>> If you think more and more people are getting the flu, the numbers say you're right.

And helping steer people and families to a path of nonviolence.

And that takes more Lexington's mayor on the difficult task of stopping gun violence.

>> Almost all characters of color were relegated to rows of sidekicks.

>> And the Kentuckyian shares a comic book collection dedicated to telling the stories of block superheroes.

Production of Kentucky edition is made possible in part by the KET meant for Kentucky Productions.

Leonard Preston down the public affairs and the KET Millennium Fund.

♪ ♪ >> Good evening and welcome to Kentucky EDITION on this Wednesday, December, the 14th, I'm Renee Shaw.

Thank you for spending some of your Wednesday night with us.

>> The numbers tell the story.

The flu is getting worse in Kentucky.

Let's take a look at what's happening in the state's second-largest city.

Lexington, the Lexington, Fayette County Health Department says flu cases were at 276 last week.

Now the city's total is almost 1600 and in Lexington, there are 3 new flu related deaths for a total of 9 so far this season and all the flu cases reported so far, 90% of the patients had not received a flu shot.

And Washington, D.C., lawmakers say they've reached an agreement on a budget framework that would allow them to pass a spending bill and avoid a government shutdown.

Sources say the 2 sides are closer on a spending bill.

That's about 1.0.

65 trillion dollars today, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was among the Republican senators denouncing the amount of spending being discussed.

>> The Democrats and a big government Republicans will be offering you a Christmas the Christmas tree in Washington is a bill that has something on it for everyone.

You won't know what it is until you get it.

You won't be able to read and Dillard's done, but it will happen because the only thing that invariably happens in Washington is they will get together to spend Democrats and big government Republicans every year pass a budget.

But it's a budget are spending bill that has no budget.

It will be a spending bill, which everything is Guam together in one bill, it will be a spending bill.

Thousands of pages long and no one will ever read.

No one will encompass the entire bill.

It will be given with only hours to read it and then there will be a reversal of blame.

The blame on attached to the people who frankly, I wouldn't put in charge of running a minute more because of their lack of business sense.

It won't attached to people who put together cobble together a multi 1000 page Bill in the dead of night didn't showed anyone put it forward.

They will say no.

If you vote no, you're for shutting down the government.

>> Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky says he thinks Congress will pass a temporary bill this week to avoid a partial government shutdown that would otherwise occur Friday at midnight.

He says that would fund the government for another week until passage of the full bill.

Senator McConnell is blaming former President Donald Trump and Trump backed candidates for Republican losses in Senate races during the recent midterms, McConnell spoke to reporters yesterday.

He noted that Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate backed by Trump lost in Georgia, New Hampshire and Arizona.

He implied that he would have preferred other nominees in those states.

He said, quote, Our ability to control a primary outcome was quite limited in 2022, because the support of the former president proved to be very decisive in these primaries, hopefully in the next cycle will have quality candidates everywhere and a better outcome.

End quote.

Congressman John Yarmouth of Kentucky's 3rd congressional district is retiring at the end of his term after 16 years in the U.S. House, he spoke today for the last time on the U.S. House floor.

Yarmouth talked about what he will miss about serving and Congress and what he won't miss.

>> Mister Speaker several years ago, I ran into a former member of the House and I asked him whether he missed it.

He answered.

I don't miss the circus.

I miss the clowns.

Now that I'm in my final days as a member and I reflected on my 16 years here, I'm going to tweet deadline.

I will miss everything about the circus and I will miss many but not all of the clowns also now understand was so many people are afraid of clowns.

I will miss the serious, thoughtful and all the noble discussions about how we can make a positive difference in the lives of so many Americans, even if we rarely make as big a difference as we want.

And I will miss the give and take of policy debates even though I know there was never a chance the debates would change anyone's mind.

On the other hand, I won't miss the reality that most of our rhetorical firepower he's preaching to our respective choirs and the to measure what we say comes from the Devils and not the angels of our natures.

I will miss the constant emphasis on raising money and the apparent conviction of some that only gobs of money can persuade enough voters to win elections.

I will miss the frustrating reality that we rarely move quickly enough to deal with the challenges of a fast-moving world and the fear that this body doesn't doesn't figure out how to work more expeditiously.

We will continue to frustrate our citizens.

>> Congressman Yarmouth is the only Democrat in the Kentucky get congressional delegation.

He will be replaced by another Democrat Morgan Mcgarvy who was elected to the seat in November.

Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton was decisively reelected in the 2022 general election.

I recently sat down with the mayor to discuss how she plans to tackle some of the major issues facing Lexington, one of those big issues is crime.

There have been 43 homicides in Lexington this year that surpasses last year's record-breaking number of 37 Mayor Gordon says the city's one Lexington program spearheaded by director Divine Karama is having a meaningful impact.

>> They're in the street, you know, working with families impacted by violence and >> he he's amazing.

And hit in just the last year.

If you take the last 12 months.

gun violence among his group, which is the 13 to 29 year-olds, has decreased by 50%.

The gun homicide.

That's pretty big.

And that's the kind of thing we're looking for.

Is that kind of change and helping steer people and families to a path of nonviolence.

And that takes work.

Well, we know that there's been some and our friends to the West and Louisville.

There are I don't want to 6 peer Manning with a concept called group Violence Intervention and that we've talked about.

>> On other programs here, it KET.

And even the gentleman who was responsible for engineering.

That program is talked about how successful it has been in other cities, but you're not convinced.

And and many of the African American clergy weren't convinced.

And and some people say, well, what's the difference?

