Rick Howlett

A formal announcement is expected next month that Louisville is getting a professional soccer team.

Architect Wayne Estopinal is among a group of local investors behind a plan to bring the successful Orlando City franchise to Louisville.           

Mayor Greg Fischer’s new budget proposal includes a $581,000 appropriation to make Slugger Field soccer compatible.

Estopinal says the soccer team would begin play at the ballpark next spring.

The University of Kentucky Wildcats are preparing for their matchup against Wisconsin Saturday night in the men’s NCAA Final Four.     

UK advanced to the national semifinals Saturday with a three-point victory over Michigan.   

Some had begun to give up hope of any UK tournament success as far back as early March, when the slumping Wildcats lost at 10-18 South Carolina.        

In a $16 billion deal this week, Japanese beverage giant Suntory announced it plans to purchase Beam Inc., the maker of Jim Beam bourbon and the owner of other popular bourbon brands like Maker's Mark.

Those and most other bourbons are made in Kentucky, and the deal has some hoping the drink's growth in the global market won't come at the expense of its uniquely Kentucky heritage.

The University of Louisville’s 2014 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order goes to a professor and researcher for his writings on nuclear proliferation.

Jacques Hymans is associate professor of international relations at the University of Southern California.  He’s being honored for his 2012 book, "Achieving Nuclear Ambitions: Scientists, Politicians and Proliferation."

One of the legends of Kentucky’s bourbon industry has died.

Longtime master distiller Lincoln Henderson died Tuesday at the age of 75.

Henderson spent 40 years as master distiller for Louisville-based Brown-Forman Corporation, helping develop brands such as Woodford Reserve and Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel.

Henderson came out of retirement in 2006 to start a new brand, Angel’s Envy, with his son and grandson.

The University of Louisville baseball team is preparing for the program’s first College World Series appearance since 2007, and just the second in school history.       

This will be the first trip to the tournament in Omaha, Nebraska for coach Dan McDonnell’s players, but he’s been there twice, both as a player (with the Citadel in 1990) and a coach (U of L in '07).

University of Louisville fans have had a lot to cheer about lately — and not just basketball.

Monday's big victory by Louisville's men's basketball team over Michigan is just the latest success for the school and for an athletic department that is quickly becoming one of the country's most admired.

In January, the football team upset fourth-ranked Florida to win the Sugar Bowl, and coach Charlie Strong turned down a lucrative offer from the University of Tennessee to continue rebuilding the Louisville program.