The House budget committee approved a budget bill Tuesday night that trims education funding but adds more than $2 billion in bonded debt for new schools, roads, water lines and other projects.

Kentucky's Medicaid program would be spared cuts in the next fiscal year under the House budget — as long as Congress extends federal stimulus assistance, the chairman of the human service committee said Tuesday.

In Michigan, where many enterprises are struggling to survive, the renowned University of Michigan is in the midst of a construction boom and hiring spree. Michigan State University, on the other hand, plans to lay off faculty and cut programs, blaming state funding that is lower than it was a decade ago. Flagship universities in other states are also prospering, while their lesser-known counterparts suffer from vanishing state appropriations. 

So, why not change the arrangement and require big-name universities to take responsibility for their own financing, leaving more state money to support the other state schools? As legislatures face their toughest budget year since the recession began, the idea of giving a few universities autonomy to control their own finances has some appeal.

A measure that would allow part of the school superintendent evaluation process to be closed cleared the Senate Tuesday.

The Senate budget committee approved legislation Tuesday that would increase the fees coal companies pay for surface mining permits.

OVEN FORK, Ky. — The family and community members sitting in folding chairs, listening to music and speeches about the Scotia mine disaster of 1976, don't need a highway marker to remind them of their loss.

People who took part in a scheme to buy votes in Clay County benefited from the fraud through a total of more than $4 million in salaries and contract payments since 2002 and gained control over jobs, federal agents testified Tuesday.

The woman who gave birth to a baby in a bathroom at the Roederer Correctional Complex on Sunday suffocated the child by shoving toilet paper into her mouth, then put the baby into a trash can, according to a police citation.

University of Kentucky President Lee T. Todd Jr. said revelations about a prank at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house Saturday led to the most "notable" closure in UK's greek system during Todd's eight-year tenure.