

But Kentucky tea party activist David Adams called the attempts opportunistic.

The incoming chief of the Owensboro Public School system says fully-funding pre-Kindergarten programs would be the best education investment state lawmakers could make.

Nick Brake will take over as leader of Owensboro's school system July 1, following seven years with the Greater Owensboro Economic Development Corporation.

He told WKU Public Radio increased pre-K funding is money well spent.

"If you fully fund those programs, not only do you contribute three-to-one to their earnings later, but every dollar you spend there ends up saving the state money on the back end with benefit programs, criminal justice, and other savings," Brake said. "It's a long-term investment and sometimes those are difficult for public policy makers to swallow, but I think it's an investment that needs to be made."

Brake signed a four-year contract Monday to take over as leader of the Owensboro Public School system.

Survivors of the nation's deadliest alcohol-related highway crash are expected to attend a public memorial service in a central Kentucky town on the 25th anniversary of the tragedy.
   
The service is set for Tuesday evening at North Hardin High School at Radcliff.
   
Twenty-seven people died when the church bus they were in was hit by a drunken driver on May 14, 1988, along a rural stretch of Interstate 71 near Carrollton, Ky.
   
Forty people, mostly youngsters, escaped the burning bus. The group had spent the day at Kings Island amusement park in Ohio and was headed home to Radcliff when their bus was hit by a pickup truck driven by Larry Mahoney.
   
Mahoney survived and was convicted of assault, manslaughter and wanton endangerment. He was released from prison in 1999.