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Monday afternoon Williamsburg Mayor Roddy Harrison was feeling a little like the television character Maxwell Smart from the 1960s television show "Get Smart," whose famous catch phrase was "missed it by that much." "I wish Agent 99 would come and save the day," Harrison said laughing. A 328-signature alcohol petition that Harrison filed with the Whitley County Clerk's Office Thursday afternoon proved to be six valid signatures shy of the 197 valid signatures needed to place the measure on a ballot sometime this June. If approved the ballot measure would have allowed packaged alcohol sales in Williamsburg and also allowed alcohol by the drink sales at restaurants that seat as little as...

Whitley County will likely soon be joining a growing list of communities in Kentucky offering a needle exchange program. The Whitley County Board of Health unanimously voted last month to begin the process of starting a clean needle exchange program in Whitley County provided that adequate funding can be obtained. Federal law prohibits federal funds from being used to establish or operate needle exchange programs. "The most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has shown drastic improvement in the prevalence of Hepatitis and HIV in communities that have clean needle exchange programs," Whitley County Public Health Director Martha Steele said in an e-mail to several community leaders Tuesday...

Arson is suspected as the cause of a Monday afternoon forest fire/brush fire that scorched 36 acres in the Beck's Creek area just west of Williamsburg. Jennifer Turner, a public information officer with the Kentucky Division of Forestry, said that there is no way of knowing how the fire was set at this point and there are no suspects but the investigation is ongoing. She estimates that over 80 percent of the blazes that forestry fights are arson in nature. The fire was reported noon about half a mile west of Main Street behind a structure. "Fire crews arrived on scene and quickly determined the fire was fairly large and was spreading...

A Corbin man was arrested Tuesday after his three-year-old was brought to Baptist Health Corbin for treatment of cuts and bruises. Forty-two-year-old Creighton Hill was charged with one count of second-degree criminal abuse following an investigation by Kentucky State Police. Hill According to Trooper Shane Jacobs, public affairs officer at Post 10 in Harlan, state police were called to the hospital to assist Knox County Social Services with the investigation. The child had been taken to the hospital after social services received a call from officials at the school the child attends. “The three-year-old had bruises and cuts on its face, head, chest, back arms and legs,” Jacobs said in a press release. “The...

The Whitley County school bus driver, who was fired for leaving an 11-year-old autistic boy on a school bus for over five hours on March 15, has been identified. The News Journal filed an open records request with the Whitley County school district on Friday afternoon to obtain any documents related to the firing of the bus driver. Tim Crawford, an attorney for the school district, replied to the open record request Tuesday afternoon by providing a copy of the notice of termination letter that Superintendent Scott Paul sent to bus driver Derrick Shelton on March 17 and a copy of the investigative report, which was conducted by Transportation Director Bobby...

U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) touched on the topics of the country's deficit, foreign policy and drug abuse while addressing a group of about 100 people Tuesday afternoon in the Kohn Theater on the campus of the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg. Prior to the start of his speech, Paul's field representative, Bryan Mills, told the crowd this was an official visit from the senator so he wouldn't be speaking about a lot of politically related topics. That didn't mean that Paul didn't indirectly address some issues related to the upcoming presidential race. "We have a lot of problems in this country and we don't have enough money to solve everyone...

The Promise Zone in Eastern Kentucky may soon be doing more than just promise to help the region develop economically. Thanks to some recent legislation filed in Congress there may be some tax credits coming to go with it. This was part of the message that Kentucky Promise Zone Coordinator Sandi Curd delivered Thursday afternoon to a group of about three-dozen people, who were gathered in the old Whitley County Courthouse to get an update on the program. "It means at last we might have something besides just connections and free technical assistance to offer to those people in the Promise Zone, who have for profit businesses," Curd told the audience. On...

A Corbin man was arrested Friday night after Corbin Police say he beat and stabbed his girlfriend and held her prisoner for approximately four days. Thirty-nine-year-old Earl H. Jackson was charged with first-degree unlawful imprisonment and first-degree assault after police say they found the woman beaten and bloodied at a residence on Tennessee Street where he was reportedly staying. Jackson Corbin Police Capt. Coy Wilson said police were contacted Friday night by a friend of the victim, identified as Kristi Lee, who reported that she had received a Facebook message from Lee. “She was beat up,” Wilson said of Lee, adding the message stated that she had been assaulted by Jackson and was...

Four Corbin Independent Schools students received a special gift prior to leaving Friday for the Easter weekend. As students at Corbin Primary School gathered in the gymnasium for what was billed as an assembly prior to the school’s dance planned for that night, Army Staff Sergeant Eddie Clement was on the last leg of his journey home from a tour of duty with the special forcers in Middle East. Among the students at the assembly were Clement’s four children: kindergarteners Ava and Andrew, first grader Tanner and fourth grader Talan, who had been brought over from the elementary school. The Clement children were called to the center of the floor by Principal...

A Corbin man arrested in February for allegedly choking and hitting employees at the Save-a-Lot Grocery store who attempted to stop him from leaving the store with a roll of hamburger and a pork tenderloin pleaded guilty to theft and resisting arrest charges. Forty-year-old Ronnie C. Joyner appeared in Knox Circuit Court for a pretrial hearing in the case Friday morning. Joyner During the hearing, prosecuting and defense attorneys told Judge Greg Lay a plea agreement had been reached. Under the terms of the agreement, Joyner, who had been indicted in February on charges of second-degree robbery and resisting arrest in connection with the Feb. 10 incident, pleaded guilty to resisting arrest and...