Updated: 7:41 AM Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has joined U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida in introducing legislation that would allow states to return unwanted federal funds to the Treasury to help pay down the national debt.

Posted: 2:52 PM Kentucky education commissioner Terry Holliday says the first 57 school districts that raise their dropout age from 16 to 18 will be given a $10,000 state grant.

Posted: 4:58 PM Former U.S. Rep. Ron Lewis has donated his congressional papers to Campbellsville University.

Updated: 8:56 PM A recording of a private campaign meeting at Senator Mitch McConnell's campaign headquarters has surfaced on the Internet.

Posted: 10:18 AM The U.S. government wants to try to do something about a growing trade in items such as elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn and is enlisting the help of another animal to accomplish that.

Updated: 7:42 AM A tea party activist has filed a lawsuit in Frankfort challenging the legality of the Kentucky Health Benefits Exchange that Gov. Steve Beshear approved last year by executive order.

Updated: 7:42 AM Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has raised nearly $12 million so far for his re-election bid, giving him an enormous head start over any potential Democratic challengers.

Updated: 10:29 PM Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear is betting the commonwealth's "finest bourbon and country ham" that the Louisville men's and women's basketball teams will rule all of college basketball this year.

Updated: 3:12 PM Dr. Michael T. Benson has been named president of Eastern Kentucky University.

Updated: 3:07 PM Kentucky law will now allow industrial hemp farming if the federal government ever lifts restrictions on the plant.

Updated: 4:38 PM Gov. Steve Beshear has signed legislation intended to shore up Kentucky's financially troubled pension plan for government retirees.

Posted: 4:24 PM Gov. Steve Beshear has signed legislation lifting a Prohibition-era ban on the sale of alcohol at restaurants, bars and retail stores on Election Day.

Posted: 3:27 PM The state will release nearly $2 million in low-interest loans to help a small southeastern Kentucky town stop the flow of human waste into the Cumberland River during rainstorms and to upgrade the town's water metering system.

Updated: 3:19 PM Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer is offering bourbon and some other trinkets to back up his wager that the University of Louisville men's and women's basketball teams will advance to the NCAA championship games.

Posted: 3:07 PM Dave Bunnell, the driving force behind making golf accessible to kids in Kentucky passed away this morning after a battle with cancer. He was 65 years old.

Posted: 2:23 PM The Eastern Kentucky Board of Regents is set to select a new university president from a group of three finalists.

Updated: 2:44 PM Describing it as a waste of taxpayer dollars, Agriculture Commissioner James Comer said he will shutter a $3 million gasoline quality testing lab that was opened under his predecessor Richie Farmer.

Updated: 5:07 PM An appeals court judge has been tapped to fill a vacancy on the Kentucky Supreme Court, a move that gives the high court three female justices among the seven members for the first time ever.

Updated: 4:57 PM The Kentucky Democratic Party is trying to use Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell's re-election bid as a catalyst to raise money even before a serious challenger gets into the race.

Posted: 11:24 AM Murray State President Randy Dunn says he supports investigating the possibility that the school's board of regents violated the state's Open Meetings Law during a gathering the night before they voted not to renew his contract.

Posted: 4:32 PM The state attorney general's office says the University of Kentucky's UK Healthcare violated the state's Open Records Act by denying records to WUKY-FM about a children's heart surgery program that's been put on hiatus.

Posted: 1:56 PM Gov. Steve Beshear has until Saturday to sign or veto a bill that would open the door to industrial hemp farming in Kentucky. So far, he hasn't said what he'll do.

Updated: 3:27 PM U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell has picked up endorsements from nearly all state-level Republican lawmakers in Kentucky.

Posted: 9:51 AM Rep. Steve Chabot of Cincinnati would seem an ideal Republican to be open to compromise with President Barack Obama.

Updated: 5:01 PM A federal judge is allowing attorneys for Appalachian Regional Healthcare to add the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as a defendant in the health care chain's lawsuit against the managed-care company Coventry and the state of Kentucky.