Whitney Jones

Paducah Power System residential customers may have another rate increase starting in April.

PPS spokeswoman Andrea Underwood says the proposed residential 7.5 percent jump would begin April 1. This proposed increase follows a 5 percent November increase. PPS is also proposing another rate increase in April 2014 for its residential customers.

A fire damaged the Christian County Animal Shelter Monday morning. The county’s Emergency Management Director Randy Graham says all of the animals survived the fire. He also says there is some structural damage to one wing and the offices in the building.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has given the Earlington Fire Department almost $393,000 to better protect the public.

The City of Mayfield could possibly ban smoking in public. This comes after a statewide ban failed in the Kentucky House.

Mayor Teresa Cantrell says there’s wide community support for a smoking ban. She says a public survey showed only 2 out of the 70 respondents were against a ban. Cantrell says a smoking ban wouldn’t just benefit a business’s patrons.

This year’s Empty Bowls Project came to an end this week with the charity’s coordinator handing a $20,000 check to Paducah’s Community Kitchen.

That amount is $1,200 less than last year even though the event’s coordinator Michael Terra says an additional 200 people showed. He says the contribution decrease was due to increased operating costs.

An economic development magazine has ranked Kentucky 10th in the nation for new and expanded industry in 2012.

Site Selection magazine reports that Kentucky added 14,000 jobs and invested $2.7 billion in new industry activity last year. The state also generated 196 projects that involved at least a $1 million investment, created at least 50 jobs or added at least 20,000 square feet of new floor space. The top state was Texas, with 761 projects that met those terms.

Kentucky's primary and secondary educators can voice their opinions about their working conditions until March 29 in the state’s second Teaching, Empowering, Leading and Learning survey. The TELL survey gathers information from teachers, counselors, principals and administrators about school leadership, community support, professional development and other issues. The online survey is voluntary and confidential, but schools that have a response rate of 50 percent of higher will be entered into a drawing for $1,000.

A Madisonville woman whose daughter was kidnapped more than 17 years ago is suing the Kentucky State Police, Henderson Police Department, FBI and others involved in the unsolved case.

Sarah Teague 's suit alleges malfeasance in the case of her missing daughter Heather Teague  who disappeared in August 1995 from a Henderson County beach. In Teague's hand-written complaint she accuses law enforcement of not doing enough to solve her daughter's kidnapping.

The Great Depression, along with floods and a severe drought in the 1930s, left many Kentucky families with the difficult decision to keep their hungry children or send them away to a place where they could be taken care of and fed. For at least one orphanage in Jefferson County, that meant overcrowding, and eventually the children’s home began sending orphans across the state on westbound trains.

From NPR: Many fruit and nut farmers rely on honeybee hives to pollinate and continue growing their crop, but the honeybees just can’t do the work by themselves anymore. They need the help of other wild bees to get the job done. Those other bees, though, are disappearing, and it’s puzzling scientists.