By Linda Blackford | Editor
Good morning! Happy Thursday/Friday of what I hope is a short holiday week for you, too. The Lantern staff will be taking Friday off, but we have plenty planned for your reading pleasure during the long weekend.
To start, here’s a story from contributor Jack Brammer on a local Kentucky newspaper making the jump to nonprofit status to stay afloat. It’s the first time a legacy newspaper has done this in the state, a sign of things to come.
In Jefferson County, some “clerical errors” hurt some voters in the primary and pointed to a bigger problem.
A domestic violence shelter gets a reprieve from closure.
And commentary on Gov. Beshear and the data center conundrum.
From left, Scott White, Lucie Chandler, and Ben Chandler, who run the Woodford Sun in Versailles, which is going from a for-profit to a nonprofit newspaper. (Jack Brammer for Kentucky Lantern)
By Jack Brammer
The Central Kentucky newspaper with about 2,300 subscriptions plans to roll out in September its status as the first legacy newspaper in Kentucky to become a nonprofit. A legacy newspaper is one that began publishing before the internet era.
The primary reason for the change: money. More specifically, the lack of money.
By McKenna Horsley
LOUISVILLE — Jefferson County Clerk David Yates says “a clerical error by a former employee” prevented eight voters from casting a ballot in the 44th House District during Kentucky’s May primary.
A 2024 list of people in Kentucky who died because of domestic violence, ranging in age from 19 to 73, was displayed in the Capitol rotunda during Domestic Violence Awareness Month. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Sarah Ladd)
By Sarah Ladd
SpringHaven is staying open, a reversal from an earlier announcement that it would close at the end of June due to financial strain.
Partner organization ZeroV stopped contracting with the domestic violence organization in Elizabethtown, the Lantern previously reported, which forced a closure announcement after 40 years of work in Kentucky’s Lincoln Trail District.
As power-hungry data centers proliferate, states are searching for ways to protect utility customers from the steep costs of upgrading the electrical grid, trying instead to shift the cost to AI-driven tech companies. (Dana DiFilippo/New Jersey Monitor)
COMMENTARY
By Joseph Verruni
Gov. Andy Beshear has a clear message on data centers: Not one penny of Kentuckians’ electric bills should rise because of them. Any data center that wants to locate in Kentucky must pay for 100% of its own energy, including any new generation it requires. Companies that can’t meet that standard, he says, aren’t welcome.
The principle is exactly right. The problem is that it’s easier said than done.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
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