By Linda Blackford | Editor
If you opened this newsletter to read about UK basketball, I’m sorry I tricked you. But while you’re here, you should read about the real-life UK mascot, the Kentucky bobcat. A last minute bill from the legislature allowed nighttime hunting of bobcats with night goggles and thermal equipment, even though experts don’t know exactly how many of the shy felines are out there. Reporter Liam Niemeyer has the story.
Liam also wrote about a new energy commission known as EPIC that just got two new members with somewhat similar backgrounds.
In other news, the Trump administration is looking to gut Head Start, which serves thousands of Kentucky children.
And in Commentary, Jason Bailey discusses why Kentuckians are so mad about data centers.
By Liam Niemeyer
Chet Hayes thinks Kentucky has a decent bobcat population.
Hayes, a district director for the United Trappers of Kentucky, an organization representing fur trappers throughout the state, said it’s difficult to get solid information on the elusive animal.
Preschool children line up to go outside at the Ralph Hawley Head Start Center in Emeryville, Calif., in December. The Trump administration has proposed major changes to the Head Start program. (Photo by Florence Middleton for CalMatters)
By Carolyn Jones
The Trump administration appears poised to gut the central policies that shape Head Start, a popular and long-established early childhood education program that serves the country’s neediest children.
Mill Creek Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant operated by Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities, generates electricity on a Friday afternoon. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)
By Liam Niemeyer
Republican Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman is appointing the former CEO of electric utility East Kentucky Power Cooperative and a CEO of a barge company, both with coal industry ties, to a commission that the state legislature is looking to for advice on energy policy.
This map shows proposed hyperscale data centers across Kentucky. (Kentucky Lantern screenshot)
COMMENTARY
By Jason Bailey
In a state short of jobs, outsiders promising big investments typically receive a red-carpet welcome from Kentucky public officials. That was no doubt the expectation when Big Tech companies began scouting data center locations in the commonwealth. But when the trickle of interest became a flood, and when the proposals swelled from small data centers to massive hyperscale complexes, concerned residents began speaking out.
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