WKDP – WCTT Local News

Lawmakers want farmers in Kentucky to be given the green light to grow hemp.

With the support of Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, Kentucky legislators filed a bill Thursday to put Comer at the head of the long-dormant Kentucky Industrial Hemp Commission and renew a push to bring the crop back.

Hemp has been outlawed for decades because of its association with marijuana, though it has almost none of the chemical that gives users a high.

Studies have estimated that growing hemp could have a significant economic impact, and Comer said hemp could replace the income lost in eastern Kentucky as tobacco production moved west.

If House Bill 286 is approved by the General Assembly, Comer plans to petition federal authorities for a permit for Kentucky to grow hemp.

A Laurel County woman accused of killing her boyfriend on Christmas day is scheduled for sentencing today.

Police say 23-year-old Roi Collett stabbed Christopher Allen to death outside a London home on Christmas day. 

Collette has been charged with manslaughter in the case and has agreed to a plea deal which stipulated a 12-year sentence.

A sanitation worker was crushed to death Thursday night while trying to fix his truck.

It happened just before 5 p.m. outside Truitt Brothers on U.S. 25 in East Bernstadt.

Investigators say 36-year-old Anthony Shawn Fields was picking up trash from the factory and was attempting to fix a mechanical issue with his truck, when the hydraulics failed, crushing his torso and killing him.

State police say a Truitt Brothers employee found Fields outside the plant. 

No foul play is suspected and no autopsy will be performed.

Former Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer has returned some of the missing equipment he was issued during his administration.

The move came after the Herald-Leader reported last week that about $500,000 in state property had disappeared from the department or couldn’t be accounted for.

New Agriculture Commissioner James Comer turned the list of missing property over to the state Auditor last week after Comer requested a sweeping audit.

Some of that equipment apparently has turned up in a trailer where state property was stored after an agriculture office flooded. 

On Tuesday, a lawyer for the department told the newspaper that Farmer returned two of four laptops that were issued to him in May 2010 along with a Dell monitor and HP printer.

The newspaper said two of Farmer’s laptops are still missing, along with two GPS units.

A lawmaker is proposing a statewide indoor smoking ban.

For the second time, Rep. Susan Westrom, a Lexington Democrat, is sponsoring a statewide ban that would make smoking indoors in public places illegal. The ban would include fines for individuals and businesses.

A similar measure did not pass last year, but Westrom has made changes that she said strengthens it.