Business

When the Academy Awards are presented in Los Angeles later this month, actress Jennifer Lawrence won't be the only Kentucky connection: Robyn Stuart of Frankfort is making candy for the Oscar Gifting Lounge--3,500 bourbon balls to be exact. 

Stuart says she got her start watching her mom make bourbon balls around the holidays. 

"That was her way of saying 'thanks' and so she gave them to the garbage man, the mail man, everybody she wanted to say thank you to," says Stuart.

Union-backed coal miners in Kentucky and surrounding states are protesting a coal company’s bankruptcy proceedings they say jeopardizes pension and health care benefits for some 20-thousand retirees and dependents. Miners were picketing Wednesday outside Peabody Energy’s headquarters in St. Louis.

Two charter buses bound for St. Louis left early Wednesday morning from western Kentucky to join the protest led by the United Mine Workers of Amercia.

Peabody Energy is one of the nation’s largest coal companies and one of the companies the union accuses of orchestrating business deals that bankrupted Patriot Coal.

The Kentucky State Senate approved legislation Tuesday that would remove the prohibition of alcohol sales on election days while polls are open.

The bill wouldn't supersede the authority of dry counties in determining alcohol availability—but areas that wanted to continue the prohibition of election day alcohol sales could vote to do so.

One aim of the bill: Business that rely on alcohol sales—and also tourist destinations along Kentucky's Bourbon Trail—would be allowed to remain open on election days.

State Sen. Jimmy Higdon, a Republican from Lebanon, said keeping the Bourbon Trail fully operational on election days was a reason for his support.