By Linda Blackford | Editor
The Kentucky Lantern recently got some exciting news: our first big grant award from Press Forward Blue Grass! This relatively new group, housed at the Blue Grass Community Foundation, is part of the national Press Forward organization, which was formed to help reverse the precipitous decline in local news.
Press Forward Blue Grass just awarded $100,000 to 10 media outlets around the region. Ours will allow us to form a new partnership with the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Media: Lantern journalists will work with students on covering public policy issues, eventually forming a pipeline for interns who work with us in Frankfort.
It’s clear that moving forward, journalism will require more collaboration than competition. That’s why – like all States Newsroom outlets – the Lantern allows all its stories to be republished for free, and why we’re part of innovative groups like the Appalachian News Exchange. We’re grateful to Press Forward Blue Grass for their support of local news, and excited to start working with UK faculty and students.
You can read more about how important this support is in our Commentary section this morning. Columnists Jim Branscome and Bill Bishop detail how much of Appalachia has become a news desert, and how crucial it is to reverse this trend.
Of course, here at the Lantern, we’re also grateful to all our readers, who supply much-needed support through donations small and large. We appreciate all of you!
And yes, there’s more news below, from the Louisville mayor calling for a data center moratorium to new research that shows medical marijuana could help people with late state dementia.
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg called on city council members to pass a temporary ban on data center construction to ensure no future data centers can be constructed under “outdated” existing regulations. (Screenshot/YouTube, MetroTV)
By Liam Niemmeyer
The mayor of Kentucky’s largest city is calling on city council members to pass a temporary ban or moratorium on data center construction within the city while the local government mulls over potential regulations restricting the siting and impacts of large data centers.
Kentucky legalized medical marijuana in 2023 and began licensing growers, processors and dispensaries last year. (Getty Images)
By Sarah Ladd
New research — which Kentucky participated in as a trial site — shows a combination of cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) can help late-stage dementia patients feel less agitation.
Gov. Andy Beshear at a press conference (Screenshot)
By McKenna Horsley
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear joined a coalition of Democratic state officials in suing to block the Trump administration from getting access to sensitive data of families receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits.
Population: authors’ analysis of U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 estimates. Local journalists: The Local Journalist Index, a collaboration between Muck Rack and Rebuild Local News (2026).
COMMENTARY
By Jim Branscome and Bill Bishop
In the late summer of 1974 somebody set fire to the Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg. The blaze took the offices, the files, the bound archives — most of the institutional memory of Letcher County that Tom and Pat Gish had been accumulating since they bought the paper in 1956 and changed its masthead from “A Friendly Non-Partisan Weekly Newspaper” to the two words that made it famous: “It Screams.”
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
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