Government

The U.S. Senate passed a bill Wednesday to stop the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from restricting fishing access around Corps dams, specifically along the Cumberland River.

Sen. Mitch McConnell sponsored the bill.

The Corps of Engineers wants to install signage and a line of buoys separating fishermen from what they characterize “hazardous waters.” Legislators like McConnell felt the economic impact it would have on tourism outweighed any potential dangers.

   Kentucky's new exchange for people on the market for healthcare now has a name and  a website.

It'll be called Kynect—pronounced "connect." People can access it at kynect.ky.gov. A phone line will be running in August.

The Hopkins County-Madisonville Library Board acknowledges that a recent policy decision violated the state Open Meetings law. The board recently voted at a special meeting to rescind their major-gifts policy which had required the transfer of donations in excess of $5,000 to the Library Foundation.

The National Transportation Safety Board says the January 2012 allision between the cargo ship the Delta Mariner and the Eggners Ferry Bridge resulted from poor bridge span lighting and crew inattention to available navigational tools. The ship sheared off a 300 foot span of the bridge that crosses Kentucky Lake. No one was injured. 

The National Transportation Safety Board is expected to reveal what caused a cargo ship to slam into the Eggner's Ferry Bridge near Aurora in January 2012. The incident is the subject of part of a board meeting this morning in Washington D.C. Late on the night of January 26th, the Delta Mariner ran into the bridge, causing a 322-foot section of the span to collapse.