FRANKFORT, Ky. — Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman has filed a lawsuit against Character Technologies Inc., alleging the company’s popular AI chatbot, Character.AI, exposes children to sexual content, encourages self-harm, and deceptively markets itself as safe for minors. The civil complaint, filed Thursday in Franklin Circuit Court, accuses the California-based company and its founders, Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas Adiwarsana, of violating the Kentucky Consumer Protection Act through unfair and deceptive business practices. According to the lawsuit, Character.AI chatbots allegedly engage minors in sexually explicit conversations, promote drug and alcohol use, encourage eating disorders, and provide unlicensed mental-health advice. […]

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JENKINS, Ky. — Jenkins Mayor Todd DePriest is recovering after suffering a heart attack, the city has announced. A statement posted on the city’s Facebook page said the mayor is receiving excellent medical care and his condition is improving. The statement went on to say DePriest is not receiving visitors at this time and his family has asked for privacy.

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Utility debt is a growing crisis affecting rural communities across Kentucky. The average overdue debt balance in Kentucky is $549 and more than 127,000 households in the Commonwealth are in the red, according to a new report from the advocacy group Protect Borrowers. Aissa Canchola Banez, policy director for Protect Borrowers, said the average bill has risen considerably over the past few years and utility costs are now taking up a larger amount of families’ budgets. “They’ve grown significantly across Appalachia and parts of the South,” Banez observed. “We know that in Kentucky, for example, energy bills have increased more than 26 percent.” The […]

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ASHLAND, Ky. — A Martin County man now appears ready to enter a guilty plea in his federal drug case. Cody Gene Spears, 30, of Lovely, was arrested back in September after being indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of distributing more than 50 grams of meth. The indictment accuses Spears of selling the drug on two occasions in September. He was originally scheduled to got to trial in November, but his attorney asked for a continuance in order to negotiate a resolution to the case. Those negotiations appear to have borne fruit, as his attorney asked […]

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Editor’s note: Mountain Top News invites all candidates in our coverage area to submit press releases announcing their entry into the 2026 election. Submissions can be up to one typewritten page, along with a photo that contains no text. These announcements will be posted for free on our website. Please submit your announcements to [email protected]. Ray E. Davis III officially announces bid for Johnson County Property Valuation Administration.  I am 45 years old. I have lived in Johnson County my whole life. I am proud of my heritage in the hills of Eastern Kentucky. I have been married to my […]

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