Prestonsburg, Ky – A new report from the watchdog Energy and Policy Institute says American Electric Power CEO Bill Fehrman was the nation’s highest-paid utility executive in 2025, with total compensation of 36-point-6 million dollars. That’s up more than 23 million from the year before, largely from stock awards, even as Kentucky Power customers face higher bills. State regulators recently approved a rate increase that will raise the average residential bill to about 194 dollars over two years.
Floyd County, Ky – Trial in the Amber Spradlin murder case has been pushed back again, as a special judge granted more time for DNA testing. At a hearing on Monday, a Kentucky State Police lab supervisor told the court 11 of 13 batches of DNA evidence are finished, with the rest expected by the end of August. Special Judge Eddy Coleman set a new trial date of January eleventh, with a pretrial conference on September seventeenth. Attorneys were ordered to try to agree on changes to the defendants’ bonds; if they cannot, the judge will decide after another hearing.
Rowan County, Ky – Kentucky State Police are conducting a death investigation in Rowan County, after a 72-year-old man was found dead in his Clearfield home Friday. Troopers say a concerned family member requested a welfare check after not seeing or hearing from him in several days. Rowan County Coroner John Northcutt pronounced the man dead at 8:38 p.m. His name has not been released, and foul play is not suspected. The investigation is ongoing.
Inez, Ky – A Martin County man is jailed after a grand jury indicted him for a brutal attack on a 71-year-old Inez man during an April 11 cookout. Deputies arrested 45-year-old Millard Daniel Newsome of Debord on a first-degree assault charge and took him to the Big Sandy Regional Detention Center. Newsome is accused of seriously injuring Calvin Pauley at Pauley’s East Main Street home, causing severe facial and eye injuries that required treatment at a Lexington hospital. Bond is set at fifty thousand dollars, and if convicted, Newsome faces ten to twenty years in prison and a fine of up to ten thousand dollars.
Johnson County, Ky – A Johnson County man has been arrested on a meth trafficking charge after a traffic stop in Paintsville. Police say 48-year-old David Lance Stewart of West Van Lear was a passenger in a vehicle stopped on May fifth. Officers searched the vehicle and reported finding about 18-point-2 grams of suspected meth, digital scales, and cash. Stewart allegedly admitted the meth belonged to him and was taken to the Big Sandy Regional Detention Center, charged with first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia possession.
Frankfort, Ky – Kentucky has added nearly ten thousand new voters in the final twenty days before the April twentieth registration deadline for the May nineteenth primary. Secretary of State Michael Adams reports overall registration grew by 9,833 voters, with Republicans adding 3,915 and maintaining the largest share of the electorate at more than one-point-six million voters statewide. “Other” or independent voters saw 1,725 new registrants, bringing that group to nearly 380 thousand, while Democrats gained 1,168 new voters for a total of about one-point-three-seven million. Adams says with hundreds of federal, state, and local races on the ballot, his office expects primary turnout around 20 percent, compared to the usual 10 to 15 percent.