So happy for @rylandky.bsky.social! NPR is so lucky to have in him not only a top-tier journalist, an editor who always makes people’s writing sing, and a Kentuckian with a calm voice in a storm, but also just a damn good person. Here’s to many years in our ears! www.npr.org/2025/09/03/g...

The annual Battle of the Birds football game between Mayfield High School and Graves County High School ended in tragedy Friday, after a shooting in a parking lot near War Memorial Stadium left one adult injured. www.wkms.org/criminal-jus...

For Kentucky’s next biennial budget, the state budget director says it will need to set aside over $115 million more than in previous years to keep giving residents in need food stamps and – because of the federal reconciliation bill – potentially hundreds of millions of dollars on top of that.

Today in 1974, Richard Nixon resigned. Four years later, his first public appearance was in Leslie Co, KY. See footage of his visit—plus local politics, family debates, and more—in our 1982 film "The Big Lever: Party Politics in Leslie County, KY" by Frances Morton. https://loom.ly/YNSpum0

Sign my petition to re-edit I Still Know What You Did Last Summer so that when Jennifer Love Hewitt thinks she sees the killer at the club it’s then revealed to be actually a silhouette of the dude from Jamiroquai in his “Virtual Insanity” get-up.

Pork and politics. A classic western Kentucky combo. Read @sylviaruthg.lpm.org + @hannahsaad.bsky.social’s report from the ground in Fancy Farm, where GOP candidates jockeyed yesterday at the St. Jerome Picnic for the opportunity to replace U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell. www.wkms.org/government-p...

For @wkmsfm.bsky.social: A company with ties to billionaire investor Peter Thiel is backing the first privately developed, US-owned uranium enrichment facility — and it’s happening in Paducah, Kentucky. More details are expected to come at an Aug. 5 event hosted by the company.

What a stellar summer of Kentucky albums. Just today, Tyler Childers put out Snipe Hunter and Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band put out New Threats From The Soul. Plus, S.G. Goodman’s Planting By The Signs, Kelsey Waldon’s Every Ghost, and Grace Rogers’s Mad Dogs. The Bluegrass State is eating good.

WKMS has $215K (annually!) in funding to make up in the wake of the cuts to public media nationwide. Help us preserve our programming and our (already quite small) staff the way they are now by calling in or giving online tomorrow. We need every penny you can give. It all makes a difference.

Anyone who wants to learn a bit about John Scopes, the Paducah native and central figure of the “Monkey Trial” over teaching evolution in schools, has multiple opportunities in west KY tomorrow on the 100th anniversary of the start of the trial!

West Kentucky Film Commission aims to get region cast in starring role of movie, TV productions. From @doperle.bsky.social of @wkmsfm.bsky.social

"To understand who is in control, observe who you are not allowed to criticize." -Voltaire

five fave black and white films cat people the hustler the night of the hunter park row sweet smell of success

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman joined other GOP attorneys general in Arizona on Wednesday at the U.S. border with Mexico in a show of support for Trump administration efforts to increase border security. From @doperle.bsky.social

Paducah protestors speak out as Congress eyes major cuts to Medicaid, SNAP. From @doperle.bsky.social at @wkmsfm.bsky.social

Researchers from the University of Louisville and Murray State University are looking into the potential impact emissions from chemical plants in Calvert City could have on the health of people and wildlife in area communities.

The emcee for the 145th St. Jerome Picnic in Fancy Farm will be Kentucky Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Ashli Watts, the picnic planners announced today.

My Derby bet slip reads like it was Mad Libs’d from a think piece

A wonderful high school journalist I work with published a series on student journalism in Kentucky, and I'm obsessed with this quote.

Thank god. I always hated that Now You See Me 2 wasn’t called Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.

Trump grants pollution exemptions to dozens of coal plants, including four in Kentucky. From @doperle.bsky.social at @wkmsfm.bsky.social

Murray State University’s executive director of Marketing and Communication just confirmed to me an email that a visa “has been revoked by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for one of [the school’s] international students.”

Three miles of wiring inside a speck of brain tissue. Here is my story on a milestone in neuroscience. Gift link: nyti.ms/42BWWR7 (Video courtesy Forrest Collman)

🚨🚨 heck yes. new stereolab album incoming! 🚨🚨 stereolab.bandcamp.com/album/instan...

