Kenny Colston (KPR)

Kentucky will shut down an expensive fuel testing lab run by the Department of Agriculture. The lab was meant to test the quality of fuel from pumps across the commonwealth. It was the brainchild of former Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer, who promised other states would eventually sign contracts with the lab and generate significant revenue…but those contracts never materialized and so far, the lab has been a money guzzler.

In a historic appointment, Governor Steve Beshear has named Court of Appeals Judge Michelle M. Keller of Fort Mitchell to the Kentucky Supreme Court.

The appointment increases the number of women on the state's highest court to three. It is the first time the state Supreme Court has had three female justices on the bench.

Many of the bills Kentucky lawmakers passed in the final hours of this year's legislative session are still awaiting action by Gov. Steve Beshear. Beshear has not yet signed or vetoed high-profile bills that would prepare Kentucky to grow industrial hemp, allow alcohol sales on election day and simplify voting for military service members stationed overseas.

With more than a year before the next elections, new political action committee has formed to help Republicans gain control of the Kentucky state House.

The PAC—Pro-Jobs, Pro-Kentucky—was formed earlier this month by Scott Jennings, a longtime Kentucky  GOP political operative and Mike Adams, a former political director for the Republican Governor's Association.

With the Kentucky General Assembly adjourned for the year, a look into lobbying spending during the session shows major dollars are still used to influence issues.

During the first two months of this year's session, a total of $4.2 million was spent lobbying. That's a 10 percent increase over the last 30-day session in 2011, according to Legislative Ethics Commission.

 The key issue for a new Louisville-based political action committee is candidates' use of reproductive rights as a campaign issue.

Reproductive Rights for Kentucky PAC was born from the recent controversy when University of Louisville Hospital attempted to merge with Denver-based Catholic Health Initiatives. Critics of the merger raised concerns about CHI's adherence to Catholic religious directives—that certain reproductive health practices, such as tubal ligations, wouldn't be permitted at University Hospital.

Kentucky legislative leaders say they're proud of the 2013, with legislators having accomplished pension reforms, cleaned up other bills and passed others dealing with hemp, special taxing district and military voting.

Many of the legislature's top priorities were passed in the 30-day session, although most of them were hatched as last minutes deals in the waning days of the session.

Kentucky lawmakers have overridden a gubernatorial veto of the so-called religious freedom bill on the last day of the legislative session.

Supporters of House Bill 279 say it would re-establish previous laws protecting religious freedom in Kentucky and that it would not overturn fairness laws. But opponents challenge that, saying the bill invites discrimination on the basis of religious beliefs.

Kentucky military personnel serving overseas will be able to get ballots electronically under legislation approved late Tuesday in the Kentucky General Assembly. How they send them back is still to be determined.

Working until the last minute of the 2013 session, legislators went back to theoriginal Senate version of the military voting bill that allowed for electronic sending of ballots to overseas military, but snail mail return of the ballot.

Kentucky lawmakers have achieved a compromise that would set up a regulatory framework should the federal government legalize industrial hemp.

The so-called hemp bill—Senate Bill 50—gives control of licensing of future hemp farmers to the Industrial Hemp Commission, but allow the Kentucky State Police to do background checks on the farmers.