By Linda Blackford | Editor
Good morning. Today I hope you’ll spend some time with a story by reporter Liam Niemeyer who explored something that used to be central all over Kentucky – the yearly tobacco harvest. More than 60,000 farms grew tobacco in the 1990s to now less than 1,000 as of 2022, and they continues to shrink. But for many it was a way of life that paid the bills every year.
In other news, you’ll be glad to know your elected officials in Congress are hard at work on thorny issues like AI and affordability are going on recess to campaign for reelection.
The Kentucky Tenants Union, which is trying to spread the gospel of renters rights around the state, is starting a new campaign in Shelbyville.
And in Commentary, James Orlick shows just how far Kentucky lawmakers were willing to go to stamp out what they think of as DEI.
69-year-old Kenneth Anderson has been around tobacco his entire life growing up in Clark County, Kentucky. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)
By Liam Niemeyer
Kenneth Anderson’s father taught him what to look for in high-quality tobacco, cured for weeks in the rafters of a Clark County barn. How to “grade” or rate the quality of the different parts of the plant, looking for slight variations of the deep brown color of the dried leaves.
“Tobacco’s always been a crop that you survived on,” Anderson said as he drove his truck over the rolling hills of his land on an early September morning. “Tobacco paid the bills. It paid for the farm. It sent kids to school.”
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks at a campaign event for U.S. Rep. Jen Kiggans in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on Aug. 17, 2026. (Photo by Charlotte Rene Woods/Virginia Mercury)
By Jennifer Shutt
WASHINGTON — The U.S. House is expected to depart Wednesday evening for a seven-week campaign break after spending less than two weeks in session during August and September.
The Shelby County emblem hangs in the county’s fiscal courtroom in Shelbyville. (Kentucky Lantern photo by McKenna Horsley)
By Liam Niemeyer
Include enough information about the story to draw interest, but not so much that the reader no longer needs to click to read more. Sparse bolding could be used to draw the reader's eye through the section.
Rep. Jennifer Decker, R-Waddy, presents her anti-DEI House Bill 4 to the Senate Education Committee in 2025. (LRC Public Information)
COMMENTARY
By James Orlick
What happens when politicians dislike what a professor teaches, an employee says, or a university prints?
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
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