Lexington mayor Jim Gray running for Congress in Kentucky

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — The mayor of Kentucky’s second-largest city is running for Congress.

Jim Gray announced Tuesday he will seek the Democratic nomination in Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District. Republican Andy Barr has held the seat since 2013.

Gray will face at least three other people for the Democratic nomination: former fighter pilot Amy McGrath, state Sen. Reggie Thomas and Geoff Young, who has run for the seat twice before.

But Gray is well known in the district, which includes Lexington. He ran a statewide campaign for Senate in 2016, losing to Sen. Rand Paul.

Democrats have been coveting the 6th Congressional district for years. It had traditionally been a Democratic seat, but has alternated between Republicans and Democrats five times since 1979.

Duke Energy vendor’s hack may mean stolen customer bank info

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Nearly 375,000 Duke Energy Corp. customers may have had personal and banking information stolen in a data breach.

The country’s largest electric company said Tuesday the customers paid a bill by check or cash at 550 walk-in payment processing centers in the Carolinas, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky since 2008.

Those payments were processed by TIO Networks, which was hacked in an attack disclosed after the company was purchased in July by PayPal Holdings Inc. Duke Energy customers make up nearly a quarter of the 1.6 million TIO Network customers potentially compromised.

The personally identifiable information that may have been stolen from Duke Energy customers includes names, addresses, electricity account numbers and banking information if a customer paid power bills by check.

TIO Networks is sending letters to notify those affected.

Officials: Woman killed in Kentucky house fire

DANVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Officials say a woman has died following a house fire in Kentucky.

WKYT-TV reports that 64-year-old Gerri Compton was found inside a bedroom on Monday.

Officials believe the fire started in the basement and then shot up through the bedroom and into the attic. Investigators say they will send Compton’s body to Frankfort for an autopsy.

Boyle County Fire Chief Donnie Sexton said she lived alone and that there were two vehicles in the driveway. Crews had thought there could be a second person in the home, but they did not to find any additional victims after three searches.

The investigation is being handled by Kentucky State Police.

After sexual harassment scandal, lawmakers propose tip line

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Two Republican lawmakers in Kentucky have filed a bill that would create a tip line to report legislative wrongdoing.

Reps. Ken Fleming of Louisville and Kim Moser of Taylor Mill say the tip line would be run by the independent Legislative Ethics Commission. The commission has authority to investigate the complaints against lawmakers, employees, lobbyists or anyone else interacting with the legislature or its workers.

Former House Speaker Jeff Hoover resigned his position after acknowledging he settled a sexual harassment claim with a member of his staff. The scandal highlighted the fact the state does not have a process for handling complaints against lawmakers.

The bill says employees who file complaints via the tip line would be protected from reprisal.

Cornell researchers to study tree pollution reduction in Ky.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Engineering students from Cornell University are coming to Kentucky to observe how trees near highways can mitigate pollution and improve human health.

Doctoral candidates Khaled Hashad and Bo Yang, along with undergraduate researcher Dan Shaw, are developing a computational fluid dynamics model for the Green Heart project. Their effort will include the planting of 12,000 trees in Louisville over five years.

They plan to observe the space between trees in mitigating pollution from the highway, finding the best species and assembling a model to determine which trees belong where.

The Cornell team will examine leaf density, turbulence and how trees affect the flow of air from highways to neighborhoods, and determine if trees grown in a streamline shape will reduce pollution.