James Ramsey

Weekend Of Compassionate Shootings

Louisville Metro Police are investigating after Stepfon R. Harris, 28, was found dead in the rear parking lot of the Hampton Inn in downtown Louisville. [WDRB]

Former Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson has less than six months before the Obama administration is over and he is out of a job. While he isn’t exactly sure what he’s going to do, Abramson knows one thing: “I’m coming home.” [C-J/AKN]

WARNING! RIDICULOUS AUTOPLAY VIDEO! The Louisville Fire Department is crediting working smoke detectors with likely saving a woman’s life Saturday. [WHAS11]

Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd has granted Attorney General Andy Beshear’s request to temporarily block Gov. Matt Bevin’s overhaul of the University of Louisville Board of Trustees. [H-L]

WARNING! RIDICULOUS AUTOPLAY VIDEO! A homicide investigation is underway after an early-morning shooting Sunday. [WLKY]

In 1968, Hillary Clinton, known at the time as Hillary Rodham, was taking in the excitement of the Republican National Convention in Miami. The young Republican had jumped at the chance to volunteer for Nelson Rockefeller’s last-minute effort to take the nomination from Richard Nixon and attend her first political convention. [HuffPo]

Police are investigating a shooting in Southwest Louisville. Officers were called to The Landing apartments in the 7100 block of Schneble Circle at about 5:45 a.m. on Monday. [WAVE3]

A federal judge on Friday struck down a string of Wisconsin voting restrictions passed by the Republican-led legislature and ordered the state to revamp its voter identification rules, finding that they disenfranchised minority voters. [Reuters]

The University of Louisville’s next president will be saddled with more than just baggage from James Ramsey’s tenure. The new president will inherit Ramsey’s top deputies, many of whom were given lucrative compensation packages and perks that experts say go far beyond the norm. Ramsey’s own buyout is $690,000, but the cost of his pledges to top executives could be millions more from school coffers. [WFPL]

As he crisscrossed Philadelphia this week for the Democratic National Convention, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) couldn’t walk far without being recognized. [The Hill]

It’s deja vu all over again for the University of Louisville board of trustees. On Friday, a judge in Franklin County filed an injunction that temporarily blocked Gov. Matt Bevin’s order that abolished the board and recreated it with new members. [Business First]

Voters casting straight-party ballots in this November’s general election will have an added step not seen before, and some election officials are concerned the changes will present unnecessary challenges. [News & Tribune]

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Jim Ramsey Finally Got Kicked Out

Throw back to that time everyone told me it was pointless to cover UofL and Jim Ramsey… James Ramsey’s 14-year tenure as president of the University of Louisville came to an abrupt end after about six hours of closed-door negotiations with the Board of Trustees on Wednesday. [WDRB]

The fire in Old Louisville was the most dangerous fire in the city in seven years. In 2009, a fire at 1249 S. Clay St. claimed the lives of six, including four children and two adults. [C-J/AKN]

WARNING! RIDICULOUS AUTOPLAY VIDEO! Second incident in a week? Jeffersontown police continue to monitor the area around a local gun shop after a pickup truck rammed into the entrance early Thursday morning. The suspect remains at large. [WHAS11]

Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes used her speech Tuesday at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia to paint Hillary Clinton as caring and inquisitive and “a fighter for every single thing Donald Trump is against.” [H-L]

Louisville Metro Police are in the process of hiring 122 new recruits. [WLKY]

A quarter-century after winning his party’s nomination for the presidency, Bill Clinton took the Democratic National Convention stage to tell a story on the night his wife officially won it herself… [HuffPo]

As Tim Stark of Wildlife in Need faces a litany of accusations recently filed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, an administrative law officer has upheld a ruling that allows the Charlestown animal refuge to keep its license. [WAVE3]

Under the Freedom of Information Act, ProPublica requested letters closing HIPAA complaint investigations. Here’s what we’ve received so far. [ProPublica]

Canceled meetings are the norm for the Louisville Metro Council’s recently established committee on vacant properties. [WFPL]

Work that involves complex thinking and interaction with other people seems to help protect against the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease, according to research presented Sunday at the Alzheimer’s Association’s International Conference in Toronto. [WaPo]

A downtown Louisville hotel that was named the best hotel in Kentucky by Business Insider magazine for 2015 will be sold by its out-of-state owner. Annapolis, Md.-based Thayer Lodging Group — a hotel investment group that owns hotels in several U.S. states and Mexico — told Louisville Business First it plans to sell the Seelbach Hilton Hotel in downtown Louisville at the corner of Muhammad Ali Boulevard and South Fourth Street. [Business First]

