In the ear­ly 1800s, William Murray and his wife, Lucy, were free African Americans who were mem­bers of Providence Baptist Church—familiarly known as the Old Stone Church—on Lower Howard’s Creek. This church was plant­ed in Clark County by a white con­gre­ga­tion in 1784. In 1870, white mem­bers sold the church to an African American con­gre­ga­tion, and it con­tin­ues today as the Providence Missionary Baptist Church. Murray fam­i­ly descen­dants have resided in the Lower Howard’s Creek... 

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, in 2025, 16 states passed 31 restric­tive vot­ing laws at the same time that 25 states passed expan­sive vot­ing laws.  Oddly, some of the states pass­ing restric­tive laws also passed some of the expan­sive ones.  Montana was the worst state in enact­ing restric­tive laws with five sep­a­rate pieces of leg­is­la­tion; Ohio a close sec­ond with four.  Kentucky res­i­dents were lucky in that the 2025 leg­is­la­ture here did not pass... 

She didn’t know it at the time, but when she was a girl, Chelsea Kirk was an under­study to her grand­fa­ther, the may­or of Hebron Estates, a lit­tle com­mu­ni­ty south of Louisville. “I got to see the way he did local pol­i­tics,” she said. Her grand­fa­ther met reg­u­lar­ly with his neigh­bors, lis­tened intent­ly, took people’s con­cerns seri­ous­ly, and was focused on their qual­i­ty of life and day-to-day chal­lenges. It made an impres­sion on her. 

In the time when the world was still learn­ing how to sur­vive itself, there lived a small, smil­ing crea­ture in the cool waters of an ancient Mexican lake. The axolotl — a Nahuatl word mean­ing Water Dog — looked unfin­ished to those who passed above: soft-bod­ied, feath­er-gilled, for­ev­er young. Unlike its sala­man­der cousins, it nev­er rushed onto land. It stayed where it was born, cra­dled by water, car­ry­ing its youth into adult­hood like a qui­et vow.