Author

Deborah Yetter

Deborah Yetter

Deborah Yetter is an independent journalist who previously worked for 38 years for The Courier Journal, where she focused on child welfare and health and human services. She lives in Louisville and has a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a bachelor's degree from the University of Louisville. She is a member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame.

Kentucky appeals court rejects AG’s efforts to get employment records in abortion case

By: and - August 9, 2024

FRANKFORT — The Kentucky Court of Appeals has rejected efforts by the office of the state Attorney General to use a Franklin County grand jury subpoena to get employment records in a case that appears to involve two University of Louisville physicians who performed abortions at EMW Women’s Surgical Center and trained residents at the […]

Former Ky. Gov. Matt Bevin’s son back in U.S. after being removed from abusive facility

By: - August 8, 2024

The adopted son of former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin is back in the United States — after he was removed earlier this year from an allegedly abusive Jamaican youth facility and left in care of that country’s child welfare system. The boy, 17, is in a placement worked out with help of Jamaican children’s authorities […]

Former KY Gov. Matt Bevin’s adopted son reportedly removed from abusive facility in Jamaica

By: - August 4, 2024

As Kentucky governor, Matt Bevin said his overriding goal was to reform what he said was the state’s “broken machine” of an adoption and foster care system. “This is the driving reason why I made the decision to run, because it needs to be fixed,” Bevin said in a 2017 interview on KET. In that […]

Addiction Recovery Care says it’s cooperating with FBI investigation into possible fraud

By: - August 2, 2024

Kentucky’s largest provider of addiction treatment services, Addiction Recovery Care, or ARC, is the subject of an? FBI investigation into possible health care fraud, according to a July 30 post on a website of the federal agency’s Louisville office. ARC, which is funded almost entirely through Kentucky’s Medicaid program, has not been charged with any […]

Lawmakers join KY’s largest addiction treatment provider to oppose Medicaid payment cuts

By: and - July 30, 2024

FRANKFORT — The state’s largest provider of drug and alcohol treatment is warning that looming cuts in Medicaid reimbursement to some providers could damage efforts to curb addiction that has engulfed Kentucky — just as the state is showing improvements. “Kentucky has made significant strides in access to treatment,” Matt Brown, chief administrative officer for […]

Welcome move to boost child protection in Kentucky trips over conflicting views of the law

By: - July 25, 2024

Increasingly worried about suspected abuse of her young grandson, Michelle Tynes said she battled for years with Kentucky social service workers to act on what she said was the deplorable situation in the Western Kentucky home where he and four other children lived. “I made multiple reports,” said Tynes, who eventually won full custody of […]

Kentucky lawyer climbed out of alcoholism, launched a recovery boom

By: - July 2, 2024

LOUISA — Around the office at Addiction Recovery Care, or ARC, Vanessa Keeton is still known as “Client One” — marking her status as the first client of the first recovery center the organization opened as a group home in Lawrence County. But her official title is vice president of marketing for ARC, where she […]

Recovery CEO gives big to support Democrat Beshear and a host of Republicans

By: and - July 2, 2024

FRANKFORT — In his State of the Commonwealth speech in January, Gov. Andy Beshear took a moment to address the scourge of addiction in Kentucky, singling out for praise the state’s largest provider of treatment services. Addiction Recovery Care, or ARC, the Eastern Kentucky-based company — with about 75% of the state’s treatment beds — […]

Parents go to federal court to save bus service to Louisville’s magnet schools

By: - June 20, 2024

Two parents have filed a federal lawsuit challenging Jefferson County Public Schools’ plan to drop bus service to most magnet schools this fall, claiming it violates the rights of their children to continue education at schools they currently attend. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Louisville Thursday, comes two months after the board […]

Molina Healthcare donates site for West Louisville’s first new middle school in 90 years

By: - June 7, 2024

A new middle school is planned for a long-vacant site in West Louisville where Passport Health, the state’s first Medicaid managed care company once hoped to build its corporate headquarters. The news was celebrated at a press conference Friday by a host of state and local officials and representatives of the predominantly Black area of […]

Sallie Bingham, foundation she endowed face off in court over future of Hopscotch House

By: - May 28, 2024

LOUISVILLE — Tucked away on a 412-acre farm in eastern Jefferson County, Hopscotch House, a rambling, five-bedroom farmhouse dating to 1848, was envisioned as a peaceful sanctuary for women artists and writers when the Kentucky Foundation for Women acquired it in 1987. But its plan to sell the house has triggered an acrimonious battle with […]

Juvenile justice: ‘From nothing to something and then right back to nothing’

By: - May 28, 2024

The mood was celebratory as Kentucky and federal officials crowded into the Capitol Rotunda on a cold January day in 2001 to announce the end of five years of federal oversight of the state’s problem-ridden juvenile justice system. “We’re never going to slide back to where we were in 1995,” said then-Juvenile Justice Commissioner Ralph […]