A 63-acre purchase by a local land restoration group in eastern Kentucky could potentially delay the building of a proposed $500 million federal prison.

The plot is located in a critical portion of a 500-acre prison site, which would be big enough to incarcerate more than a thousand people.

Mitch Whitaker owns neighboring land in Letcher County passed down through generations. He said the prison would essentially be in his backyard and supports the land buy.

"They were actually wanting to come right almost in my back door, off the hill, and the property was bounded pretty good by roads and rivers," Whitaker explained.

Supporters of the prison argued the project will create local jobs. But data from the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy show counties, including Martin, Clay and McCreary counties, which have been home to prisons for decades, continue to see among the lowest median household incomes in the nation.

Joan Steffen, attorney for the Institute to End Mass Incarceration, represented the Appalachian Rekindling Project, the group purchasing the land, and said they did not buy it just to sit on it.

"They were buying it to do this really amazing land remediation work, reintroducing native species, and their goal is to employ local people," Steffen outlined.

Whitaker believes his community deserves much more than another federal prison, noting there are already five in the region.

"Here in East Kentucky, these are as pretty mountains as you can have," Whitaker observed. "They're like the Smokies. You know, they're beautiful. I was against it from the start."

According to the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, the Commonwealth incarcerates 40% more people per capita than the national average. Critics said the hundreds of millions of dollars planned for the prison could instead be spent on flood resilience, housing, reforesting degraded land, and funding child care and other community needs.


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After President Donald Trump's decision to dismiss lawsuits and drop federal accountability agreements with several police departments, Mississippi advocacy groups are joining the ACLU to expand accountability efforts through the "Seven States Campaign."

Trump's decision includes pausing a pattern and practice probe in the Rankin County "Goon Squad" case, in which six law enforcement officers were sentenced for torturing and sexually assaulting two Black men during a January 2023 home raid.

Joshua Tom, legal director for the ACLU of Mississippi, said such offenses make oversight necessary.

"The 'Goon Squad' case, I think, is a very egregious example of law enforcement engaging in illegal misconduct when performing its duties," Tom asserted.

Investigations found the squad operated for years with impunity. The campaign has now filed requests for all use-of-force reports and taser deployment records from the Rankin County Sheriff's Department since 2020.

Tom argued a lack of federal oversight leaves gaps in accountability.

"You know there is only so many civil rights organizations that can step up on behalf of people who have been harmed by police officers," Tom acknowledged. "That's what the importance of the Department of Justice is, for ensuring that law enforcement agencies are respecting civil rights laws, because they act as a backstop."

The Trump administration said it wants to prioritize violent crime prosecution over police reform.


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May is National Foster Care Month, and Kentucky advocacy groups across the political spectrum say the state hasn't done enough to keep kids out of foster care, including addressing the high number of parents who are incarcerated.

A report from the conservative, free-market group Kentucky Forum for Rights, Economics and Education, or KY FREE, finds the state would save $74 million in direct incarceration costs, and $740 million annually through indirect socioeconomic costs, if parents had alternatives to prison time.

Sarah Durand, KY FREE's vice president for government affairs, said the consequences of going through childhood without a parent are lifelong.

"If we can keep families together by getting families the help that they need," she said, "we know that that increases the likelihood of children being successful."

One in 10 Kentucky children has experienced a parent's incarceration, which is considered an Adverse Childhood Experience. Experts have said these children are at increased risk of poverty, behavioral problems and poor academic performance.

Earlier this year, Kentucky lawmakers proposed the Family Preservation and Accountability Act. It aimed to reduce the number of primary caregivers behind bars, but stalled in the Legislature. Durand said it offered pathways for people who were nonviolent primary caregivers to avoid incarceration.

"It would ask the courts to consider an alternative sentencing program instead of incarceration," she said. "Maybe they need educational, vocational training in order to improve their situation in life. Maybe they need therapy. Maybe they need substance-abuse treatment."

Durand added that policymakers concerned about strained state budgets should consider the wide-ranging impact on communities when parents are locked up.

"When you look at the long-term consequences and expenses of not trying to keep families together," she said, "it's pretty eye opening."

KY FREE advocates for pretrial diversion programs, which focus on counseling or community service, mental health and veterans treatment courts, and drug court programs as alternatives to incarceration.


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According to researchers from Michigan State University, Yale and Johns Hopkins, ransomware is now the leading culprit behind U.S. health data breaches.

Ransomware is malicious software that hijacks a victim's files or systems and holds them hostage for money. At least four Michigan hospitals have been hit in recent years, including Michigan Medicine, which had more than 55,000 patients affected. McLaren Health Care topped the list with 2.5 million records breached.

The study revealed nationwide, hackers have exposed 285 million patient records over the past 15 years.

John Jiang, professor of information systems at Michigan State University and the study's lead author, said cyber crooks are hunting for specific data.

"They're looking for Social Security numbers, driver's license, individual birthdays," Jiang outlined. "Because they could to use this information to commit fraud, or selling on the black market."

Jiang pointed out health care providers don't have a lot of cybersecurity resources, so he said it is crucial to protect the most sensitive information first, for example, setting up separate systems to handle personal information.

In 2024, ransomware was behind just 11% of health care breaches nationwide but it did the most damage, compromising about 70% of all patient records. The new research builds on earlier studies showing internal mistakes, not hackers, caused more than half of health care data breaches, including lost devices and misdirected emails.

Jiang warned such breaches can also pose serious risks to patients' health.

"This person is allergic to a certain medicine," Jiang suggested. "If the hackers mess up the system, or modified whatever information, that could cause a life-changing event."

The researchers urged federal regulators to require hospitals and insurers to report ransomware attacks, change how they measure breach severity to include care disruptions and track cryptocurrency to stop ransom payments.


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