State of the News 1/13/12

The news team assembled at 1pm for the weekly news round up, despite the 1/32nd inch dusting of snow threatening to paralyze the city today.  We looked at the major metro news stories in segment one, including Gabe Bullard's review of Mayor Fischer's annual state of the city address, and another year of budget shortfalls.  Erica Peterson discussed the appointment of Louisville's new Director of Sustainability, and Gabe recapped the personnel shuffling and renaming of the Economic Development Department.  Devin Katayama discussed the recent board approval of the changes to the student assignment plan at JCPS, as well as a new hiring freeze at the University of Louisville.  Finally, Gabe Bullard talked about a recent forum sponsored by the Louisville Visual Art Association which looked at how the Fund for the Arts has historically given more to the performing arts than the visual arts.In segment two, we dug into the political news of the week from both Frankfort and Indianapolis, with Kentucky Public Radio’s Kenny Colston, and Brandon Smith of IPBS.  Newsmaking activity in Kentucky included redistricting, attempts to reduce methamphetamine production, and an audit of the Dept. of Agriculture, among others.  Indiana discussion centered around the right to work debate, but also touching on the smoking ban, the upcoming Super Bowl, and discussions of the role of cursive writing.Anne Marshall from LEO Weekly joined us in the final segment to talk about an interesting space simulation center at Shawnee, one of 48 centers around the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and South Korea that takes 400,000 kids on simulated space missions every year; she wrote about it in this week's issue.