For the second time in a month, the U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, appearing to freeze up during a press conference, this time at a Kentucky event.

Andy Beshear has led as the welfare governor, I will lead as the work force Governor Daniel Cameron unveils his economic agenda.

We have at least 11 co-ops who are sending crews into the hurricane areas.

Crews from Kentucky heading to Florida to help as Hurricane Adele.

Yes, slams that state.

You know, Japanese markets, Asian markets, those types of things have expanded throughout the entire state.

This is I-75.

And find out more about the connection between Kentucky and Japan.

Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the KET Endowment for Kentucky Productions, the Leonard Press Endowment for Public Affairs and the KET Millennium Fund.

Good evening and welcome to Kentucky Edition on this Wednesday, August the 30th.

I'm Renee Shaw.

Thank you for winding down your Wednesday with us.

Another scary moment for U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell today.

Kentucky's senior senator appeared to freeze up again today while speaking to reporters in northern Kentucky.

In this video from WKYC in Cincinnati, you can hear the senator was asked about running for reelection in 2026.

What are your thoughts on running for reelection in 2026?

What are my thoughts about what running for reelection in 20?

Did you hear the question, Senator?

Running for reelection in 2026?

All right.

I'm sorry, you all.

We're going to need a minute.

Senator and Senator McConnell eventually returned to answering questions, but avoided the question about a 2026 reelection run.

A spokesperson for McConnell told Katie that he, quote, felt momentarily lightheaded and paused during his press conference, end quote.

The 81 year old suffered a similar episode last month while speaking to reporters at the U.S. Capitol.

More news on this, including a look at a Kentucky law on filling unexpired terms of U.S. senators.

If there is a vacancy.

Coming up in my conversation with public Media journalist Ryland Barton, Republican candidate for governor Daniel Cameron, laid out his economic agenda today.

He supports a plan to require some able bodied adults to work in exchange for health coverage through Medicaid.

Andy Beshear has led as the welfare governor, I will lead as the work force.

Governor.

Work requirements have emerged as one of the stark policy differences between Cameron and his opponent, Democrat incumbent Governor Andy Beshear.

Bashir stopped an attempt by the state's previous GOP governor, Matt Bevin, to create a medicaid work requirement that Beshear said would have stripped coverage from about 100,000 Kentuckians.

At the top of Cameron's economic priorities.

Was keeping track keeping Kentucky on track toward eliminating the individual income tax.

That's why my first budget and every one I submit as governor will keep Kentucky on the path to eliminating the income tax.

We will help Kentuckians keep more of their own money.

I'll work constructively with leaders of the General Assembly to make our tax code simple, fair and competitive so that families and Main Street thrive.

Cameron also vowed to defend the coal industry, promote rural growth and strengthen workforce programs.

Journalist Roland Barton will also help break down this story coming up in just a few minutes.

The Kentucky Democratic Party is responding to Cameron's political platforms, calling them a move toward privatizing public schools, taking health care away from people and increasing taxes on working people.

Spokesperson Anna Breedlove said, quote, Andy Beshear has delivered the two largest electric vehicle battery plants in the United States.

Daniel Cameron's economic plan is to posters full of empty slogans and quote Cameron also issued an opinion today on a state program created in 1995 to increase the number of minorities in state government leadership positions.

In the opinion, Cameron said the governor is a minority management program violates both the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Kentucky Civil Rights Act because only employees who belong to an ethnic minority are eligible to participate.

He said many Kentuckians would be excluded from participating based solely on their race.

Cameron also states that the nature of the taxpayer funded program is to train state employees to help them advance in the executive branch and those state employees who cannot participate are at a disadvantage.

The opinion comes one day after Cameron and other Republican attorneys general sent a letter to the nation's 100 largest law firms calling on them to stop using race based hiring practices for employment and contract workers.

According to the Kentucky Atlantan, the nine page letter cites a recent Supreme Court ruling which overturned affirmative action policies and college admissions.

Hurricane A Dow is unleashing life threatening wind and rain and Florida and Georgia.

It made landfall as a dangerous Category three hurricane early this morning in the Big Bend region, where the Florida Panhandle curves into the peninsula.

Then it moved east of Tallahassee toward Valdosta, Georgia, where downed power lines shut down part of the interstate highway into town.

Coastal storm surge as high as 16 feet in places remained a major concern.

The National Weather Service says a deluge will hit the Carolinas as a tropical storm before moving out to sea.

More than 230,000 customers are without power as trees snapped in the winds and water turns roads into rivers.

Crews from Kentucky are headed to the region to help restore power.

Kentucky Electric Cooperative is coordinating the deployment of 11 crews to Georgia and South Carolina.

Some of them left this morning.

Joe Arnold is a spokesperson for the co-op.

He says this kind of teamwork is crucial because you never know when Kentucky might need additional support.

