Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, along with a Christian private school in Danville, have sued Gov. Andy Beshear for his order that private schools temporarily stop in-person classes.

The suit, filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, alleges that the governor has violated the constitution with his recent COVID-19 restrictions, specifically the mandate that all public and private schools do remote learning for the next few weeks.

Danville Christian Academy, Inc., which teaches preschool through 12th grade, is the co-plaintiff on the lawsuit.

“The Governor’s school-closure order prohibits religious organizations from educating children consistent with and according to their faith,” Cameron wrote in a press release. “The ability to provide and receive a private religious education is a core part of the freedoms protected by the First Amendment. Religiously affiliated schools that follow recommended social-distancing guidelines should be allowed to remain open.”

Gov. Andy Beshear announced on Saturday 3,711 new cases of COVID-19 in Kentucky. That’s the second-highest daily total of new cases yet. The record was set on Friday.

Beshear announced 21 new deaths due to the coronavirus. The positivity rate is 9.14%, meaning about one in every 11 people who get tested are positive. Beshear said 202 Kentuckians are currently on ventilators and 370 are in the ICU.

“We continue to be in exponential growth, which will threaten the health care capacity in this state,” Beshear said. “That’s why we’re taking action, and that’s why we’re fighting back.”

New restrictions aimed at schools, restaurants, bars and other public spaces began on Friday evening.

The Kentucky Supreme Court has issued new coronavirus restrictions that will affect courts across the state, including the delay of all jury trials until February.

The mandates come as Kentucky continues to experience a surge in new coronavirus cases. As of Thursday, the state had broken its daily record for new cases four times in the previous nine days.

Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice John Minton wrote in a statement that courts need to restrict activities to protect the public and staff from exposure to the virus.

“People can choose whether to eat at a restaurant or go shopping, but in most instances they don’t get to choose whether they go to court. We have a responsibility to do all we can to keep people from being exposed to a potentially fatal virus,” Minton wrote.

A study published Thursday in a prestigious scientific journal links significant increases in COVID-19 transmission rates to meatpacking plants, especially those facilities that the federal government has allowed to speed up processing lines.

Researchers found evidence that linked meatpacking plants to a “high potential for community spread” in the surrounding areas. The findings have implications for the Ohio Valley, where Tyson Foods plants in western Kentucky and southern Indiana received waivers this spring to increase work line speed even as dozens of workers were falling ill to the virus.

The State Board of Elections has certified Kentucky’s election results.

The process was drama-free compared to other states, where Republicans continue to question results that show Joe Biden winning the presidential election over incumbent Donald Trump.

Like the rest of the country, Kentucky shifted heavily to mail-in and early voting to try to ease crowds on Election Day during the coronavirus pandemic.

Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams said that voters and officials were able to handle the election despite the new processes.

As COVID-19 hospitalizations set new records nearly every day in Tennessee, doctors are speaking out about the dire situation they see in their emergency rooms with patients traveling hours to find a hospital that has space for them.

Physicians from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Saint Thomas Health and TriStar spoke Wednesday on a video call, primarily reiterating their pleas for a statewide mask mandate. But they also revealed a more desperate situation than most hospital administrators have been sharing publicly.

“We have been frequently on diversion, meaning we don’t take transfers from other hospitals. We try to send ambulances to other hospitals because we have no beds available,” Dr. Jessica Rosen says.

President-elect Joe Biden received a bigger turnout in the Ohio Valley in 2020 than Hillary Clinton did in 2016. So did his opponent Donald Trump.

In an election that saw historic levels of voting nationwide, Democrat Biden added 3.2% to Clinton’s 2016 vote share in the Ohio Valley while Republican Trump improved 2.4% on his 2016 turnout.

Biden’s increase in vote share outpacing Trump’s gains doesn’t mean that he outperformed Trump. If anything, Trump continued to do well in three states of Ohio Valley: Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia. He bagged more than 60% of votes in Kentucky and West Virginia and had 53.3% of votes in Ohio, once a swing state.