Local/Regional News

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- Kentucky's unemployment rate dropped slightly to 7.9 percent in April, down from 8 percent in March.

The state Office of Employment and Training said Thursday that the preliminary April rate was an improvement from the 8.2 percent statewide rate in April 2012.

Kentucky's jobless rate remains above the national rate, which was at 7.5 percent in April.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - A former Army Ranger who fled from Fayette County Circuit Court last summer just before being convicted of rape and sodomy has been caught in Wyoming.

Lexington police spokeswoman Sherelle Roberts told the Lexington Herald-Leader that 29-year-old John C. Buckley IV was back in custody after he fled July 12.

FRANKFORT, Ky.-- Richie Farmer's federal trial on charges of misappropriating government resources when he was agriculture commissioner has been moved to this fall.

Farmer, who starred on the University of Kentucky basketball team in the late 1980s and `90s, had asked that the trial, previously set for July 2, be continued until February. His lawyer, Guthrie True, said he needed more time to prepare for what he expected to be a complex case.

RADCLIFF, Ky. -- Quinton Higgins lost his best friend when the church bus he was riding in 25 years ago was turned into a fireball by a drunken driver on a Kentucky road, in what remains the nation's deadliest alcohol-related highway crash.

In the town that still grieves for the 27 who perished, people gathered Tuesday evening to remember the victims and honor the perseverance of the 40 who made it out of the burning bus alive.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - The University of Kentucky Board of Trustees has given the green light for the school to purchase the Lexington Theological Seminary’s 7-acre campus.