These are our friends and neighbors.

And in fact, many of the line workers who are linemen will be working alongside in Georgia and South Carolina.

They'll recognize because they will have worked here in Kentucky after, for instance, the windstorm.

We had this back in March or in previous ice storms and other natural disasters.

And the tornadoes and such in the past.

So we know each other.

We work on the same type of equipment.

It's very important a safety angle as well.

But this is truly a cooperative effort in in both in the dictionary sense as well as in the legal sense here with our electric cooperatives in Kentucky.

Arnold says crews from Kentucky could be on the ground for up to two weeks.

A groundbreaking today in northern Kentucky for a new $26 million project.

Officials say is designed to serve as a hub of economic growth for the region.

Governor Andy Beshear was among the officials on hand in Covington to break ground on the one inquiry center.

It will be the headquarters for groups and organizations focused on tourism, business and economic development in the region.

Also housed in the center.

The Covington Life Science Lab.

The General Assembly approved $15 million in funding for the lab last year.

Governor Andy Beshear said the project will support the many life sciences and biotech companies already in the region.

The lab will have research and development facilities with shared equipment and office space and educational training opportunities.

And the science industry's construction on the center is expected to be completed in March of 2025.

Time now for a midweek check in of some major political developments this week so far with our friend Roland Martin, who is the managing editor of Kentucky Public Radio.

Good to see you.

Good to see you, too, Renee.

So today, around the time we talked mid-afternoon, we had gotten some distressing news concerning U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell once again.

And we've shown part of this video earlier in our newscast.

Froze during mid-sentence again when he was asked about running for reelection in 2026.

Right.

This took place in Covington during a news conference attended by reporters in which he was answering questions.

And it seems very similar to what took place in late July where he froze publicly during a news conference when trying to answer questions.

This has raised a lot of questions about his health.

Is 81 years old.

And also, you know, kind of out if you know, if he were to need to leave office at this point, kind of the succession plan in Kentucky, which is a little bit up in the air at this point, it's a little untested at this point.

Republicans in the Kentucky legislature, once a Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, became governor, passed a law saying that in order to fill the bill, a vacancy in the U.S. Senate, that it has to be filled by a member of a party of the departing senator.

The governor would still get to pick that replacement, but you'd have to pick one of three nominees selected by the the party of that outgoing senator.

So if this were to ever come to pass and Kentucky would in McConnell's case, it would be the Republican Party.

But, you know, also, it's just a you know, it's a it's a really remarkable thing to see.

It's very distressing for me to watch.

I mean, this is a figure that we've all seen of a lot of folks, longer and longer than I've been alive.

But he's been in office and and it's distressing to see somebody who's been around for Kentucky so long to really publicly be having trouble.

Yes.

And our well-wishes go to him and the staff there who are also there, who we know.

And so they are all in our thoughts.

Let's shift now to talk about the governor's race.

And today, Daniel Cameron, the Republican nominee in attorney general, unveiled his economic plan.

And some other things have happened today that he's done.

But let's start there first.

What is his agenda when it comes to moving the state forward financially?

Yeah, there are a bunch of items here.

The couple a couple of the main takeaways for me in hearing about this were the, you know, his continued proposal to eliminate the state income tax, which has been a big economic proposal for Republicans in Kentucky over the last few years, especially since the the Matt Bevin era.

That was a big thing.

He talked a lot about shifting away the state's reliance on sales taxes over a rather from income tax over to consumption based taxes like sales taxes.

A lot of critics will say that that's a regressive form of taxation policy because poorer people end up spending a greater percentage of their income on on goods and services, which are and then being taxed by a sales tax, whereas, you know, wealthier people with more money would be able to, you know, not have to pay a larger percentage of of their incomes going back to state coffers and there's a lot of questions about this as well as just, you know, is this really the secure or right way at this point for the state to fund state services?

It's an ongoing debate in Kentucky.

The legislature is actually kind of taking a a slow approach.

They've been whittling away at it and they set a law in place that actually takes allows the legislature to take off on a small percentage of of the income tax every year, depending on certain economic factors.

But, you know, the economy's actually doing pretty well, or at least like the amount of tax revenue going into the state coffers is doing pretty well right now.

And there's a lot of questions about, well, how does this actually work?

You know, when the economy's in a downturn, so say another 2008 with this still operate well.

So there's a lot of a lot of thinking to be done about that.

Another piece of his economic platform was imposing work requirements on certain Medicaid beneficiaries.

This is another proposal that was put forth by former Governor Bevin.

He really pushed for that hard.

He tried to put it in place and it actually got gummed up in the in the federal court system and ultimately didn't advance.

And then once Governor Beshear came into office, he rescinded that.

You know, this is the thing that's been it hasn't really been tested here too much.

There's some elements of it.

