Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting (https://kycir.org/category/government/page/2/)
Hoover, the former Speaker of the House, has said he exchanged inappropriate texts but denied any sexual contact. The staffer said under oath that Hoover sexually assaulted her.
The acting Labor Secretary wrote in an op-ed published Tuesday in the Lexington newspaper that the “hard work of turning the program around is well underway.”
Newly released documents shed light on the process by which the Labor Cabinet investigated, and then closed, the sexual harassment allegation.
The Louisville Metro Police Department closed hundreds of rape investigations in three years. Officers identified the suspects, knew where to find them and had probable cause to arrest them. But in a majority of these closed cases, LMPD officers made no arrests. The officers determined that arrests were just not possible in 51 percent of all 2014-16 rape cases. The agency marked the cases “cleared by exception,” a status intended for exceptional situations, and closed the case.
In Kentucky, 11 percent of police agencies report how much suspected drug money they seize every year. How much nearly 300 other agencies take is unclear.
Gov. Matt Bevin ignored a series of questions from a reporter about worker safety and spoke instead about a tech company’s new location.
Business owner and political candidate Matt Bevin expressed disdain for OSHA regulations. Then, he became governor of Kentucky.
Twenty-eight states and territories regulate workplaces themselves, rather than defer to the feds. Some of these programs are effective; others, like Kentucky’s, fall short.
A prosecutor thought Grant Oakley’s workplace death might be grounds for a homicide charge. He turned to the state investigation for proof.
Kentucky failed to properly investigate nearly every workplace fatality for a two-year period. That’s left Kentucky’s workers at risk, and the state’s worker safety agency in peril.