A real estate company previously focused in the Louisville and Lexington markets has expanded to Southern Indiana, and in a big way. [News & Tribune]

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The UofL Scandals Just Won’t Quit

A third recent appointee to the University of Louisville Board of Trustees has a business connection to the university’s nonprofit foundation. [WDRB]

As Southern Indiana schools’ student population becomes increasingly diverse, its pool of teachers remains overwhelmingly white. [C-J/AKN]

WARNING! RIDICULOUS AUTOPLAY VIDEO! In a room full of people–Denita Wright made her opinion very clear. From the moment she stepped through the door at the California Neighborhood Community Center, she passed out signs that read, “We don’t want it.” [WHAS11]

The best part of this – or maybe the most terrifying – is that Republicans in Frankfort have worked hard to fight needle exchanges that prevent this sort of thing. Kentucky saw a dramatic increase in the rate of hepatitis C infections among women ages 15-44 in recent years, according to a new federal report that offers further evidence of growing problems in the state from intravenous drug use. [H-L]

University of Louisville trustees have postponed a meeting to decide the status of school President James Ramsey. [WLKY]

Cities and states have limited resources. When they’re faced with a growing homeless problem, those resources can either go toward finding housing for the homeless or to policing and criminalizing the daily habits of the homeless. [ThinkProgress]

Now that a Court has determined Metro government has the right to remove the monument, the Commission on Public Art must recommend where and why. [WAVE3]

Kevin Green’s lawyers were pleading with the governor for mercy. It was spring 2008, and Mr. Green, a 31-year-old who had shot and killed a grocery owner, was on Virginia’s death row. His woes, his lawyers said, dated to childhood; he was born with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, repeated three years of elementary school and never learned to tie his shoes. [NY Times]

A new board to develop strategies for agricultural water use in Kentucky is closer to its first meeting. [WFPL]

After a lengthy debate and a deal between supporters of Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Party’s rules committee voted to created a “unity commission” that would dramatically limit the role of convention “superdelegates,” binding roughly two-thirds of them to the results of state primaries and caucuses. [WaPo]

Louisville-based Republic Bancorp Inc. announced second-quarter net income of $8.3 million and a diluted earnings per common share of $0.40, which was a 2 percent increase compared to the company’s second quarter in 2015. [Business First]

Clark County voters may be using new machines for the November election, but clerk Susan Popp said this won’t change the way voting happens on their end. [News & Tribune]

Another Terrible Week For Ramsey

In a meeting that lasted five minutes in late 2014, three members of the University of Louisville Foundation Board of Directors approved a change in U of L President James Ramsey’s pay package that, while subtle, could end up being very lucrative for Ramsey now. Republicans Scott Jennings and John McCarthy won’t be able to spin this one away. [WDRB]

New York regulators have approved Aetna’s bid to buy Louisville-based Humana – a boost after a brutal stretch for the companies. [C-J/AKN]

WARNING! RIDICULOUS AUTOPLAY VIDEO! Here comes UofL with some positive spin to try to take attention away from its daily shitshow. [WHAS11]

How to know the RNC is a train wreck and desperate for speakers… Ralph Alvarado got a primetime spot for Wednesday. He’ll sound a little slick to outsiders but once they poke around his voting history, his hemp fun and general backwardness, he’ll end up being yet another person of color the Republican Party is so fond of objectifying and he’ll be too thick to realize it. [H-L]

WARNING! RIDICULOUS AUTOPLAY VIDEO! Metro police are investigating after a man was shot and killed in southwest Louisville. [WLKY]

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R-Gay Panicked), Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, opposed a successful effort in 2007 to raise the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour over two years. [HuffPo]

If you’re a church holding a concealed carry class, you’re doing it wrong. [WAVE3]

How a man with children of color – immigrants – could support a bigot like this is beyond telling. People can get upset all they want for mentioning Matt Bevin’s children but it’s alarming that this man doesn’t have his shit together enough to speak out against Trump’s extreme racism. [Ronnie Ellis]

There are lots of factual ways to describe coal: carbon-rich, abundant, fossil fuel. But Republicans would like to add one more to the list: clean. [WFPL]

A federal judge dismissed evidence gathered by a warrantless cellphone-tracking device that locks onto a phone’s location by pretending to be a cell tower for the first time Tuesday. [ThinkProgress]

One of the key components of the plan to realign the Kennedy Interchange — better known as Spaghetti Junction — in downtown Louisville is almost ready for public use. [Business First]