But again, once again, a lot of critics point out that, you know, that's a lot of hoops for folks to have to jump through on Medicaid and, you know, would would probably lead to a dramatic decline in the number of people receiving, you know, state assisted health care.

Another item of Daniel Cameron is today he signed a letter along with four other attorneys general warning law firms to end race based hiring practices.

He'd already done this with Fortune 100 companies before several weeks or a couple of months back.

And now he's on this with the law firm.

So what's the end goal here, you think?

I mean, what's the tactic here?

I mean, I think this is a political tactic.

This is I mean, I think a lot of Republicans are, you know, really anti affirmative action or these sorts of affirmative action policies.

He's citing the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned affirmative action policies in college admissions.

And I think he's really trying to put himself out there as a black attorney general, as a black candidate for governor, saying that he is against this particular policy and, you know, trying to, you know, get other Republicans on board who are in favor of this.

So, you know, this is it's one of those political moves where, you know, he's he's essentially writing a letter.

But it's so it doesn't have like a lot of, you know, policy weight to it.

There's not there's not a big, you know, thing that's going to happen next.

But it's his suggestion and he's pointing out where he stands on this issue.

And yeah, I think that this is this is a popular thing among some Republicans.

And he's, you know, trying to shore up that that part of his vote, the phenomenon of the crossover governor.

This piece written by your colleague Sylvia Goodman, and it was on NPR this morning, we heard about the appeal of Governor Beshear in light of the fact that he's got so much other Republican opposition.

Yeah, I mean, it's a remarkable story, really.

What's going on in Kentucky right now.

It's such an incredibly Republican state, and yet it has this, by most measures, popular Democratic governor.

There's this line that I thought was a great takeaway and just kind of how, you know, a Democratic governor like Beshear operates in the legislature where he can't he can't really get a lot of his policies passed.

But as she put it, Democrats know that he tried and Republicans know that his veto isn't ever a threat.

At the end of the day, that's the hallmark of a crossover governor.

So he's kind of he's got this balance between, you know, what's at risk or for some of his opponents and what's really successful for some of his supporters.

Yeah, well, thank you for one.

That's always good to speak with you and we appreciate it once again.

Take good care of Annie.

Thank you.

Drug shortages are plaguing hospitals, pharmacies and patients all across the country.

We spoke with a pharmacist and a drug supply chain expert at the University of Kentucky about what causes these shortages and what to do if they impact you.

All of that and today's medical news, something that is a main focus for our institution right now and across the country as they focus on the consistent chemotherapy drug shortages that people are having to get very creative on how to manage.

I would say that cisplatin is one of those big names that you hear pretty often where we're trying to come up with contingency plans.

On the second one that is more recent are sterile injectables, and that is because there was a recent tornado that hit a Pfizer factory that makes a good percentage of those products.

They're becoming harder to get by now than they were a couple of weeks ago.

I think the first item to consider is just demand in general.

And that can fluctuate from season to season depending on what diseases are most prevalent.

And then the other thing to consider, too, is where our drug manufacturers get the actual ingredients to make those drugs.

If those actual ingredients are in shortage, then the manufacturers that make the drug and need those ingredients are unable to make it and then supply it to meet the demand.

The third piece is there some instances where quality becomes an issue too.

It's basically throwing away drug that's unusable.

So then, as you can imagine, that has a cascading effect and eventually these companies aren't able to meet demand and then those products go on shortage.

So the first thing I would recommend is at the point in time where a patient is seeing their physician or whoever is writing their prescriptions, I would highly recommend that that patient reach out to the pharmacy prior to going to the pharmacy itself to pick up the prescriptions, just to make sure that the product is in stock at that time.

If there is any issues with a drug shortage and they are unable to supply the drug that the provider prescribed for that patient, then that is the perfect time for the patient to call back.

The person who wrote their prescription to say, Are there alternatives available that you can prescribe me instead?

I would highly recommend that they engage that pharmacy staff because they are a fantastic resource.

The other thing that I would recommend for patients to do is just to have those open conversations with their prescribe.

So when they're in the office, a good question might be to ask at that time, do you know if this drug is on shortage or not?

And if they don't know, they will probably refer the patient to the pharmacy where they'll be getting their prescription from.

The drug shortage is manifesting and medicines that treat everything from anxiety and ADHD to addiction and infection.

Continuing our look at medical news, this is non-melanoma Skin Cancer Awareness Week in Kentucky.

We now have a treatment in our state to fight the most common type of skin cancer.

Our Christy Dalton sat down with the first physician in Kentucky to offer it.

Nearly 45,000 Kentuckians are expected to be diagnosed with non-melanoma skin cancer just this year.

Joining us now is Dr. Denise Dickinson, a physician, one of the first physicians to offer a non-surgical treatment here in Kentucky that could be a powerful tool against skin cancer.

