Nearly 250 campuses are involved in the Kentucky Green & Healthy Schools program, an initiative aimed at involving students in protecting the environment. State Energy and Environment Secretary Len Peters says skills gained in the program help equip students to be environmentally aware. Kentucky Environmental Education Council executive director Elizabeth Schmitz says 50 of those joined in the past year. The idea is to engage children in a variety of efforts, including energy conservation and creating green spaces.
A snake was the cause of a power outage affecting Murray and parts of Calloway County this morning. Murray Electric Systems General Manager Tony Thompson says the 6 foot long serpent got into a substation, which tripped a relay to prevent any damage to the system. Thompson says MES customers were without service for around half an hour. The relay trip transferred to the TVA system as well, shutting off a West Kentucky Rural Electric substation. Thompson says there was no serious damage, and there shouldn't be any further interruption stemming from this incident.
We may resign Afghanistan to a sort of purgatory status. It's not great...not that bad either...kind of so-so.
NPR reports President Obama paid a surprise visit to Afghanistan, and he says having just part of the country out of Taliban hands might be the best we can do.
Former Tennessee Democratic gubernatorial candidate Richard Chesteen passed away yesterday at the age of 72. The Union City native was a candidate for governor in 1994, and was a longtime political science professor at the University of Tennessee at Martin. Chesteen was an Obion County commissioner from 1982 to 1994, and taught at UT-Martin from 1969 until retiring in December 2007. He’s survived by his wife and two children.
Illinois Governor Pat Quinn says the state will repair 2,300 miles of road and 500 bridges over the next six years as it uses money from a massive public-works program. The latest update to the road plan calls for spending $9.2 billion dollars by the year 2018. That includes the last dollars from Illinois Jobs Now, which has pumped money into construction projects to create jobs. The plan includes $4 million dollars for repairs to the I-24 Ohio River Bridge as well as numerous resurfacing and smaller bridge replacements throughout the southern part of the state.
LBL officials will hold a public meeting this evening to discuss ways to address a fifty percent cut to the park's maintenance budget. The meeting is the final of four scheduled to seek public input on how to reduce spending and better manage funds. Thus far, officials say park users have been supportive, though numbers at the meetings have been low. The park has around two million visitors each year. Tonight’s meeting is from 5-7 at the Senior/Community Center in Grand Rivers.
A Graves County murder case is headed to a grand jury. District Judge Deborah Crooks yesterday forwarded a murder charge against Lisa Elliott to the grand jury, which meets June 14.
