Kentucky

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Officials Confirm Body Found Near Site of Kentucky Highway Shooting Was Suspect’s

      by

      The identification, made through DNA testing, affirmed the belief of officials. The body was discovered Wednesday after a 12-day manhunt.DNA testing of a body found this week near the site of a Kentucky highway shooting that led to an extensive manhunt confirmed the identity as the suspect, officials said on Friday.Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said in a release that the body belonged to Joseph A. Couch, 32, who authorities said shot at passing vehicles on Interstate 75 near London, a city about an hour south of Lexington. The attack on Sept. 7 seriously injured five people and hit a dozen vehicles with bullets.Authorities had expressed confidence on Wednesday, when the body was discovered, that it had belonged to the suspect, but Friday’s confirmation officially brought closure to the case. An autopsy revealed that the cause of death appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot to the head, the authorities said.The state’s chief medical examiner, William Ralston, said in the release that the commonwealth could now “move forward from this tragic situation.”The attack led to an intense manhunt of nearly two weeks across tens of thousands of acres of densely forested land near where the shooting occurred, leaving the local community in fear. Several schools canceled classes, and the police stepped up their presence at sporting events, bus routes and other places where people gathered.On the 12th day of the pursuit, the authorities announced that they, along with a married couple who had been searching for the suspect on their own, had found a body in a dense brush behind the highway exit where the shooting took place. Items were found with the body, including a weapon, that the authorities believed belonged to Mr. Couch.According to the release, officials were initially unable to identify the body through a soft tissue DNA test because of the “extreme decomposition” of the body. (It is unclear how long the body had been there before it was discovered.) Instead, they used DNA extracted from a bone to confirm the identity, the release said.The motive for the attack remains unclear. According to court records, Mr. Couch, who served in the Army Reserve, had several charges on his criminal record, including an arrest where he was charged with terroristic threatening in February. More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Five People Shot on I-75 in Kentucky, Officials Say

      by

      The victims were in stable condition, the authorities said. What led up to the shooting on I-75 near London, Ky., was not immediately clear.A section of a Kentucky highway was closed for several hours on Saturday night after five people were shot, the authorities said.What led up to the shooting was not immediately clear. All five shooting victims were in stable condition, said a spokesman for the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office, Deputy Gilbert Acciardo.The Laurel County Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook that the shooting happened on I-75, which was closed at Exit 49, nine miles north of London, Ky. It said just after 6:30 p.m. that the highway was closed “due to an active shooter situation,” but did not elaborate.Randall Weddle, the mayor of London, said in a Facebook video said the authorities were searching for a “suspect or suspects” in “rugged terrain” in the northern part of Laurel County.Deputy Acciardo said helicopters and infrared scanners were being used to search for the gunman in the woods.The London Police Department said on Saturday night that a person of interest had been identified and asked the public for any information about his whereabouts. The city of London is about 90 miles south of Lexington.Just after 9:20 p.m., the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook that while I-75 had reopened, the search for the suspect would continue. Angel Jarrett was working at the 49er Truck Stop when someone told her that shots had been fired nearby.Eventually, multiple police cars surrounded the truck stop near the exit where the shooting took place and placed the facility on lockdown.“We’re not allowed to go in or out,” Ms. Jarrett said. “It’s a little panicky but we’re OK. They’re surrounding us, the cops are.”Saint Joseph London, a hospital in London that is a part of CHI Saint Joseph Health, said that it had “received multiple patients and is treating them for minor injuries.”Two patients were being treated at the University of Kentucky’s Albert B. Chandler Hospital, a spokeswoman said. Their conditions were unknown.The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said on social media that it was sending agents from its Louisville office to help the State Police and local authorities “with a critical incident” near Interstate 75 in Laurel County.Yan Zhuang More

