Cancer treatment funds within reach

        DANVILLE — School officials want Danville High School students to just say no to dirty dancing.A final vote is set for Monday on a proposal by the school's site-based council that would require students to sign their names to a policy calling for them to refrain from sexually suggestive moves on the dance floor.

Cancer treatment funds within reach

        LEXINGTON — Legislation prefiled for the 2002 Kentucky General Assembly could make things easier for many uninsured women facing breast or cervical cancer, by allowing the state to tap into a new federal program that offers money for treatment.

        Since the early 1990s, the state Department for Public Health has offered a program that allows low-income women who don't qualify for Medicaid to get mammograms and cervical-cancer tests through county health departments at little or no cost. But women who test positive face a struggle because the program provides no money for treatment.

Woman to admit to embezzling $1.2M

        LOUISVILLE — A former Humana employee has agreed to plead guilty to embezzling close to $1.2 million from the company from June 1998 to August 2000.

        Lana P. Busch, who was charged with five counts of theft and forgery, will be arraigned Monday in Jefferson County Circuit Court. The charges carry a maximum of 25 years in prison.

        Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney J. Allan Cobb said Ms. Busch wrote checks to fictitious persons, then deposited the money into bank accounts on which she was listed as one of the users.

Coal company to cut more than 100 jobs

        MORGANFIELD — The permanent layoffs of more than 100 miners will begin next week at Peabody Coal Co.'s Camp 11 mine, which is scheduled to shut down completely in fall 2002.

        Camp 11, which employs 285 people, is running out of coal reserves and beginning to end its operations.

        That will end a 30-year history of mining at the Peabody Coal Camp Complex that once employed 1,500 people. The Camp 2 mine was closed several years ago, and the 350-employee Camp 1 mine was shut down last year.

Board OKs salary of college president

        MURRAY — Murray State University's Board of Regents approved a yearly salary of $170,000 for President King Alexander, the same amount paid to the previous president — his father.

        The board also granted Mr. Alexander tenure, which he did not have as director of the University of Illinois graduate program on higher education governance, leadership and policy.

Black workers at Ford cry unequal treatment

        LOUISVILLE — Some black workers at Ford Motor Co.'s Kentucky Truck Plant believe they are denied advancement and are not helped with on-the-job injuries in the same way white workers are, said the Rev. Louis Coleman, a civil-rights activist.

        Two employees have filed complaints with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charging the plant is a negative work environment for minority workers, Mr. Coleman said. About 10 more employees also intend to file complaints, he said.

        Mr. Coleman had a copy of one complaint, filed by Kimberly D. Johnson, who said she believes she has been “discriminated against, harassed, (and) subjected to different terms and conditions of employment than a white co-worker.”
       

Nurses ratify new contract by 5 votes

        BECKLEY, W.Va. — Registered nurses in West Virginia and Kentucky have ratified a new contract with Appalachian Regional Healthcare by a slim margin, ending a four-month labor dispute in which two previous contract proposals were rejected.

        Nurses at the Lexington, Ky.-based chain's eight hospitals approved the contract 304-299 on Friday, said Rue Hairston, president of West Virginia Nurses Association Local 201.

        At issue were sick leave, insurance premiums and mandatory overtime. Details of the new contract were not immediately available Friday night.

        Appalachian Regional Healthcare owns hospitals in Beckley and Summers County in West Virginia, and in Whitesburg, Hazard, Harlan, South Williamson, Middlesboro and McDowell, Ky.
       

Commission endorses new downtown arena

        LOUISVILLE — The Greater Louisville Sports Commission endorsed the construction of a downtown arena, saying the city needs another venue besides Freedom Hall to attract major sports and entertainment programs.

        Louisville Mayor Dave Armstrong is proposing to build a downtown arena to bring the Charlotte Hornets, of the NBA, to town.

        The mayor and other community leaders are making one last effort to get the University of Louisville men's basketball team to be a tenant in the new arena.

Hikers say horses harm soil near trails

        BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — A hikers' group has sued the Hoosier National Forest over plans to relocate trails and allow horse traffic on them.

        The Hoosier Hikers Council filed the federal lawsuit this month, claiming that forest officials failed to consider the damage new trails and horse traffic on them will cause to sensitive soils in the 13,000-acre Charles C. Deam Wilderness southeast of Bloomington.

        Extensive horse use erodes trails and ruins them for hikers, Suzanne Mittenthal, executive director of the council, told a newspaper for a story published Saturday.

        The plan would reroute 1.5 miles of trail and add a new 1.1-mile section to avert flooding. It also called for tripling the size of a parking area.

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Kentucky News Briefs