Minutes after a widow emotionally testified about losing her 29-year-old husband in a deadly 2005 coal mine accident in Harlan County because ... “There’s been a war on Kentucky coal for ...

Harlan County, Ky., has a long history with two dirty businesses: coal and the Democratic party. As with much of Appalachia, Kentucky’s politics are more complicated than often is understood.

Harlan County’s one industry—mining—is dying; because of geography the county is unlikely to find others. Hundreds of unemployed coal miners are in privation’s clutch, haunted by the ...