A judge will rule "as soon as possible" on a motion to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the legality of the Kentucky Health Benefits Exchange that Governor Steve Beshear created last year by executive order.

Beshear said the Health Benefits Exchange would help uninsured Kentuckians arrange insurance coverage under the federal Affordable Care Act.

Tea Party activist David Adams filed a lawsuit claiming that Beshear created the exchange without necessary legislative approval. Adams is asking Franklin County Circuit Judge Phillip J. Shepherd to order work on the exchange to cease. Shepherd held a hearing on the issue Monday morning in Frankfort.

Attorneys for Beshear asked Shepherd to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming that Adams and others who filed it lack legal standing to do so.

Kentucky House Speaker Greg Stumbo has offered a Senate redistricting plan in hopes of speeding up what's become a drawn out process.

Stumbo said Monday that delaying legislative redistricting makes it more likely that judges will step in to realign political boundaries in the state. Two federal lawsuits have been filed in recent weeks; one seeking to force lawmakers to take action and another asking for a panel of judges to redraw political lines.

House Republican leader Jeff Hoover said Kentuckians may be better off having federal judges draw a redistricting plan that would place people above politics. That, Hoover said, would also eliminate the need for Governor Steve Beshear to call lawmakers back into a special session that would cost $300,000 a week.

The Executive Branch Ethics Commission has handed down public reprimands and fines to three former employees in the Kentucky Department of Agriculture.

The panel took the action Monday against Bruce Harper of Harrodsburg, Chris Parsons of Mount Vernon and George "Doug" Begley of London.

Harper agreed to pay a $4,500 fine for soliciting donations from businesses his agency regulated and for attempting to interfere with enforcement actions in cases involving grain storage and disposal of dead animals.

Parsons agreed to pay a $5,000 fine for filing false timesheets and for using his state-assigned vehicle for personal purposes.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and the Republican National Committee chairman are distancing themselves from conservatives who suggested in recent days the President Obama could face impeachment for the developing scandal at the Internal revenue Service.

RNC chairman Reince Priebus said, "There's a few chapters before we get to the last one." He says it's up to Republicans to "connect the dots" before calling for impeachment.

Asked about impeachment, Paul said investigators must learn more "before we go anywhere else."

The Republican leaders addressed reporters before a Monday GOP fundraiser in Concord, NH. Paul is touring early-voting states while considering whether to run for president in 2016.

Former Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer's "unwarranted sense of entitlement" goes beyond what he's been charged with, federal prosecutors said in a court filing.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Taylor said in a notice filed in court late Friday that the government intends to introduce testimony and other evidence that Farmer misappropriated and misused public resources before 2008, the last year listed in an indictment.

Because of a five-year statute of limitations, Taylor said Farmer could not be charged with anything that may have happened before 2008.

Farmer is a former University of Kentucky basketball player who was elected agriculture commissioner in 2003 and 2007. He has pleaded not guilty to four counts of misappropriating government funds for the benefit of himself, his family and friends.

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.

WKPB, 89.5 FM, our signal in Henderson/Owensboro, is temporarily off the air due to a power failure Monday morning.

This does not affect our live webstream. Thanks for your patience while we work to restore the signal.

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.