There’s a running narrative that says good, well-paying jobs that don’t require a Bachelor’s degree have all but disappeared. Not so. Not, at least, according to an exhaustive state-by-state analysis conducted for “The Good Jobs Project,” a joint effort by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, and JPMorgan Chase. We, of course, are interested in what was found in Kentucky. So we’ve contacted Neil Ridley, the State Initiative Director and co-author of the Good Jobs Project report.

Eastern Kentucky University’s men’s basketball team hosts Northern Kentucky Saturday night in McBrayer Arena. The Norse men easily defeated the Colonels last year on their home court.

EKU comes into the evening contest, off a close two point win at home over University of South Carolina-Upstate.  NKU, meanwhile, comes to Richmond after losing to their across-the-river rival Cincinnati. 

A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report shows suicides and drug overdoses are contributing to a decline in the average life expectancy of Americans.   U.S. government data indicates the suicide death rate last year was the highest it’s been in at least half a century.

Meanwhile, a third season of the teen drama web television series “13 Reasons Why” is to be released in 2019.  The show focuses on teen suicide issues.  The intense on-line series has prompted debate regarding its impact on viewers.

Kentuckians age 19 and older now have an alternative to the traditional GED when it comes to earning a high school equivalency diploma.   Kentucky Skills U, formerly Kentucky Adult Education, can now award a high school equivalency diploma for credit hour completion at Kentucky Community and Technical College System institutions. 

If you have health insurance through your employer chances are, according to a new study from the Commonwealth Fund, that you costs have gone up in recent years.

On average, Kentucky employees put almost 13 percent of their yearly income toward health insurance expenses in 2017. That’s up from nearly eight and a half percent in 2008.

That’s a pretty big jump that mimics what’s happening nationally: employers are passing more health insurance costs onto employees as health care costs rise.

Beginning in January, Lexington’s Charles Young Community Center will be home to a new computer literacy program for Lexington Traditional Magnet School students.  It comes through technology benefits offered by a fiber optic telecommunications company.

Starting the first of the year, University of Kentucky engineering students will teach middle school students about digital literacy and eventually computer programming. 

Overdoses killed more than 70,000 Americans in 2017, the latest full-year count by the Centers for Disease Control. It’s the highest drug overdose death rate in the world. And nowhere has it been worse than in the Ohio Valley: West Virginia had the nation’s highest rate of fatal drug overdoses; Ohio was second; Kentucky, fifth.

Featured:

  The Kentucky Board of Education has approved new high school graduation requirements, mandating students demonstrate competency in basic math and reading, and complete benchmarks intended to show they are ready for work or college before they can graduate.

The legislature still has to sign off on the policy.

Most of the new requirements will go into effect for freshmen starting high school next fall and the full policy will take effect for subsequent classes.

Many board members criticized the measure for not going as far as an earlier proposal.

Lexington’s city council is working to make changes in the government’s Purchase of Development Rights program.  An audit report on the land preservation program got a review this week at city hall.

A spokeswoman for the Daniel Boone National forest says spray paint related vandalism in the U.S. forested area is an increasing problem.  Recent defacing of signage and boat ramps in the London area was reported this week. 

Daniel Boone Public Affairs Specialist Kim Bonaccorso says such vandalism is not limited to one area of the forest. “It’s hard to catch someone who comes to a remote area of the forest with a can of neon pink spray paint and decides to deface nature,” said Bonaccorso.