Wednesday’s Kentucky News – November 19, 2013

LABOR SECRETARY

US labor chief visiting Louisville

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez will be in Louisville to visit a technical training center and participate in a minimum-wage round-table discussion.

The Wednesday visit will begin in the afternoon at the Kentucky Manufacturing Career Center. Perez is scheduled to learn about the skills training initiatives going on there. The center is funded in part by a career training grant from the U.S. Labor Department.

Later Perez will take part in a round-table discussion with local workers on the need for an increased federal minimum wage. That will take place at the Office Environment Co. in downtown Louisville. Perez will answer questions from media after the discussion.

EDUCATION SUMMIT

Education groups to focus on school funding

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Education advocates will meet Thursday to discuss funding for Kentucky schools at a summit sponsored by the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence and the Kentucky Education Action Team.

The meeting, set for 10 a.m. EST Thursday at Embassy Suites in Lexington, will include presentations from numerous education experts.

Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday is slated to discuss school funding issues. And Lt. Gov. Jerry Abramson will talk about tax reform efforts.

Some of the state's top education advocacy groups will be involved, including the Kentucky Association of School Administrators, the Kentucky School Boards Association, the Kentucky PTA and the Kentucky Education Association.

The meeting comes less than two months ahead of the next legislative session, slated to begin on Jan. 7.

KENTUCKY SENATE-OFFENSIVE TWEET

GOP tweets altered image of Grimes as 'Obama Girl'

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — The National Republican Senatorial Committee says disciplinary action has been taken against a junior staffer who tweeted an "extremely offensive" photo-shopped image of Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes.

The image shows Grimes' face superimposed on the body of "Obama Girl," a model who made racy videos about her crush on then-Sen. Barack Obama in 2007. The woman is wearing a snug-fitting Obama T-shirt with her midriff showing.

Grimes is the Democratic front-runner for her party's nomination to take on U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell also faces a GOP primary challenger, Louisville businessman Matt Bevin.

In a statement, Grimes condemned the tweet as "sexist."

NRSC spokeswoman Brook Hougesen called the tweet "extremely offensive" and said Tuesday that steps have been taken to ensure that such an occurrence never happens again.

TERRORISM CHARGES-APPEAL

Appeals court weighing case of imprisoned Iraqi

CINCINNATI (AP) — A federal appeals court is weighing the case of an Iraqi man sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to terrorism charges.

Judges from the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati heard arguments Tuesday in the case of 25-year-old Mohanad Shareef Hammadi, who claims his prison sentence should be reduced. Prosecutors opposed any reduction.

A co-defendant, 32-year-old Waad Ramadan Alwan, received a 40-year sentence in January.

Hammadi and Alwan pleaded guilty in 2011 and 2012 to conspiring to ship thousands in cash, machine guns, rifles, grenades and shoulder-fired missiles to al-Qaida in Iraq in 2010 and 2011. Prosecutors said the two were working with an informant.

Both were arrested in May 2011 in Bowling Green after a sting operation.

Hammadi is in a maximum-security prison in Colorado.

KENTUCKY'S DYNAMIC DUO

Ky. provides power players to Washington politics

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A small southern state, Kentucky had been nearly invisible on the national stage for decades.

But that's changed during the tenures of Republicans Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, one the U.S. Senate minority leader, the other a tea party champion and potential GOP presidential contender.

The two are fixtures on Sunday morning talk shows. They're sought-after headliners for GOP fundraisers across the country. Their words and actions are chronicled daily in print and broadcast news. They're constantly cheered and jeered by the nation's bloggers.

Not since the days of Alben Barkley, who was Senate majority leader through World War II and vice president under Harry S. Truman, has Kentucky struck such a prominent profile in Washington, courtesy of two men who took very different routes to power.

ACCOUNTANT-FRAUD VERDICT

Ky. judge awards trust $99 million in fraud case

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A large Chicago-based accounting firm has been hit with a $99 million judgment stemming from a civil fraud suit brought by a hotel builder and his family.

Kenton County Circuit Judge Patricia Summe this month found the firm Grant Thornton LLP negligent in the way it handled taxes for William J. Yung and his family. Yung owns Crestview Hills-based hotelier Columbia Sussex.

Summe ordered Grant Thornton to pay William and Martha Yung $4.68 million in compensatory damages and $55 million in punitive damages, as well as pre-judgment interest on $900,000 at a rate of 12 percent from June 11, 2007, through Friday's ruling.

Grant Thornton was also ordered to pay the 1994 William J. Yung Family Trust $14.6 million in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages.