>> But that issue is not going away and enjoys as good a support in the polls.

A sports betting.

>> What issue State Senator Damon Thayer on something you'll see discussed in Frankfort in 2024.

>> People are still looking for They may not want to, you know, relocate out of their comfort zone.

>> The Kentucky community says it needs help to provide low-income renters with homes.

There is a item that and something that fits in general.

most personal loans would be more than happy to present to you.

And find out how a group of researchers is using strands of human hair to rebuild bridges and buildings.

>> Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the KET Endowment for Kentucky Productions.

The owner Press Endowment for Public Affairs and the KET Millennium Fund.

♪ ♪ >> Good Evening and welcome to Kentucky.

Addition for Friday, April 7th, I'm Casey Parker Bell filling in for Renee Shaw.

Thanks for joining us.

Storm cleanup continues in Kentucky after a deadly tornado in Louisville Wednesday.

>> And other storms last Friday, Governor Andy Beshear toured some of the storm damaged a in Christian County straight line.

Winds there a week ago caused damage in downtown Hopkinsville.

The winds damaged buildings, knocked down trees and at one point left 6,000 people without power.

The governor says Kentuckians have learned from the floods, tornadoes and other storms in recent years.

>> We're seeing more severe weather in this last.

'02, and a half you period than many of us can can recent it's hard to draw conclusions about whether or not that this is going to be our new normal or not.

What I can say is we've already learned some really important lessons and what we've learned is if we communicate and that's the median that's government.

That's everyone well in advance, these weather systems that moved through if people recognize how serious they are, then we can take small steps without altering our lives in significant ways to make sure that we all get >> The governor also signed several bills passed by the Kentucky General Assembly, including a bill that makes the 4th Thursday of every march as the Tuskegee Airman commemoration Day, the Tuskegee Airmen were group of plaque pilots, an airman who served during World War.

2, many are from Kentucky, including 7 from Madison County.

What unfinished business from this year's legislative session.

Wait.

State lawmakers next year when it comes to issues like school choice and state funding for charter schools and partisan local elections.

A prominent Republican leader says those batters could be primed for action in 2024, in part 2 of our nation's interview with Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer.

They first talk about why none of the handful of abortion-related bills got traction during the recent 30 day session.

We just decided that.

>> We need more clarity from the courts.

So until we do.

We didn't see the need to react.

This is still a very conservative state.

I think it's still a very prolife state and there wasn't a big hue and cry for us to change the current law as it relates to abortion in Kentucky.

And if if there are further decisions coming from the courts, then we can react to them at that time.

So that was again with with making a couple of decisions, no constitutional amendments, nothing dealing with life.

No charter schools, legislation.

A lot of these waiting for next year.

It did kind of clear the decks somewhat for us to deal with half a dozen really big issues that have been waiting kind of lingering around for a couple of years.

I'm pretty proud of the effort of our of our General Assembly this year.

And you dealt with some teacher shortage Student discipline was a measure that did cross the finish line to, you know, take care of disruptive students and the process.

>> For doing that, many people, though, would say later, say or that given the low literacy proficiency and Kentucky kids and math scores that some of those academic matters were not addressed during the session and perhaps replaced by conversations on SB One 50 about school policies on bathroom use and preferred student pronoun use your argument there.

>> I don't think the problems we're having in our public schools are going to be solved in one session.

Many of these have been around for as long as I've been in the General Assembly.

We have.

And completely inappropriate percentage of kids who are reading at grade level by great 3, despite the fact that we passed multiple bills read to achieve.

>> And the the rate to 63 to 60 by Senator Steve West the that bill needs to probably continue to percolate and bake in a little more.

I've seen polling.

There is a a majority of people in Kentucky who have a very negative opinion about our public schools in the majority of parents.

I think COVID open the doors for people to have a peak and at what they're saying and they don't like it.

In many cases, they're just was a story out about how kids are fleeing public schools for private schools and for all home schools.

It's a it's a big issue.

And I'm I'm not sure some of the solutions that we're going to suggest are going to be accepted by the public school community and and I'll just tell you what it is.

It's school choice.

There needs to be more competition.

>> Yeah.

And so your answer to the question about the literacy and numeracy proficiency or lack thereof is to allow for more choice through charter school, baby, perhaps even charter schools are funded.

I mean, you have a budget year.

So could there be an appropriation that's made for charter schools since they are considered public schools?

Yes.

>> The answer to that is yes.

We've we've been dealing with education policy now.

For as long as I've been in the Legislature.

And there's there's something's not right.

And I.

We KET passing bills and then and then that that education advocates say are good for students yet.

The numbers, especially in places like Fayette and Jefferson County, a pretty embarrassing to be honest with you.

>> Do you think that's a gamble or risk Fort Worth taking in an election year 2024?

As it will be when everybody in the state legislature will be up for.

>> And on the ballot.

Well, everyone in the house and half of them said I'm sorry, yes, including people like me who are outnumbered districts and I would say yes, because it's always the right time to do the right thing when it comes to and I'll take the politics on school choice any day of the week because the public is on our side on this.

I've seen the polling which Republicans and Democrats and independents, it's it's not going to hurt the re-election of Republicans.

And I'm going to be I'm going to be trying to give courage to some of my fellow Republicans not to listen to their school superintendents and school boards.

But to listen to parents.

>> And as you know, and many of those rule districts, the schools are the largest employer.

And so they're heavily influenced and persuaded by what they're hearing from those constituents.

>> That is correct.

Yeah.

And that's why I'm going to be talking about courage, we'll see how loud the lion roars in 2024, let's talk about SB 50, which was your bill.

There was a companion Bill House Bill, 50 by Representative Matt Lack of Nicholas Ville.

That would have allowed for partisan local elections.

The Mayor City Council.

Why did that not get more traction?

>> Well, we never really planned for it to get.

Moving.

We just wanted to put it out there to create the discussion.

flesh out the opposition, which we clearly did.

>> What did they say?

>> O, well, you've you've got rural Democrats who were elected a non-partisan seats and you've got suburban Republicans elected a non-partisan seat who don't like it >> but that issue is not going away and enjoys as good a support in the polls.

A sports betting.

People want the information they want to know which party people are a member of and we're looking at all the options.

Representative Lockett, not a lot of my members really like the idea.

A lot of his members like the And again, this is something people want.

They want transparency.

They want to know.

These decisions that are being made by city councils and school boards sometimes can affect communities more than what we do in Frankfort and more than what happens in Washington, D.C., they simply want the information about what party affiliation these people, our.

Signing up And so what we're looking at a couple of different options, but that that matters not going to go away.

>> It's time now for an end of the week.

Look at the major political news in Kentucky today.

We're taking a closer look at the Kentucky governor's race with University of Kentucky political science professor Stephen boss.

Steve, thanks for joining us.

Have a case where th well, we'll start with national news because we know that trickle down impacts local politics.

Former President Donald Trump was indicted this week.

What how is that impacting the GOP primary in Kentucky's governor's race?

That's just Trump's problems are not going to have much of an effect here.

There is some possibility that Trump supporters will feel a little more mobilized.

The often get a sort of backlash to events.

But then the question of where those Trump voters would go in the Republican primary is is not at all clear they could scatter across the main candidates and and not have a real a real impact from one candidate to another in the GOP primary.

We're seeing that even some of the candidates are using Trump and advertisements and social media post.

You expect that to continue as this plays out?

Well, and so far as being attached to Trump might be a plus with a portion of the electorate that they all might go ahead and try to collect on those benefits.

But, you know, you have Daniel Cameron with the Trump administration endorsing that Kelly Craft with her ties to Trump.

Ryan corals has, you know, for the most part, taking similar positions to them.

Any represents a lot of rural voters who associate with Trump.

That's why I say I'm not I'm not really sure that the mobilization of Trump supporters really at the end of the day has any effect on our primary.

Of course, a big part of these campaigns is television advertisements and cold crafted is spend.

The other candidates right now.

How our television advertisements playing a role in this race.

No problem with the assessing how their ads have played out is that we don't have a lot of data over time in terms of polling where the candidates are really have a one internal poll, one independent poll nuts and they were around the same time period ads make very little difference that that, you know, campaigns try to move the needle with advertising, but we don't see things budget.

I expect so that with the way the craft campaigns ads have have phone with a fun and not going over.

Well, but she's she's the bad where she mentioned having an empty seat at the table because of of opioid played badly for the teddy bear attacks that have, you know, we're supposed to help craft against Cameron Camera.

One have lead right into it.

I think because he KET that that wasn't going to hurt him craft.

If you can hurt yourself through your own advertising, cross campaign may have done that.

That corals and Cameron both have money to spend if they want to.

Should we expect to see some advertisements from them start to roll out?

Well, in suffers camera seen as the front runner.

It's maybe not surprising that he hasn't done a there.

There may be a sense of the camera camp that is their race to lose.

And Kelly Kraft is one of the main opponents may hurt yourself.

You know, he didn't have to really go after her.

I'm a little more surprise.

Corals is keeping his powder dry and hasn't been firing a little more quickly.

I mean, there is a conventional wisdom that early advertising tends to be more likely to be wasted.

And as you get closer to the campaign, voters start to say, OK, I need to do my homework and make a decision here.

and possibly corals is waiting until he's got the full attention.

The electorate to use those resources.

You mentioned camera as a front runner.

Some public polling has shown him up with a sizable lead.

But what could be going from this?

We know that the public is a little bit skeptical of polling now.

Yeah, I'm in the Kentucky pulling hasn't been super successful, although the problems have more often been a Republican versus Democratic situation where Republicans are being undercounted in poll after poll.

You would expect that necessarily to have the same effect on the primary, especially because the electorate we tend to miss again, isn't clearly for one of these gubernatorial candidates versus the other no.

The real problem polling is that old and there could have been significant chefs, you know, craft may have dropped.

Corals may have risen.

We wouldn't know from the polling that's available.

We just have to sort of read the tea leaves in a little less scientific way from what we hear people saying, you know, how successful the ads seem to have been in the public discourse and now current Governor Andy Beshear, of course, is sitting there as we watch this GOP primary play out.

What does he need to do as he preps for the general election?

The shares got a real advantage compared to what a Democrat normally would have.

He seems to be doing better and eastern and western Kentucky.

Now, again, that's from polling data.

You might be skeptical, but we have explanations for why the sure would be doing better in East or Western Kentucky.

We have natural disasters as governor.

He was the face of trying to deal with the tornadoes in western Kentucky.

The flooding in eastern Kentucky.

You would expect an incumbent to be doing better in those places than usual.

The poll suggests he is.

So he just needs to shore up that support.

The Democrats normally would not be receiving in on favorable territory if he wants to stay, what seems to be ahead, whoever the eventual Republican nominee is, how difficult would be for them to play catch-up and kind of.

Say what they want about the sheer.

You know, usually the strategy for Republicans to try to make an election about cultural and social The Democrats do very poorly when we're thinking in those terms in terms of the culture war terms, the difficulty the Republicans, we have this time in dealing with the culture war, is that the legislature just dealt with a whole lot of culture.

War store stole a lot of the fund or maybe made the public a little uncomfortable with Republican orientation on those issues.

It's going to be harder for Republicans than usual to play that culture war.

Yeah, we're seeing abortion play out as a main topic of conversation.

A lot of races across the nation.

Is that something that we should expect to hear about here in Kentucky?

Abortion was not really political speaking a good development for Republicans when when people get a success, the way for a lot of people have gotten, they usually sort of recede.

You don't get as much support from them.

The people who are upset with what you did, they turn out in larger numbers.

So you would expect the abortion issue help Democrats, Doctor Ross, anything else that people should be looking out for as they watch this GOP primary tumor?

Corals is trying to be the idea campaigner.

You know, the one who offered an idea week has the big thoughts.

Campaign.

I'd be looking for maybe some more surprised policy announcements from him to see if he can not just, you know, buy some ads, but get attention from you.

Folks in the in the media.

Doctor, Ross, really appreciate you coming.

And thanks for taking time from Casey.

♪ When tornadoes tore through Western Kentucky in December of 2021. left many without a home with renters making up a large percentage of the displaced.

Some of those renters moved Paducah and McCracken County.

Now, Paducah, Section 8 housing assistance is trying to help find homes for people and others who need help because of low incomes.

Their program director told KTVT that they need help from the community to meet the demand for low-income housing.

>> We run a program called the Housing Choice Voucher program, which is a HUD rental assistance program.

We are targeting all families, age There's no specific area that we don't want to target because these families that need the rental assistance are eligible for this particular type of rental assistance based on their income.

What the resources are That's why we're trying to promote and get the word out about housing.

We need landlords.

We need anyone that is interested in receiving federal as far as housing is concerned to reach out to us if they have families in their unit that could possibly qualify for low-income housing.

But we did have several families to move into the McCracken County District, which is where we serve to be able to be housed after the December 10th tornado.

People are still looking for They may not want to, you know, relocate out of their comfort zone.

But the city of Paducah has housing availability for these families.

>> Allan McKeown says that section 8 housing can help individuals or families who qualify for the program.

You won't find it on the shelves at your local building supply store.

But human hair could soon become a common construction material.

A team of researchers at the University of Kentucky is studying how human hair can aid in repairing bridges, buildings and other structures.

>> Since the productivity within 5 years and to have critics and other applications that we can directly used.

We started looking at other natural fibers.

The hair was one of them.

Which of hair is you don't need to process a tool in the fight for it.

Said the hair and you Well, so here is a.

All right.

And that ends up in landfills in general.

most headstones would be more than happy to press it on to you.

>> The trial that many times the providers and it was it's a long process to remove hair do this.

And that's pretty much you're just trying to see what is what has the best properties or the binder that's going to make sure that they're the best part.

That's a structural components which the same way we use.

>> Glass fibers will come in flavors and so.

But that just happened to be human who puts uses.

That's what so.

Once we get it, this.

>> What and out.

To and the other now we're going to have.

And at 95 Celsius.

With hours, I did not think I anything that would be.

>> We have many combinations of binders that the students were developing and one of them went to work in this year.

Basically.

So then that's going to hold the fabric with a human hair.

In to the shape that you want.

And then we can pour concrete inside 2 in case.

Pine this damage or Pierre, this them insurance or the money.

Think about it.

Since its hybrid.

You can shape that any way you want to.

>> We have a lot of the topics.

Elders, every test.

Using plastic molds.

It was like this.

So in the future we've been.

Maybe and replace it possible to be, you know.

Much more >> Well, we were looking forward to finishing face to the and the next academic year and the after that, that we would have a proof of concept and the lack of testing data behind the the product that we is that then feeds that the caissons census be using different binder.

That's different.

you know.

>> Last things.

This as has a lot.

>> Weight for weight strand of human hair is comparable in strength to steal.

♪ The American printing House for the blind is revolutionizing the way blind people freed.

The Louisville nonprofit is calling it the Holy Braille for education, Kentucky additions.

Kelsey Starks has more on what's called the Monarch.

>> And game changing project that you all are working on is called the monarch.

Also a lot of people know of course what Braille is.

But this is really moving it into the 21st century.

What exactly is it and how does that work?

>> Braille, which is a fascinating code and and allows people who are blind to have a sense of literacy, the ability to read and write is wonderful in itself, but it has some challenges.

One is it's cumbersome.

It's big the to You know, we think of our our standard algebra book that we all had in high school and you know what?

Maybe 3 inches thick, 2 inches thick to get that in Braille would represent about 30 plus volumes, all of which are about 3 and a half to 4 inches thick.

So when it's time to turn to page one, 21 problem 15.

