Todd Hatton

The Kentucky Office of Employment and Training said the commonwealth’s April unemployment rate has fallen 0.3 percent from a year ago and has dropped a tenth of a point from March 2013.

Kentucky’s 7.9 percent rate reflects a similar trend in national numbers over the same period. 

Sen. Rand Paul, R. Ky., opened his presidential exploration tour Friday with a series of speaking engagements in Iowa.

Paul will then address a party banquet in New Hampshire and round out May with a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. He returns to Iowa in June, then heads to a South Carolina fundraiser.

The Murray State Board of Regents again voted 7-4 against renewing President Randy Dunn’s contract this morning. The vote came after controversy surrounding a social gathering prior to the March meeting of the board. The Kentucky attorney general later determined the gathering was an illegal business meeting after a Lexington attorney filed an open meetings complaint.

The U.S. Supreme Court has given Illinois' attorney general more time to decide whether to appeal their ruling that the state's ban on the public possession of firearms is unconstitutional.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan now has until June 24 to ask the high court to hear the case.

Clarksville police have arrested four suspects, including a state prosecutor's adult son, in a home invasion robbery. The Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle reports John Wesley Carney III was booked into the Montgomery County Jail Friday, charged with robbery and kidnapping.

A Christians-only medical program that had been banned in Kentucky is expected to resume operations next month, unless officials at the state's Department of Insurance decide to continue a decade-long legal fight.

The Kentucky General Assembly passed a law in March exempting Florida-based cost-sharing ministry Medi-Share from regulations applying to traditional insurance companies. That was done in response to a Franklin County Circuit judge's order barring Medi-Share from the commonwealth.

The Governor's Office of Early Childhood is making nearly $200,000 available to strengthen early childhood advisory councils and to promote school readiness. 

The money is being divvied up in grants of nearly $50,000 each to fund four regional initiatives to improve education and health services for Kentucky's youngest citizens. 

Gov. Steve Beshear announced Wednesday that Clinton, Adair, Cumberland and Russell counties will share one of the grants. Morehead State University will work with Bracken, Lewis, Lawrence and Martin counties on another. Madison, Estill, Powell and Lee counties also will receive a grant, as will Todd, Christian, Muhlenberg and Hopkins counties.

The Kentucky State Democratic Executive Committee has reported that it raised nearly $58,000 in March.  That's according to paperwork filed with the Federal Election Commission last week. 

The organization has been filing monthly reports with the FEC, disclosing its fundraising and spending. The latest report, which covers a period from March 1 through March 31, shows disbursements of nearly $62,000. It also shows the organization has just less than $42,000 remaining in the bank. 

Illinois' 102 county recorders will split $3.3 million from the settlement of a national mortgage lawsuit. 

Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced the disbursement of funds on Wednesday.  Madigan and 45 other attorneys general reached the settlement with Florida-based Lender Processing Services Inc. in January. 

The attorneys general alleged the company used widespread "robo-signing" of mortgage documents to service loans for homeowners at risk of foreclosure. They said an LPS subsidiary took part in "surrogate signing," in which an unauthorized person signed documents in someone else's name. 

A group opposing legalized medical marijuana in Illinois says there are dangers in allowing patients access to the drug.

The American Society for Addiction Medicine and a former Drug Enforcement Administration official are among those who say there are FDA-approved options patients can take instead. They also claim patients could end up with a surplus, which could find its way into the wrong hands.