Kenny Colston (KPR)

Governor Steve Beshear has signed more bills that passed the General Assembly this session.

Lawmakers will return to Frankfort Thursday to try and override any potential vetoes, but so far, the governor hasn’t vetoed anything. He has, however, approved more than a dozen bills since lawmakers left Frankfort late last month.

When the current Kentucky legislative session ends this week, many issues will be left on the table for future years.

One of those issues is charter schools. Kentucky is among nine states without charters, and the push to change that has been polarizing in Frankfort. A compromise to create a pilot charter project was close to passage last month, but it fell apart.

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear has signed a bill into law that gives tax incentives to automakers in Kentucky.

The new law allows manufacturers and suppliers to tap the incentives if they have 1,000 employees, have been in business in Kentucky for at least five years and are willing to invest $100 million in the state. The law is an extension of a 2007 program that allowed Ford to invest more than one billion dollars into its two Louisville plants to expand the workforce and re-tool assembly lines.

Kentucky’s lawmakers were in veto recess this week, where the Governor looks over proposed legislation and signs or vetos. Kentucky Public Radio’s Capitol Bureau Chief Kenny Colston speaks with Rick Howlett about what happens during the recess week and what’s ahead for the state budget.

President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign opens its first Kentucky office tomorrow in Louisville with an open house. Spokesman Frank Benenati says the president is serious about competing in all fifty states.

"As we did in 2008 we're going to be playing in all 50 states. And we're in the business of expanding the electorate. From Kentucky to New York to Arizona and everywhere else we're going to be reaching out to folks telling the story of the president's successes and contrasting that with what the Republicans would like to do."

A bill to help students from coal mining counties in Kentucky finish their education is once again in limbo. House Bill 260 creates a fund to give college juniors and seniors scholarships to finish their degrees at schools in coal-producing counties. The bill didn’t pass before lawmakers adjourned for a veto recess last week, leaving only one day for both chambers to approve the measure. House Speaker Greg Stumbo says he’s not sure why the Senate didn’t vote on the bill.

As primary campaigns in Kentucky warm up, the highest-profile one is turning into a responsibility blame game.

State Representative Alecia Webb-Edgington is six Republicans vying to replace outgoing Fourth Congressional District Congressman Geoff Davis.

And one of her opponents, Boone County Judge-Executive Gary Moore, is criticizing Webb-Edgington for missing crucial votes on the state budget last week.

Confusion and last-minute lobbying have potentially derailed what some Kentucky lawmakers considered the hallmark of the current legislative session.

House Bill 4 is better known as the prescription pill bill. It's centerpiece is the transfer of the KASPER drug tracking system to the attorney general’s office.

Late last week, it appeared lawmakers had struck a last-minute deal to pass the bill before this week's recess. But confusion about which amended version of HB4 was up for a vote mired them in procedural minutiae.

This week, Kentucky’s legislature did something it hasn’t done in quite some time. That’s agreeing to a state budget without the need of a special session.   Kentucky Public Radio Capitol Bureau Chief Kenny Colston speaks with Rick Howlett about what else happened this past week in Frankfort. 

Kentucky lawmakers are unlikely to approve new two-year and six-year road plans in time to override any gubernatorial vetoes.

The conference committee working on the plans did not come to a compromise late last night, significantly decreasing the potential for a deal today.

The plans fund many projects, including the widening of Interstate 65, the expansion of the Mountain Parkway and portions of the Ohio River Bridges Project in Louisville.