    • 175 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      First Jan. 6 Rioter to Enter Capitol Gets More Than 4 Years in Prison

      by

      Michael Sparks, 47, was the first rioter to breach the Capitol and among the first to be confronted by the U.S. Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman.The first rioter to breach the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced Tuesday to more than four years in prison, federal prosecutors announced.In March, a federal jury found Michael Sparks, 47, of Elizabethtown, Ky., guilty on felony charges of obstructing an official proceeding and civil disorder and several misdemeanor charges for being on the premises of the Capitol building on Jan. 6.On Tuesday, Judge Timothy J. Kelly of U.S. District Court in Washington sentenced him to 53 months in prison and ordered him to pay a $2,000 fine. Mr. Sparks will be on supervised release for three years after his prison term ends, prosecutors said.Video footage presented in court showed that Mr. Sparks entering the Capitol building at 2:13 p.m. on Jan. 6 through a window near a door leading into the Senate Wing that rioters had smashed with a police shield.Mr. Sparks was among the initial group of rioters who were confronted by Eugene Goodman, a Capitol Police officer, who helped hold off the mob from reaching members of Congress.The rioters chased Mr. Goodman up a flight of stairs as they demanded to know where Congress was certifying the results of the election, prosecutors said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 188 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Man Who U.S. Says Faked Death to Avoid Child Support Gets 81 Months in Prison

      by

      The man, Jesse Kipf, hacked into state death registry systems to fake his own death in part to avoid paying more than $100,000 in child support, federal prosecutors said.A Kentucky man who prosecutors say hacked into state death registry systems to fake his own death — in part to avoid paying more than $100,000 in child support — was sentenced on Monday to 81 months in federal prison, the authorities said.According to federal prosecutors, the man, Jesse Kipf, 39, of Somerset, Ky., hacked into the Hawaii Death Registry System in January 2023 with the username and password of a doctor living in another state to create and certify his own death certificate.“This resulted in Kipf being registered as a deceased person in many government databases,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky said in a news release on Tuesday. “Kipf admitted that he faked his own death, in part, to avoid his outstanding child support obligations.”In an arrangement with prosecutors, Mr. Kipf pleaded guilty in April to one count of computer fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. Under the deal, other charges against him were dropped.Prosecutors, who cited Mr. Kipf’s criminal history, recommended a sentence of 84 months in prison, while his lawyer recommended 72 months. Both sides agreed that Mr. Kipf should pay $195,758.65 to cover child support he had failed to pay as well as damages related to government and corporate computer systems.Mr. Kipf, who was born in Hawaii, was divorced in 2008 in California and owed more than $116,000 in child support obligations to his daughter and her mother, according to court documents.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Kentucky’s governor clears schedule for Harris VP announcement, stoking speculation

