State Rep. Derrick Graham has been named the new chairman of the state House Education committee, Democratic leaders announced today. Graham is a Frankfort native who recently retired as a social studies teacher at Frankfort High School. He is a well-known education advocate and previously chaired a budget subcommittee on education.

A city landscaping project will more than double the number of trees along a heavily traveled stretch of Lexington’s Nicholasville road.  Urban Forester Tim Queary says several of the trees originally planted in the 1980’s have died.  He says six others still standing were improperly pruned by a private contractor.

The Lexington Opera House's 2013-14 Broadway Live season will open with one of the series' greatest successes and will close with a show that is up for the Tony Award for best musical.OK, Bring it On: The Musical isn't going to win the Tony. But its inclusion marks a milestone for the series, which has edged closer to current Broadway programming each year. Opera House general manager Luanne Franklin says the stronger lineups of shows are a direct result of the series' programming strategy in recent years. Read more...

An initiative in Lexington adds meaning to the phrase ‘growing local artists.’  Learning a lesson from the agriculture community, the Lexington Art League is launching its own C-S-A.  Typically, C-S-A is short for Community Supported Agriculture.  But,  in this case it stands for “Community Supported Art.”

A gateway to summer opens this Memorial Day weekend at Shaker Village.  Rich Copley, who covers culture for the Lexington Herald Leader, says organizers hope younger fans will be drawn there for the annual Chamber Music Festival of Lexington.  Rich discussed it and the holiday’s other events with WEKU’s Charles Compton  Read more...

In the classic American story, opportunity is always in front of you. You finish school, find a job, buy a home and start a family; it's a rosy dreamscape.

But that world is one-dimensional. Income inequality is just about as American as baseball and apple pie. And though the economy has improved in the past few years, the unemployment rate for black Americans, now 13.2 percent, is about double that for white Americans.

The debut novel from writer Anthony Marra happens to be set in a world that most of us only have conjectures about. In "A Constellation of Vital Phenomena," Marra transports readers to Chechnya, a war-torn Russian republic that has long sought independence.

The lyrical and heart-breaking novel begins in 2004 when eight-year-old Havaa watches Russian rebels abduct her father, accused of aiding Chechen rebels, in the middle of the night. The little girl is later rescued by her neighbor, who colludes with another doctor to eventually form an unlikely family amid the daily violence.

The writer Pearl S. Buck emerged into literary stardom in 1931 when she published a book called The Good Earth. That story of family life in a Chinese village won the novelist international acclaim, the Pulitzer, and eventually, a Nobel Prize. Her upbringing in China as the American daughter of missionaries served as inspiration for that novel and many, many others; by her death in 1973, Buck had written over one hundred books - including 43 novels.