By Linda Blackford | Editor
Good morning! The U.S. Department of Energy announced a big project for a big site, one of the largest hyperscale data centers in the state planned for the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, where they enriched uranium for decades. It’s a big economic development project, but now we’ll wait to see what local residents think. Our data center expert, reporter Liam Niemeyer, has the story.
For Kentucky’s political junkies, Christmas, Easter, and Halloween rolls up this weekend at Fancy Farm. Reporter McKenna Horsley explores the drama, campaign story lines and history of our favorite political picnic. She’ll be headed to west Kentucky on Friday to bring us all the fun.
Sen. Rand Paul called a special hearing to grill former medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci and got … a whole lot of nothing.
And in Commentary, a UPike professor applauds the idea of a new civics center at UK, with some caveats.
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The site of the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. (U.S. Department of Energy)
By Liam Niemeyer
More than $100 billion in private investment will go to build a massive hyperscale data center along with new natural gas-fired power plants at the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in McCracken County, the U.S. Department of Energy announced Wednesday.
Democrat and Republican supporters cheer on Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024, during St. Jerome Picnic in Fancy Farm, Kentucky. (Austin Anthony for the Kentucky Lantern)
By McKenna Horsley
On the first Saturday in August, thousands of political spectators flock to a far West Kentucky town with a population of about 300 people.
They are always ready to loudly cheer, boo and wave campaign signs during a church picnic that annually brings together Kentucky Republicans and Democrats vying for office.
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is shown on a monitor as Dr. Anthony Fauci, left, testifies before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on July 29, 2026 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
By Jennifer Shutt
WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the nation’s most visible public health officials during the coronavirus pandemic, declined to answer questions from a U.S. Senate committee in a tense and confrontational hearing Wednesday, citing his Fifth Amendment rights.
The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, April 18, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
COMMENTARY
By Jeffery Tyler Syck
As the Kentucky Lantern covered, legislation in the last legislative session mandated the creation of a new Center for American Civics at the University of Kentucky. Though the legislation itself is somewhat opaque about its intentions, it clearly aimed to set up a full academic unit in a style increasingly familiar across the United States.
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