The University of Kentucky has begun laying off a “significant” number of its roughly 14,000 employees, a process that is expected to continue this week and next, according to university officials, reports the Lexington Herald Leader.
UK, Lexington’s largest employer, employs about 2,500 faculty and 9,000 staff. An additional 3,000 employees work for UK Healthcare.
UK spokesman Jay Blanton said administrators are gathering information from individual departments on the total number of people who will lose their jobs. He wouldn’t speculate on a final number, the paper reports.
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Supporters of the anti-bleeder racehorse medication known as Lasix made impassioned pleas to Kentucky regulators Tuesday for its continued use during races, the Lexington Herald Leader reports.
On June 13, the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission will consider a phased-in ban of furosemide during graded stakes races, executive director John Ward said. A previous effort to ban it in all races failed last month; the new proposal would allow horses in lower-level claiming races to continue to use Lasix, known as Salix for veterinary use, the paper reports.
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Southwest Airlines announces it will add daily direct flights between Louisville and Denver in the late fall. It will bring Southwest’s tally of direct flights from Louisville to 17.
“Increasing choices and access between major markets in the western U.S. has been a primary air-service goal of the airport. We are pleased that Southwest has chosen to add this new service and applaud their efforts to make travel from Louisville more convenient,” noted Skip Miller, executive director of the Louisville Regional Airport Authority.
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The residents of only nine states have returned their economic output to the level that existed before the downturn struck at the end of 2007 — and most of those states are energy producers, according to data released Tuesday, reports USA TODAY.
Even states now on the rebound — such as Michigan, Connecticut and California — find themselves far behind where they were economically when the recession started 4½ years ago, the data show.
Gross domestic product — the value of goods and services produced — grew in 34 states in 2011 after adjusting for changes in population and inflation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Typically, nearly every state boosts its GDP in a recovery, the newspaper says.
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The Walt Disney Co. is announcing today that it plans to advertise only healthier foods to kids on its TV channels, radio station and website. Disney says it’s the first major media company to set a standard for food advertising on kid-focused TV programming, USA TODAY reports.
By 2015, all food and beverage products that are advertised, promoted or sponsored on the Disney Channel, Disney XD, Disney Junior, Radio Disney, Disney.com and Saturday morning programming for kids on ABC-owned stations (Disney owns ABC) will have to meet the company’s nutrition criteria for limiting calories and reducing saturated fat, sodium and sugar, the paper says.
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