      by

      Andy Beshear, the governor of Kentucky, canceled a planned appearance in the western part of his state on Friday with no official explanation, intensifying speculation over whether Kamala Harris might choose him as her running mate.Beshear’s schedule change is far from a guarantee that Harris will select him considering that Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro, another name on the shortlist of potential running-mates, also canceled a fundraising trip planned for this weekend amid reports that Harris was interviewing a number of vice-presidential candidate contenders over the weekend.Shapiro is widely viewed as a frontrunner in the veepstakes, as Democrats hope he could help deliver the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, but Beshear’s supporters insist he is best positioned to sway independent voters in the presidential race. According to a recent Morning Consult survey, Beshear has the highest approval rating of any Democratic governor in the country, with 67% of Kentuckians holding a favorable impression of him.Beshear’s popularity is all the more astounding given the political leanings of his state. In 2020, Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden by 26 points in Kentucky, and no Democratic presidential candidate has carried the state since 1996.Despite those significant hurdles, Beshear won re-election to a second term last year by five points, besting the then Republican attorney general, Daniel Cameron. The victory came four years after Beshear defeated a deeply unpopular Republican incumbent, Matt Bevin, by just 0.4 points. The surprise victory was made possible in part because of Beshear’s high name recognition, as his father, Steve Beshear, served as Kentucky’s governor for two terms.Beshear’s strong performance last year was credited to his consistent leadership of the state through the coronavirus pandemic and multiple natural disasters. The governor pitched himself as a hard-working executive capable of rising above politics to do what is right for his state, an argument that he has reiterated at Harris campaign events in recent days.At a rally in Georgia last weekend, Beshear contrasted himself with Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance, who grew up in Ohio but touted his family connections to Kentucky in his memoir Hillbilly Elegy.“I mean, there’s a county that JD Vance says he’s from in Kentucky – and I won it by 22 points last November,” Beshear said.While Beshear emphasized his experience as he sought re-election last year, he also cast a spotlight on one of the social issues that may decide the presidential race: abortion access. A year after Kentucky voters rejected a ballot measure stipulating that the state constitution did not protect reproductive rights, Beshear capitalized on his opponent’s anti-abortion views in a searing campaign ad.The ad featured a woman named Hadley Duvall, who shared that she was raped by her stepfather when she was 12. Duvall condemned Cameron’s support for an abortion ban as a severe threat to Kentuckians.“Anyone who believes there should be no exceptions for rape and incest could never understand what it’s like to stand in my shoes,” Duvall said in the ad. “To tell a 12-year-old girl she must have the baby of her stepfather who raped her is unthinkable. I’m speaking out because women and girls need to have options. Daniel Cameron would give us none.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEven though Beshear leaned into the issue of abortion access during his campaign, reproductive rights groups have questioned his record. They note that Beshear often focuses on pregnancies involving rape or incest when he discusses abortion and that his lieutenant governor, Jacqueline Coleman, previously described herself as “a pro-life compassionate Democrat”. (Coleman has more recently endorsed Harris and condemned the overturning of Roe v Wade.)Speaking to reporters in Georgia last weekend, Beshear forcefully rejected any suggestion that he was weak on reproductive rights. He reminded them of his multiple vetoes of anti-abortion bills, even though some of those proposals were enacted anyway because of the Republican supermajority in the state legislature.“I’m the first Democrat in Kentucky that has ever run an abortion ad​​ during an election,” he told reporters. “I’ve stood up every single time, knowing that it would be one of the No 1 attacks on me.”Questions over Beshear’s stance on abortion could play an important role in Harris’s deliberations, as she has placed a heavy emphasis on the issue since formally launching her campaign last week. But if Beshear joins Harris’s ticket, he will probably follow the example of his predecessors by embracing the agenda of the presidential nominee.Harris’s announcement is expected no later than Tuesday, when she will appear at a rally in Pennsylvania with her new running mate. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Supreme Court Will Hear Challenge to Tennessee Law Banning Transition Care for Minors

      by

      The move comes as states around the country have pushed to curtail transgender rights.The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether a Tennessee law that bans certain medical treatments for transgender minors violates the Constitution.The move means the court will for the first time hear arguments on the issue of medical care for transgender youth.The Biden administration had asked the justices to take up the case, United States v. Skrmetti, arguing that the measure outlaws treatment for gender dysphoria in youths and “frames that prohibition in explicitly sex-based terms.”In the government’s petition to the court, Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar wrote that the law bans transgender medical care but that it “leaves the same treatments entirely unrestricted if they are prescribed for any other purpose.”Federal courts have splintered over laws aimed at blocking transition care, intensifying pressure on the Supreme Court to intervene. The justices have considered whether to take up the appeals at their private conference each week, but they had repeatedly postponed making a decision.The move comes as states around the country have pushed to curtail transgender rights. Conservative lawmakers have prioritized legislation in recent years that targets gender-transition care and at least 20 Republican-led states have enacted measures restricting access to such medical care for minors.It is also part of a broader effort at legislation aimed at regulating other parts of life, including laws about which bathrooms students and others can use and which sports teams they can play on.This spring, the justices temporarily allowed Idaho to enforce a state ban that limited medical treatment for transgender youth. The law, passed by the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature, makes it a felony for doctors to provide transgender medical care for minors, including hormone treatment.The decision in that case, which came to the justices as an emergency application, appeared to split largely along ideological lines, with the court’s liberals dissenting.Along with Idaho, the justices had been asked to weigh in on legislation in Kentucky and Tennessee.The Tennessee measure bans health care providers from offering transition care to minors, including puberty blockers and hormone treatments.The Kentucky law, known as S.B. 150, bans doctors from providing gender-transition surgery or administering puberty blockers or hormone therapy to people under 18.In June 2023, federal judges in both states, in separate rulings, temporarily blocked the laws days before key parts of the laws were set to go into effect.Shortly after, a divided panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit overturned the lower court decision, reinstating the bans. Plaintiffs in Kentucky and Tennessee appealed to the Supreme Court. More

