In his inaugural address Tuesday, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear addressed two of the core issues he campaigned on: health care insurance and the cost of drugs.

“These are our brothers and our sisters; after the expansion, these neighbors could go see a doctor without the fear of bankruptcy. And the expansion ensured that almost all of Kentucky’s children had access to health care,” Beshear said. “I will honor and strengthen our commitment to these families.”

Beshear’s father, former Gov. Steve Beshear, expanded Medicaid in 2014 to adults without children and to people making up to 138 percent of the poverty limit, or about 400,000 people.

Officials in Warren County are asking for residents' input on how to improve local transportation.

The survey from the Bowling Green & Warren County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) will help shape priorites for future projects. The group's 2045 Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP) aims to prepare the region for an estimated 51% population growth within the next 25 years.

MPO Coordinator Karissa Lemon described the MTP as a wish list of projects that's updated every five years, while the Transportation Improvement Program plan covers the near-term.

On a frigid December day in the capital of Frankfort, Democrat Andy Beshear took the oath of office and announced he was on the verge of fulfilling several key campaign promises.

One of Beshear’s first acts in office was to overhaul and appoint new members to the State Board of Education, swiftly replacing the 11 appointed by his predecessor, Republican Matt Bevin, who had a tense relationship with the state’s educators.

“These members were not chosen based on any partisan affiliation, but based on their commitment to make our schools better. To put our children first,” Beshear said in his inaugural address on Tuesday.

Kentucky has a new governor.

Calling on the state to set a national example of casting aside political divisions, Democrat Andy Beshear was sworn in just after midnight Tuesday in the Governor’s Mansion. Beshear defeated Republican Matt Bevin in a close election last month; after a recanvass of the vote totals revealed only one additional vote, Bevin conceded.

Bevin received a long ovation on Monday from administration employees who lined a Capitol hallway as the outgoing governor walked to his office. They all gathered in the Rotunda, where Bevin said they had set a new standard for how government should operate in his single term.

Appalachian surface coal miners are consistently overexposed to toxic silica dust, according to new research from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and surface mine dust contains more silica than does dust in underground coal mines. 

The research released Tuesday is the first to specifically analyze long-term data on exposure to toxic silica dust for workers at surface mines. The work reveals that while attention has been trained on a surge in disease among underground coal miners, surface miners are similarly at risk of contracting coal worker’s pneumoconiosis, or black lung disease.