Latest news with #UniversityofKentucky
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Daviess County teacher selected for Auschwitz Legacy Fellowship
HENDERSON, Ky. (WEHT) – A Daviess County Public Schools educator has been selected to participate in the 3rd annual Auschwitz Legacy Fellowship. Beth Ewing is the district-wide Virtual Academy Coach and serves as a regional network lead for the University of Kentucky – Jewish Heritage Fund Holocaust Education Initiative. Ewing says the opportunity is an honor, and that she believes the focus will be crucial in understanding the impact of the Holocaust. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Foundation organizes the Auschwitz Legacy Fellowship to help equip educators with the knowledge and resources to effectively teach history to their students. The year-long program will include an study trip to Poland to visit Warsaw, Krakow and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump administration terminates award for Kentucky carbon capture project
The sign outside one of the corporate offices for utility Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer) A federal award funding a collaboration between Kentucky's largest utility, the University of Kentucky and other partners to implement a new system capturing greenhouse gas emissions is among two dozen energy-related awards the Trump administration terminated last week. The $72 million award terminated by the U.S. Department of Energy funded the testing of a carbon capture system on a natural gas-fired turbine operated by electric utility Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities at its Cane Run Generating Station in Jefferson County. Carbon capture refers to technologies that seek to reduce climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels by capturing and storing carbon dioxide before it's released into the atmosphere. The utility described the project last year as an 'important step in assessing the future viability' of carbon capture technology for natural gas-fired power plants. LG&E and KU, which serves more than 1 million customers in the state, would have captured a portion of carbon dioxide emissions to be potentially reused by a nearby manufacturer, according to a press release. Liz Pratt, a LG&E and KU spokesperson, in a statement said the utility was 'disappointed' the award was terminated but remained 'focused on driving innovation and important research and development in this space.' 'Together with our project partners, we will review our options for advancing this important research project,' Pratt said. Among the other awards terminated Friday by the DOE included a number of other carbon capture and storage projects and a project by multinational alcoholic beverage company Diageo that sought to add batteries to decarbonize production facilities including in Shelbyville, Kentucky. U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright in a Friday statement said canceling the approximately $3.7 billion in total awards was 'in the best interest' of Americans. 'While the previous administration failed to conduct a thorough financial review before signing away billions of taxpayer dollars, the Trump administration is doing our due diligence to ensure we are utilizing taxpayer dollars to strengthen our national security, bolster affordable, reliable energy sources and advance projects that generate the highest possible return on investment,' Wright said in a statement. Investment into carbon capture systems played a large role in the energy policy of the former Biden administration, which sought to require utilities with coal-fired power plants operating past 2039 to capture 90% of carbon dioxide emissions from the plants or have those plants retire by 2032. That carbon capture requirement also applied to new natural gas-fired power plants. The Trump administration has swiftly reversed course, reportedly planning to eliminate any caps on greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired and natural gas-fired power plants. Supporters of carbon capture technologies generally say it's necessary in transitioning to clean energy and addressing industries that are hard to decarbonize, while skeptics, including environmentalists, question whether the technologies will allow for the further burning of fossil fuels. Byron Gary, an attorney with the environmental legal organization Kentucky Resources Council, told the Lantern the award termination fits into the Trump administration's 'broader strategy' of 'trying to undermine climate regulation.' E&E News reported Friday that the Trump administration is expected to argue the U.S. power sector, a major contributor of greenhouse gas emissions, doesn't contribute 'significantly' to climate change. Gary said while his organization would rather see investment into zero-emission renewable energy paired with utility-scale batteries, the award terminations appear to ensure carbon capture technology isn't a 'viable option' for the future.
NBC Sports
a day ago
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Melissa Jefferson-Wooden runs historic 100m time at Grand Slam Track Philadelphia
PHILADELPHIA — Melissa Jefferson-Wooden moved into a tie for 10th place on the all-time women's 100m list by running 10.73 seconds at a Grand Slam Track meet Sunday. Jefferson-Wooden, the Olympic 100m bronze medalist, improved her previous best time of 10.80 from the 2024 Olympic Trials. Now she's tied as the 10th-fastest woman in history globally, the fifth-fastest American ever and the second-fastest active American behind training partner Sha'Carri Richardson (personal best 10.65). Jefferson-Wooden also ran a personal best in the 200m on Saturday, clocking 21.99 and winning that race over Olympic 200m gold medalist Gabby Thomas. GRAND SLAM TRACK: Full Results The Grand Slam Track season concludes with the fourth meet in Los Angeles the last weekend of June, live on Peacock. In other events Sunday, Kenny Bednarek won the men's 100m in 9.86 seconds, shaving one hundredth off his personal best and matching the world's best time this year. Bednarek, a two-time Olympic 200m silver medalist, is the only man or woman to go 6-0 in races through the first three Grand Slams. Jamaican Ackera Nugent completed a sweep of the 100m hurdles and flat 100m by clocking 11.11 seconds in Sunday's flat race in the short hurdles group. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone was runner-up in 11.21 against a field of 100m hurdles specialists. It marked her first flat 100m race since 2018, when she ran a wind-aided 11.07 as a University of Kentucky freshman. McLaughlin-Levrone, who won the 400m hurdles and flat 400m at the first two Slams, is likely to switch to the 200m/400m group for the last Slam in Los Angeles. She expects to race either the flat 400m or the 400m hurdles at the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships in August, where she will bid to make the team for September's World Championships in Tokyo. In Sunday's 1500m, Josh Kerr overtook Cole Hocker in the final straightaway in a duel between the Olympic silver and gold medalists. Kerr crossed the finish line all the way out in lane six in 3:34:44, while Hocker in lane five was seven hundredths behind. Hocker has finished second, third, third, third, third and second in his six 1500m races since winning Olympic gold in Paris. Nick Zaccardi,
