Joe Sonka
Enterprise Statehouse ReporterJoe Sonka is Kentucky Public Radio’s first enterprise statehouse reporter. He joined the team in October 2023.
Joe has covered Kentucky government and politics for nearly two decades. He grew up in Lexington and moved to Louisville in 2011, covering city and state government at LEO Weekly and then Insider Louisville. He became state government reporter for the Courier Journal in 2019 and was a lead reporter for the newspaper's 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winning series on former Gov. Matt Bevin's controversial pardons just before leaving office.
You can email Joe at jsonka@lpm.org and find him at BlueSky (@joesonka.lpm.org).
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Data from the study shows one county jail in Kentucky had contracted with ICE to hold roughly 120 detainees in January. By August, nine county jails held more than 900. -
Kentucky GOP Congressman Thomas Massie is facing attacks from President Donald Trump, but was lent a hand by Sen. Rand Paul in a six-stop tour through his district. -
Kentucky hemp farmers sent a letter to Sen. Mitch McConnell asking him for a meeting and to not again try to insert language into a bill banning certain hemp-derived products. -
The 2025 session of the Kentucky legislature may have ended in March, but businesses and advocacy groups still spent $10 million lobbying lawmakers in the subsequent five months. -
Environmental activists say LG&E/KU and Kentucky’s two largest cities aren’t meeting pledges to eliminate carbon emissions in the next 15-25 years, as the utility seeks to build more fossil fuel plants. -
Kentucky tax revenues fell $7.5 million short of what was needed in the past fiscal year to trigger cutting the income tax to 3% in 2027. -
A day after Rep. Thomas Massie, a northern Kentucky Republican, took the first step in forcing a vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files, survivors rallied at the U.S. Capitol in support. -
A former paperboy passes on a tip about WWII-era espionage in Germantown. Is it true, or an urban legend? -
A Kentucky agency is telling hundreds of families to disregard previous letters telling them to pay back the state for food assistance cards they never requested. -
LG&E says $3B expansion will protect Kentucky ratepayers from data center costs, others are doubtfulKentucky’s largest utility company is proposing a mechanism to make new data centers pay their fair share, but first wants approval to build $3 billion of new gas plants.