Okay, Dr. Dickinson, I thought that if you got skin cancer, you had to get it cut out.

But this treatment is different, right?

This is a non-surgical treatment that just requires really superficial radiation therapy that only goes like five millimeters.

And it's real superficial.

It's less than dental x ray.

And you come in three times a week for a total of 20 treatments each treatment.

Each session is 10 minutes, but the treatment itself is 30 seconds per skin cancer.

And the initial treatment, the initial visit is a 30 minute visit where they map out the field for the radiation when the rest of them are 10 minutes and you can do up to three skin cancers on a given session.

So this is so there's no cutting, there's no blood, no gloves are cut.

Why is it an ultrasound?

What is it that goes in?

It's a real superficial x rays that just penetrate very superficial.

Like I said, that's in a dental X-ray and there's no pain, there's no blood, there's no scarring, there's no need for reconstructive surgery.

It leaves sometimes a little bit of lighter skin color.

And if it's taken up in a hairy area, for example, your scalp, you will lose a hair within that region.

Okay.

Is it effective?

What's the that is, as an effective.

It's most hardy like most surgery.

It's been the gold standard since the seventies and it's 99% 99% effective for this.

And it equals, you know, the most surgery.

Not all skin cancers can be done.

What are the superficial radiation techniques?

There are some skin cancers that you do have to do moles on, but the ones that can have moles versus that superficial radiation treatment, the success rate, both 99%, but there are some skin cancers that are bigger and more aggressive that look different beneath the microscope that would have to go to moles.

But this takes care of the bulk of them and just a non-surgical way to do it.

The main compromise for the patient is they have to come 28 times, truthfully, 21 times if you can clean it up planning time.

So that is inconvenience people.

But a lot of people have really liked it so far.

We've done 63 people since the beginning of February and they've all been really happy.

Dr. Dickinson joins 500 physicians nationwide who offer this non-surgical skin cancer treatment.

Talk to your physician to learn more about treatment options.

It's been almost four decades since a Japanese based Toyota opened its largest vehicle manufacturing plant in Georgetown, Kentucky.

Now, the facility employs over 9000 people, but the plant brought more than just jobs.

The development also introduced many Japanese businesses and restaurants to central Kentucky.

Here's more on Japanese culture and cuisine in the bluegrass and our weekly arts and culture segment we call Tapestry.

I remember a while back giving a speech, and I used the word ally of Japan, and my son at the time was in middle school, and he was like, What is now?

I mean, and I said, Friend means it's our friend.

Then you know, and as a middle schooler, his comment was, Oh, so Japan's our friend.

And I said, Yeah.

And he goes, Are they our best friend?

You know?

And in many ways, Japan and Kentucky do have a in the U.S. have a a best friend relationship.

There's a lot of similarities between Japanese culture and Kentucky culture in regards to family ties, family relationships.

So when the Japanese come, they feel at home.

You know, we open our our homes, our neighborhoods and communities, and we develop those relationships.

I spend my life half of my life in Japan, half almost half in here.

I born and raised in Tokyo.

I met my husband in Japan, and a few years later we marry.

And he brought it here in 1998.

So I was able to see, like in the mutual positions between Japanese culture, in American culture, and I was able to put together and create this myself and teach the Japanese restaurant in Lexington.

Today, we have over 206 Japanese companies that call Kentucky home.

So right now, around 47% of our foreign investment into the state comes from Japan.

And it's pretty diverse.

It's from manufacturing to financial world to restaurants.

You know, right now we have around 6000 Japanese nationals that are here on visas, you know, So we want to provide them with the most comfort areas that we can sell.

You know, Japanese markets, Asian markets, those types of things have expanded throughout the entire state.

Is it sashimi style?

The people come from Japan that basically they don't have anything experience living outside Japan is more likely.

Lately, young people come in to work for Toyota plant.

Then those people has no light, no knowledge about what the American culture or there's some people that don't speak any English at all.

And so as a restaurant, we would like to help their living in Lexington and hopefully they can feel like this is a second home.

You know, there's curry in the ramen and, you know, the chickens and all of those things, the rice, you know.

So it's a taste of Japan for us who live in the Japanese world, you know, and then for the Japanese nationals to live here and then the community at large would like people have open mind and trying to something new that they never had before.

Then after that experience, hopefully they'll come back to try something new again and again.

School Sushi is located in downtown Lexington and recently expanded to include a karaoke room as well.

Sounds like a swell time.

Coming up tomorrow on Kentucky Edition.

It seemed to be a lot more affordable than most dorms on campus.

Find out why this house is providing more than just a place to live for some northern Kentucky students.

We hope you'll join us for that story and much more tomorrow night at 630 Eastern, 530 Central on Kentucky Edition, where we inform, Connect and Inspire.

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Thank you so much for joining us.

Take really good care until I see you right back here again tomorrow night.

Good night.