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Ohio man hopes to heal hurting hearts in wake of London tornado devastation
LONDON, Ky. (FOX 56) — Around the destroyed areas in London are spray-painted signs with messages of hope. The responsible man sits on Keavy Road, just steps away from the destruction of the tornado. He tips his cowboy hat to folks passing by. His name is David Graham, but he is better known as 'Cowboy Dave.' 'God has put on my heart to share people's burdens, and that's what I do,' he said. Cowboy Dave is the founder of Hearts Hurt. For more than 20 years, he's gone out to more than 40 natural disasters across the country, delivering supplies to people in need. Madisonville man accused of watching porn with 10-year-old in room University of Kentucky students release first-ever bourbon brand Temporary trailers arrive in London for displaced tornado survivors But more than that, he's acted as a friend and a source of support for people during the hardest times of their lives. 'Everyone has seen me since the first full day, and they'll see me for another 30 days,' he said. 'People might've wondered, is this guy homeless? Is he in town? Is he a contractor? Is he a lawyer? What's his deal? And eventually they come to realize Cowboy cares. I really do.' Next to his setup sits a row of white wooden crosses. They stand at about three feet tall. Each one has the name of a life taken by the tornado. 'It's about the people and the names on here. And the fact that not only did people die here, but people's spirits died here, and their hopes died here,' Cowboy Dave told FOX 56. Read more of the latest Kentucky news He said the crosses were put in place by people from North Carolina who were moved by the help they received from Kentuckians in the past after natural disasters of their own. Cowboy Dave said he's not going anywhere. 'I said I'm right here. If something blows down, a flag gets crooked, anything. If people need help, I will be here. I'll make sure until they take their cross away. I'll be here until the last cross is gone.' As the debris clears and headlines fade, Cowboy Dave will live up to the mission printed on the side of his truck: 'Hurting hearts do not have to hurt forever.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Boston Globe
6 days ago
- Boston Globe
To win the Scripps National Spelling Bee, contenders must also master geography
Advertisement Along with SAT-style, multiple-choice vocabulary questions, geographical terms have altered the way spellers prepare for the bee, which began Tuesday and concludes Thursday at a convention center outside Washington. Mastering them can require an out-of-fashion skill: rote memorization. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'Geographical words can be super hard sometimes because there's no roots to break it down or sometimes you don't get a language of origin. It will say 'unknown origin' or the dictionary doesn't say,' said Avinav Prem Anand, a 14-year-old from Columbus, Ohio, who's competing this year for the fourth and final time. 'Basically, you have to memorize them because that's the only thing you can do.' Avinav put his preparation to use in Tuesday's preliminary rounds when he breezed through Sapporo, the capital of the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. Others were not so fortunate: 12-year-old Eli Schlosser of Fergus Falls, Minnesota, heard the dreaded bell because he was unfamiliar with Terre Haute, the western Indiana city. He went with 'terrahote.' Advertisement Last year, the Randhawa family of Corona, California, saw its decade-long spelling journey end when Avi misspelled Abitibi, the name of a shallow lake in northeastern Ontario and western Quebec. 'It's beyond the pale of what anybody would consider a reasonable geographical word, a small lake in Canada that not even my Canadian friends had heard of. Not even a top-50 size lake in Canada,' Rudveep Randhawa said. 'It's just bizarre. In all the years with geographical words, we had seen words of some significance, they may be capitals of smaller countries, or they may be some port city that had significance, things of that nature.' Yet for those who might find geographical terms unfair, Scripps has a message: Study harder. 'Per our contest rules, all words listed in Merriam-Webster Unabridged Online, except those that are labeled 'archaic' or 'obsolete,' are fair,' said Molly Becker, the editorial director at Cincinnati-based Scripps and a member of the panel that selects words for the competition. Scripps considers encouraging intellectual curiosity as part of the bee's mission, and if kids with designs on the trophy have to learn more geography in order to prepare, that's arguably a good thing. 'You never know what word will stand out to a speller and spark a lifelong interest or introduce them to a new concept,' Becker said. Longtime spelling coach Grace Walters, a graduate student in linguistics at the University of Kentucky, cringed at the memory of Abitibi. 'Geo is definitely something that is feared by spellers,' Walters said, calling it 'a daunting task to study.' Advertisement 'But if geo is unfair because it doesn't have patterns, that would mean other categories like trademarks and personal eponyms and words of unknown origin would also be unfair,' she said. Some spellers embrace the challenge. Faizan Zaki, last year's runner-up who's competing again this year, was thrilled to hear Abitibi and Hoofddorp — a town in the Netherlands — in 2024 because he had seen those words before. 'There's actually a section in Merriam-Webster that is dedicated to just geographical words, so sometimes when I'm tired from studying normal words, I take a break and I browse through that list of geographical words that they have,' said Faizan, a 13-year-old from Allen, Texas. You heard that right: When Faizan gets tired of studying, he 'takes a break' by studying more. 'Pretty much, that's my life,' he said. 'But yeah, it's definitely enjoyable. I don't hate it or anything.'