In a small way, the teens inside the Central Christian Church Activities and Program Center were doing their part in making sure the school year gets off to a good start for hundreds of students. [News & Tribune]

Murder City On Track For Record Year

On Wednesday afternoon, the public learned the identity of Louisville’s latest murder victim, 26-year-old Ashley Spriggs. Her death underscores Louisville’s two-year spike in violent crime. [WDRB]

Matt Bevin said Wednesday that Donald Trump is “absolutely” qualified to serve as president of the United States. [C-J/AKN]

New members of UofL’s Board of Trustees met for the first time Wednesday. Governor Bevin, who hand selected those members, was in attendance and the meeting was also interrupted by a protester. [WHAS11]

If you worry the Creation Museum and its new Noah’s Ark theme park will cause outsiders to think Kentuckians are a bunch of anti-science rubes, at least take comfort in this: Lexington was home to perhaps America’s greatest evolutionary biologist. [H-L]

WARNING! RIDICULOUS AUTOPLAY VIDEO! The city’s latest homicide victim is a young mother, and her killer remains on the loose. [WLKY]

The GOP on Tuesday successfully drafted a platform ― a statement of its core values and principles ― but not before some last-minute drama played out behind the scenes over its refusal to moderate its tone toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. [HuffPo]

A 13-year-old boy was shot in the leg Wednesday afternoon by another teenager, according to a Louisville Metro Police Department spokesman. [WAVE3]

A January study published in the journal Health Affairs showed that one year after Medicaid expansion, the number of Kentuckians who reported trouble paying medical bills declined by nearly 13 percentage points. Those skipping prescribed medications because it cost too much decreased by almost 11 points. And people receiving ongoing care for a chronic illness rose by more than 10 points. [Politico]

Dr. Susan Harkema became the face of one of the University of Louisville’s splashiest research successes the moment one of her paralyzed patients wiggled his toe. Her name was in Time Magazine. She was interviewed on “Good Morning America” and CNN. The notoriety brought more funding and patients to U of L with hopes that revolutionary studies would help the paralyzed walk again. But in March, a federal agency took the unusual and drastic move of withdrawing its funding from one of her studies, citing concerns about the validity of the data and unresolved problems with oversight. Meanwhile, the federal Office for Human Research Protections is also conducting its own review, a spokeswoman confirmed. [WFPL]

The violence in Dallas last week is intensifying worries in Cleveland about visitors and protesters taking firearms downtown during the Republican National Convention, where thousands of people plan to demonstrate. [NY Times]

It looks like Kentucky’s health insurance exchange is sticking around — at least for now. [Business First]

Jeffersonville’s ordinance violations bureau is now established by law, following a city council vote Tuesday. Several wheels must be put into motion, however, before code violations can be enforced again. [News & Tribune]

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NEVER FORGET! Julie Tam’s Blue Glove

Not since Julie Tam’s blue glove freakout a decade ago has a story so dumb been produced in Louisville. [WDRB]

It sure is fun watching Debby Yetter ignore the reality that Nancy Rodriguez misreported and/or ignored shenanigans in the Felner Scandal until she had egg all over her face. [C-J/AKN]

WARNING! RIDICULOUS AUTOPLAY VIDEO! Record breaking numbers for the Kentuckiana Pride Parade as thousands of people walked down Main Street in downtown Louisville. [WHAS11]

Jim. Ramsey. Schadenfreude. [H-L]

WARNING! RIDICULOUS AUTOPLAY VIDEO! A man arrested in Florida, accused of shooting a Louisville police officer, made his first court appearance. [WLKY]

Apple will not contribute funds or other resources for the Republican National Convention due to presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump’s prejudiced remarks, Politico reported on Saturday. [HuffPo]

World Refugee Day is Monday, but Louisville celebrated in a creative way Saturday night. [WAVE3]

In the days following the slayings of 49 people at a gay nightclub, members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community pulled together in prayer vigils and benefit drag shows and basked in a broad showing of support many said they had never experienced. [Reuters]

University of Louisville’s president and its entire governing board are out. [WFPL]

President Barack Obama on Thursday demanded that lawmakers put politics aside and move forward on the longstanding impasse over gun legislation in the wake of the latest tragedy. [Politico]

We’re fans of both Craig Greenburg and Emily Bingham but let’s get something straight. They’re only able to speak their minds on the UofL mess because they can afford to speak their minds. Maybe things would change for the better at UofL if the powerful were ever people who aren’t mega-wealthy. [Business First]

It looks as though new speed limits are on the horizon soon for Clarksville, although the details haven’t been ironed out yet. [News & Tribune]