Several Kentucky communities were hit with flash flooding on Friday and are prepping for yet another round of storms – with the potential for more widespread flooding – to hit this weekend. via @hannahsaad.bsky.social

The University of Kentucky says the Department of Homeland Security has revoked F-1 visas for a “small number” of international graduate students. From @weku.bsky.social

Ballard EM further detailed this. A family was sheltering under the awning at Bethel Cumberland Presbyterian Church near Gage when the tornado hit. The van sustained damage and an 8-year-old child was injured. No update on their condition as of yet.

Several reports of damage and injuries connected with this evening's ongoing storms. Emergency Management officials in Ballard County, KY are reporting "catastrophic damage path," as well as some injuries after a van was hit by a tornado. Injuries reported include an 8-year-old who is unresponsive.

The Kentucky General Assembly is about the gavel in for the 30th and final day of the #kyga25 session. Buckle up.

enjoyed the film adaptation of charles portis' norwood. but the most important part was the presence of joann the college educated wonder chicken, who pulls a lil cord to answer people's yes or no questions like zoltar from big! i clapped when she got her own title card in the credits.

my 2025 reads so far adored trout fishing in america (my first brautigan) and charles portis’ norwood. mother night, a reread of a fave. chayka’s book on algorithms + their influence on culture was top notch. a captivating and centrifugal read. eager to explore so much he introduced me to in it.

rewatched Final Destination for the first time in many moons this weekend. the dvd had a death calculator that asks you lifestyle questions and projects your death date. soooo thankful it spat out a date that had passed. would have completely spiraled otherwise.

Murray State's board of regents has authorized its board chair to negotiate a contract for Ron K. Patterson to be the school's 15th president. Patterson currently serves as the president of Chadron State College in Nebraska and has over 25 years of experience in higher education. @wkmsfm.bsky.social

Could a Kentucky Film Office bring blockbuster business to the state? #kyga25 lawmakers hope so. From @doperle.bsky.social at @wkmsfm.bsky.social

After heavy rains caused flooding last week across the northwestern portion of the Volunteer State, officials at Dunbar Cave State Park are still trying to assess its impacts on the 800-year-old Mississippian charcoal drawings in one of the cave’s inner chambers. via @doperle.bsky.social

Birds in a dozen Kentucky counties have tested positive for avian influenza since October, and Kentucky officials are trying to raise awareness so that those numbers don’t soar.

We filled a theater for a 105-year-old silent film in Paducah, Kentucky. What a night.

Tonight, the Paducah Film Society is doing something I've wanted to do for years: a screening of Oscar Micheaux's "Within Our Gates," the oldest surviving feature directed by a Black American, with a live score from local musicians. Micheaux was born just across the river in Metropolis, Illinois.

Just minutes ago, Daniel Cameron (who unsuccessfully challenged Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear in 2023) announced he's running for McConnell's Senate seat next year

More than half of Kentucky's counties had their hottest year ever in 2024 as the state surpassed its previous heat record set in 1921. @doperle.bsky.social www.wkms.org/environment/...

Sheryl Crow has sold her Tesla to protest “President Musk” and donated the money to NPR. “There comes a time when you have to decide who you are willing to align with,” she writes.

nw og extended cut

this paradise is a frequency comp could be called “weather channel after dark.” a wellspring of digital almost-jazz. paradiseisafrequency.bandcamp.com/album/the-st...

"Every single guy on our roster that could play tonight made important plays. And I like Kentucky being that way. Actually, I love it. It feels right to me." That's Mark Pope after UK turned in another total team effort to beat another top-5 team. More from Rupp: www.kentucky.com/sports/colle...

Later this month, the Paducah Film Society is screening Oscar Micheaux's Within Our Gates, the oldest surviving feature directed by a Black American, with a live score from local musicians. Micheaux was born right across the river in Metropolis, Illinois. www.wpsdlocal6.com/news/maiden-...

we’re just really in an interesting place right now in the soda flavor game, huh?

Student journalists in Bluegrass State high schools could receive more free press protections under a bill before the Kentucky Senate. WKMS student reporter @zoellewis.bsky.social spoke with young journalists from across the Commonwealth about the New Voices Act, and why they support it.

Glad @zeta-lambda.bsky.social could get out to cover this today in Graves County:

Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm turned 20 today. Always wished I could have seen them live on that album cycle. They rip through most of the record in this ‘05 Glastonbury set. youtu.be/i-dW9G-blW0?...

Fave film discoveries/first watches for January 2025: A Woman Is A Woman (1961) Fail Safe (1964) The Spirit of the Beehive (1973) Dogfight (1991) Pecker (1998)