By Linda Blackford | Editor
You can’t say it’s boring around here judging from just a handful of topics from this week: Mitch McConnell is home at last; RFK Jr. shuts down KY organ donation program; Nate Morris as ambassador; black lung expands; the fight to be governor; Kentucky’s news deserts; and, of course, data centers.
We hope you enjoyed the work of our great staff, we hope you’re subscribed, and if you’re so inclined, we hope you might make a donation to continue and expand all this coverage.
Thanks so much for reading, and have a great Sunday.
Supporters cheered for Republican Congressman James Comer who is up for re-election this fall, but is considering a run for governor in 2027. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Austin Anthony)
By McKenna Horsley
U.S. Rep. James Comer appears to be the favorite to win the Republican nomination in next year’s Kentucky governor race before he’s even announced he’s running.
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.”
When the next issue came out, Tom had changed the words beneath the eagle. Now it read “It Still Screams.”
NEWS OF THE WEEK
Thanks for reading Weekend Lantern. Did you know our daily morning digest is also free? Sign up here. And if you enjoyed today’s edition, please forward to a friend. Increasing our readership helps us cover more news.