    • 50 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Tornado Devastates Arkansas Town

      by

      Rogers, Ark., was one of many places hit hard by the rash of storms over Memorial Day weekend across the South.Melisa Swearingen woke up early on Sunday morning as a tornado bore down on her home in the northwestern corner of Arkansas. As she raced down the stairs with her toddler, she looked out the window and saw a 40-foot tree falling toward the house.“The whole house was shaking like a roller coaster,” Ms. Swearingen said in an interview outside her home. “I thought, This was it.”But the tree smashed through a room above the family’s garage, giving her time to gather her 7-year-old son. As another tree crushed the other side of the home, she, her husband and their children huddled in a first-floor bedroom. “I thought the house would be torn open and we’d get suctioned up,” Ms. Swearingen, 35, said.Nearby, Byron Copeland, 38, had sent his wife, their three children and the family dogs to the basement, while he monitored the storm. Then came the terrifying booms of exploding electrical transformers. “I ran toward the basement like a little girl,” Mr. Copeland said. As they waited for the weather to pass, he said, the family sang the lullaby “Jesus Loves Me.”The Swearingens and the Copelands were among the millions of families whose lives were upended by the rash of tornadoes that ravaged parts of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Kentucky over Memorial Day weekend. At least 23 people were killed, including eight people in Arkansas. Melisa Swearingen, second from left, stood amid debris being removed from her front yard on Monday.Melyssa St. Michael for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      What to Watch in Primaries in Georgia, Kentucky, Idaho and Oregon

      by

      Voters are headed to the polls on Tuesday in several states. In California’s 20th Congressional District, the most conservative in the state, two Republicans will face off in a special election to determine who will temporarily fill the seat of Representative Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted as House speaker last year and then resigned. The winner will serve until January, when the next Congress is sworn in. Vince Fong, a state lawmaker and onetime aide to Mr. McCarthy, had a significant lead in the primary. He will face Mike Boudreaux, the longtime sheriff of Tulare County. (They will face each other again in the fall in the quest for a full term.)Georgia, Kentucky, Oregon and Idaho have primary contests today. In Kentucky and Oregon, voters will also weigh in on the presidential primaries, raising the possibility of protest votes against both President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump.Here is what else to watch.The Trump prosecutor Fani Willis will be on the ballot in Georgia.Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, will face a challenger in the Democratic primary for her position. Her opponent is Christian Wise Smith, a lawyer who placed third in the primary against Ms. Willis in 2020 and was defeated in the 2022 Democratic primary for attorney general in Georgia.Scott McAfee, the judge overseeing Mr. Trump’s trial in Georgia, is also in a competitive race against Robert Patillo II, a civil rights lawyer and radio host. A third candidate, Tiffani Johnson, was disqualified and is fighting that decision.A progressive vies for a rematch in a swing district in OregonJamie McLeod-Skinner, a progressive challenger, knocked out a moderate seven-term Democratic representative in Oregon’s Fifth Congressional District during the 2022 primaries, but ultimately lost to her Republican opponent, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, by a two-point margin — a result that contributed to Republicans’ taking a thin majority in the House that year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More