(LEX NEWS) — Kentucky’s Touchstone Energy Cooperatives serves more than just its members. Its 17 co-ops work together to serve Kentucky communities by helping nonprofit organizations.

In this month’s edition of “What’s Watt,” Sha Phillips joins Jennifer Palumbo to talk about the organization’s long history of partnering with nonprofit organizations, including the Ronald McDonald Houses in Lexington and Louisville, as well as Special Olympics Kentucky.

Learn more at Community | Together We Save KY | Kentucky’s Touchstone Energy Cooperatives.

The Kentucky Wildcats basketball team is on campus for summer workouts, as all 14 players on the roster are in Lexington. The team started workouts on Monday, and practices will begin next week.

Senegal native Ousmane N’Diaye has now been declared eligible to practice with the team after passing the two stages of compliance that all players go through, per KSR’s Jack Pilgrim. N’Diaye was cleared academically, followed by practice clearance. The program didn’t have any issues getting the 6-foot-11 big man eligible, as this process is becoming more common throughout college sports.

N’Diaye is a big addition to this Wildcats squad because of his size and length. During his time in Italy last season in the Liga Basket Serie A, he averaged 9.8 points and 6.8 rebounds per game. As there’s still some deciding to do with the Wildcats starting lineup, N’Diaye will have a real chance to compete for a starting spot in the lineup.

Mark Pope’s roster is shaping up to potentially be the best one that he’s had as he enters his third year in Lexington and 12th overall as a head coach.

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A coalition that includes Kalshi, Crypto.com and Polymarket filed a lawsuit Friday challenging Kentucky’s first-in-the-nation excise tax on prediction markets.

The Kentucky General Assembly in April enacted a 14.25% tax on prediction market operators’ transaction fees, a levy the lawsuit says is discriminatory, unconstitutional and preempted by federal law.

Prediction markets are platforms where customers can buy, sell or trade event contracts — a form of derivative that allow placing trades based on whether real-world events, such as election results or economic indicators, will or won’t happen.

The new tax is higher than for Kentucky’s “favored incumbent industry,” the lawsuit filed in state court by the Coalition for Fair Markets says, noting a 9.75% tax on wagers at horse tracks.

In a statement using gambling terminology, Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman vowed to fight the legal challenge.

“You can bet our Office will defend these statutes and the people of our Commonwealth from out-of-state companies that seek to cancel Kentucky’s sports betting laws,” he said. “In any courtroom, the attorneys with the AG’s Office are the odds-on favorite to win.”

The tax disincentivizes the operation of prediction markets in Kentucky, the lawsuit says.

“No State currently levies a State-specific excise tax of any kind on derivatives transactions that take place on a federally designated exchange, let alone the sort of specifically targeted and discriminatory tax that Kentucky has imposed here,” it says.

Taxing federally regulated markets “just pushes people toward illegal platforms with no oversight and no protections,” Kalshi said in a statement. “Kalshi is an American company, regulated here at home, and we’re joining the fight for Kentuckians’ access to safe, legal markets.”

Prediction markets have been pushing hard to gain legitimacy among the public and policymakers as a legitimate platform where users can bet on everything from sports to the weather to geopolitical events.

There have been several incidents where traders have used inside information to profit on prediction market platforms. It was recently disclosed that former former Congressman George Santos was under investigation for allegedly illegally betting he wouldn’t attend President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address after initially saying he would. In April, a U.S. Army soldier was charged with using classified information to make a $400,000 profit trading on Polymarket on the timing of the U.S. military operations in Venezuela earlier this year.