Kick Off The Week With Kentucky News – November 11th, 2013

BILLIONAIRE'S COAL DEBTS

Equipment maker sues W.Va. billionaire's companies

(Information in the following story is from: The Charleston Gazette, http://www.wvgazette.com)

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A coal mine equipment maker and seven companies owned by West Virginia billionaire Jim Justice are involved in a legal dispute over payments.

Beckley-based Phillips Machine Services sued the Justice-owned companies last month in Raleigh County Circuit Court. Phillips and a Kentucky-based subsidiary, The Combs Group, allege that the companies owe them more than $1 million.

Justice filed a counter-suit on Friday seeking $7.5 million from the plaintiffs.

Justice tells the Charleston Gazette that the counter-suit involves services that his companies believe the plaintiffs should have done but didn't.

An attorney representing Phillips, Marc Weintraub, says his client has no comment.

KENTUCKY CROPS

Ky. corn, soybean crops on pace for records

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky's bumper corn and soybean crops appear headed toward record heights for production. It's a dramatic turnaround from last year's struggles for grain farmers, weighed down by a combination of drought and extreme heat.

Statewide corn production is forecast to reach a record 247 million bushels, up 138 percent from last year's production, according to a report Friday from the National Agricultural Statistics Service's field office in Kentucky.

Corn yield is estimated at 173 bushels per acre, up 105 bushels from last year.

Soybean production in the state is forecast at a record 80.4 million bushels, up 37 percent from last year. Yield is pegged at 49 bushels an acre — 9 bushels above last year's crop.

SOLDIERS' MEMORIAL

Soldiers' memorial to be rededicated

NEWPORT, Ky. (AP) — A treasured remnant of a neighborhood that was demolished years ago to make way for development is returning to Newport.

The Kentucky Enquirer reports a memorial to seven soldiers from the old Cote Brilliante neighborhood who died in World War II will be rededicated on Veterans Day.

The treasure vanished in 2005, as houses in Cote Brilliante were being knocked down.

As it turned out, an elderly man who had revered the memorial swiped it from the site, trying to save it from being demolished.

Tom Guidugli, executive director of Newport's Neighborhood Foundations, has led the effort to refurbish and rededicate the memorial.

He said when word got out in the community that the plaque was missing, Guidugli, then mayor of Newport, received a call from a member of the gentleman's family and retrieved it.

EDUCATIONAL JUSTICE

Tutoring group helps low-income students

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Moshe Ohayon founded the Louisville Tutoring Agency in St. Matthews in 2005, attracting students from families who can afford to pay up to $100 per hour for extra help to get through school or to prepare for college entrance exams.

In the evenings, Ohayon volunteered at the Catholic Enrichment Center in western Louisville, tutoring less well-off students who, he found, had significant lapses in understanding of basic concepts.

Those students didn't have the resources to pay for years of one-on-one tutoring.

So three years ago, Ohayon started Educational Justice, a nonprofit that provides, for free, a small group of disadvantaged students in Louisville with the same rigorous, multiyear tutoring that his students in the tutoring agency receive.

COLD CASE DEATH

Trial set for woman charged in cold case death

(Information in the following story is from: The Daily News Journal, http://www.dnj.com)

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (AP) — A trial date has been set for a woman accused of killing her business partner and roommate in 1979.

The Daily News Journal reports the trial of 65-year-old Christel Ann Perkins is set to begin on Feb. 10, 2014. Perkins was arrested in 2010 after being indicted by a Middle Tennessee grand jury in the death of 30-year-old Jorja L. Walter.

The women were cousins who had grown up together in West Liberty, Ky. They were living in Murfreesboro and running CJ Strippers, a furniture stripping business, when the shooting occurred.

Police initially determined it was an accidental shooting. They reopened the case in 2010 after investigators found discrepancies in statements made in 1979 and physical evidence.

Perkins has pleaded not guilty.

BLUE BRIDGE DELAY

Opening of Glover H. Cary 'Blue Bridge' delayed

(Information in the following story is from: Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer, http://www.messenger-inquirer.com)

OWENSBORO, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky state officials say the opening of a bridge that connects Owensboro, Ky., to southern Indiana has been delayed to give the contractor painting it time to finish this year.

According to the Messenger-Inquirer, the Glover H. Cary Bridge, known simply as the "blue bridge," was supposed to open by mid-November.

A Kentucky Transportation Cabinet news release states the contractor brought in extra crews this fall in an attempt to complete the two-year project in one construction season.

But over the last few months, state inspectors asked for an extra $150,000 in repairs to a number of beams and joints and also ordered additional concrete repairs on the bridge deck.

However, officials say the contractor is running about six months ahead of schedule, which will probably eliminate the need for lane restrictions in 2014.