Kentuckians will make their way to the polls on Tuesday to vote in races up and down the ballot from the federal to local level.  Turnout is expected to be on par with the 2010 and 2014 mid-term elections.

About 32 percent of registered voters cast ballots in Kentucky’s 2010 mid-term election and 27 percent in the 2014 mid-terms.  This year, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes is predicting turnout around 30 percent.  Her office tracks absentee ballot totals as an indicator of turnout on election day.  Grimes says she hopes this year’s primary bucks a recent trend of dismal participation rates.

"My hope is that folks realize that our elections should be determined by a majority of our electorate and not a minority, which is what we have had in the past," Grimes told WKU Public Radio.

Kentucky’s new Department of Corrections commissioner says one of his top priorities is reducing recidivism.

Jim Erwin said 34 of Kentucky’s jails and prisons are about 140 to 300 percent over capacity. Erwin said the opioid crisis is a major reason behind the overcrowding. He said the department is seeing an increase in people violating their parole for technical violations driven by drug use.  

“We are basically the largest substance abuse treatment provider in the state. The department of corrections is,” he told WKU Public Radio.

About 20 residents of Bowling Green will be at the state Capitol Monday, May 21 speaking out for the Kentucky Poor People’s campaign. 

Reverend Megan Huston is senior minister at First Christian Church in Bowling Green. She’s one of three Kentucky coordinators for the Poor People’s Campaign, a national effort originally launched in 1968 by Martin Luther King.

Huston says the goal of the campaign is to bring awareness to issues that include mass incarceration, voting rights, immigration, systemic racism and poverty.

The University of Louisville has reached a $4.5 million settlement with former athletic director Tom Jurich, who was fired last year after two decades in the position.

Under the terms of the agreement, the university will pay Jurich within 10 days. The university also acknowledged that Jurich was entitled to benefits it promised him before his firing, agreeing to pay him an additional $2.6 million in deferred compensation and annuity payments.

Other benefits include medical coverage for him and his spouse until they qualify for Medicare, retired U of L employee benefits, and seat licenses for eight club level tickets with two priority parking passes to Louisville football and basketball games for 20 years.

Next week, Kentucky voters will head to the polls to weigh in on primary elections, including who to nominate for state legislative elections this fall.

All 100 seats in the state House of Representatives and half of the 38 seats in the state Senate are up for re-election this year.

At least 40 current and retired educators are running after the legislature voted to make changes to retirement for current and future teachers and other state workers.

And a wave of retirements from the statehouse has sparked hotly contested primaries, with both of Kentucky’s major political parties hoping to flip districts in their favor.