It's not as simple as opening your book.

You have to figure out which volume Page one.

21 is.

You've got to go find it.

And one 21 0 usually be displayed over 3 or 4 pages.

So you could imagine trying to sift through that to stay up with your peers.

Then on top of that, oftentimes the graphics, all those wonderful graphs and angles and a math equations will be located in separate supplemental manuals so than the student has to have.

Math book.

If the graphics are there the happen.

Otherwise they have supplemental things.

Plus, whatever tools they're using to answer the problem be at a computer theater, us traditional Braille.

This device that we're creating and we're working with amazing companies to make this happen.

But this device will put all that into a single table.

Top multi line Braille Display unit that shows graphics and Braille.

At the same time.

It's never been done before there's been tactile tablets and there's been some experience with some multi line tablets.

But to get almost a full sheet braille on a single tablet.

So when the teacher says turn to page one, 21 problems problems.

3, the student can just type in won't go to one.

21 paid problem 3.

The problem will be there real time.

What this means for the students were no longer a passive learner where an active learned are keeping up with are sighted peers and so from an educational perspective and having been a former educator, you working in the classroom with students who are blind and low vision.

This is a game changer.

It is.

It's going to be revolutionary and we're quite excited We have prototypes out right now and they're working phenomenally so more work to be done because we have to create this entire educational ecosystem around that supports this.

If you think about it, if if the viewers will think about when the when the first iPad came and how small that iPad Universe was that the number of apps that were out there.

But how quickly grew?

We're in essence doing the same thing where we're producing this.

In fact, an iPad for the blind.

But now we've got to create that educational ecosystem with apps programs.

So we're in conversations with the usual suspects Google, Microsoft, Apple, because we want this platform to for all him to.

So we got a lot of work ahead of us, but we're excited about the progress.

Really incredible technology.

The American printing House for the Blind.

>> Recently partnered with the Daisy Consortium, a global organization helped develop this new electronic Royal Standard.

♪ >> We have a full slate of interesting things to do this Easter weekend to be gives.

Take a look at what's up around the Commonwealth.

♪ The 56th annual Bardstown Antique show is this weekend and Bardstown with more than 50 dealers from 6 different states in items ranging from fine glass to furniture and more.

>> This event proves that one man's trash is another man's treasure.

Spring has sprung.

And Somerset.

The Kentucky Green Living Fair is back this Saturday with live music, environmental workshops and even some live animals.

This event is great for the whole family.

A massive an Easter egg hunt is happening in Ashland the Saturday thousands of bags will be hitting that the Central Park bandstand.

So bring your own basket and the rack for try your hand at finding a golden egg all while having an egg.

So at the time.

Head on down the Carson Center next Monday, take a journey to the past.

Follow Anastasia.

She goes on the adventure of a lifetime to unravel her mysterious past.

>> And find the family from her dreams in this dazzling award-winning.

>> Musical.

Want to grow your skills?

As a gardener stopped by get ready to garden this weekend in Calvert City to hear presentations on how to start your own garden for Tiger Tomatoes properly.

Check out the food truck.

Enjoy local vendors and feel your gardening smarts.

Blossom.

Lights, camera blankets.

The city of Madisonville is hosting an outdoor movie night our Park.

Arboretum this weekend.

Check out the vendors.

Grab some free popcorn and settle in to watch Jurassic World for a name that you won't want to miss.

And that's what's happening around the Commonwealth.

I'm Toby Good cause.

Coming up Monday, a special anniversary and Monticello.

The statue pays tribute to troops from Wayne County killed in World War.

One.

>> And this dough boy has been around for 100 years.

More on the statue and what it means Monday on Kentucky Edition.

We hope you'll join us again tomorrow night at 6 or on Monday at 6.30, Eastern 5.30, central for Kentucky Edition, we inform connect and inspire.

You can describe her weekly.

Kentucky Edition email newsletter watch full episodes and clips a K E T Dot Org and also find video on the PBS app like Toby Give said, We hope you have an excellent weekend.

♪