They both have very similar approach is about getting intervening and diverting all when a kid or maybe of someone who's on the cusp of adulthood is on the wrong path.

No one disagrees with that philosophical approach right?

Why do you think that community violence intervention or this one Lexington approach is better than what other cities nearby are trying.

Well, the thing about one Lexington is it's community violence.

Intervention.

we think it's a better fit for Lexington.

Our team of folks.

>> Throughout government made many phone calls to other cities that have use gvi.

We wanted to know if it was a good fit for us because if we thought it was we would have implemented it.

However, one of the things that we learned is that the mechanism we believed would have put a focus on the communities of color here.

Big whether you were in violence are not involved in violence or not.

And the other thing that we learned when we talk to these individual cities is that many of them used to use that.

But then they learned the homicides were rising while they were using gvi.

We just did not feel it was a good fit for us.

And so we went to the community violence intervention, which now the Department of Justice, he's really supportive of what we're calling Cvi or community violence intervention because you're going right to the people, right?

And the root causes.

Yes.

And the root causes.

I mean, if we do look at the root causes and try to intervene and those we will never make progress.

>> You can learn more about the city's one Lexington program online at Lexington K why DOT Gov.

Slash one Lexington.

>> Some education news and it's good news.

A national group likes how the Kentucky Council on Post-secondary education is working to make it easier for students to transfer from community and technical colleges to four-year universities.

And the cpe is getting more than praise.

It's getting money.

The National Association of System Heads also known as MASH is giving the Cpe a $7500 grant to help continue its work to bring down barriers that make it hard for students to transfer.

Nash says it shares many of the same goals as the Cpe.

University of Kentucky students.

This is not so good.

You'll be paying more for housing and food starting next year on Tuesday, the Board of trustees Okayed a 4% increase and on-campus housing costs.

Dining rates will go up 9%.

UK says this is because of inflation and rising costs.

UK's executive Vice President Eric Monday told the Lexington Herald-Leader the increases are less.

That's similar increases seen in Lexington as a whole.

He says rent increases in Lexington have been 17% over the last year.

While food costs have gone up 11%.

Northern Kentucky University is not taking action to be an authorize or of a charter school pilot project in that area.

A bill passed by state lawmakers earlier this year.

Mandated charter school pilot projects in northern Kentuckyian Jefferson County.

We asked Marc Pain of link Nky.

What is an authorize are and what does this mean for the future of charter schools in northern Kentucky?

>> And authorize or as an institution that can prove, deny and over.

See a charter school that can be a nonprofit institution of for-profit institution.

You do see it in some other for example, in Indiana Ball State is the authorize or for the entire state.

So nku had the option to be in authorize or for the northern Kentucky charter.

>> Pilot project that was part of House Bill 9 the past this past legislative session.

>> They were put into that building a really interesting way because they did not know that they were included in that bill.

And so when that Bill appeared in the session, there are some that that they were in the bill and KU had lobbied to try to get some language changed.

And the bill on whether or not they would be included.

So they had a deadline of 1/1/2023.

To decide whether or not they would be an authorize or they held a specially called meeting yesterday.

Their board of Regents when called a motion to vote and no one called no one seconded.

The motion.

And so they did not even take a vote.

So and KU will not be the authorize or for a charter school and northern Kentucky.

>> Does that mean the issue is dead?

And there is noncompliance of that law that was House Bill 9 or is there another option for an authorize or >> it does not.

I mean, or Kentucky's again to get a charter school It just depends how that happens now.

So without nku and the picture as an authorize or that responsibility will now fall on local school districts.

So the way that the bill as and KU denied to be the authorize or local school boards will have to put forward 2 from the school district and it can and the county that contains 4 or more school districts and up in northern Kentucky, there's 2 counties that that applies Campbell and Kenton counties.

>> So now it's up to the school boards to appoint those members.

Do you have any sense how fast that could go and and won?

The deadline is for them to have that in place.

>> Local school boards have a deadline to approve a charter by July first 2024.

Now there's a lot of gray area when it comes to that.

I talked to Ludlow School district Superintendent Mike for jurors after the meetings about, you know, what happens now?

And he essentially was like, you know, there's a lot of gray area when it comes to this.

Not everybody really understands what needs to be done.

And I think that that was some of the hesitation from Nku.

There's just so many complicated and moving parts to House Bill 9 that no one understands really how to institute it.

So.

As he said, that education leaders and the community need to get together and, >> you know, understand what they need to do and and what happens next.

>> Yeah, and 2 words could summarize this and we say it all the time on Facebook.

It's complicated.

I think that there's universal consensus on that.

But Mark Pain, thank you for helping sort through what has happened so far and what could to could be to come.

So thank you so much.

♪ ♪ Time now for our midweek, check-in of some major political developments in Kentucky this week with public radio journalists Rylan Barton, who is the managing editor of Kentucky Public Radio and Ohio Valley Resource.

Good to see you, as always.

For island.

>> You can see it here yet.

>> So not much You know, we're approaching the holiday season and things do kind of slow down a little bit.

But some developments to talk about out out.

Start with this.

The the headline in the Herald leader on December 13th talk of adding Kentucky runoff.

>> Roll cools.

>> What that could mean for a Bevan 2023.

Run question, Mark.

I'm a lot of loaded statements and questions and those 2 lines.

>> Yeah, this was a this is almost an issue that was kind of a nerd into existence by a Senate majority floor Leader Damon earlier this fall.

He suggested this might be a really great solution for Kentucky, especially Republicans looking at this really crowded primary coming up in the spring.

There are now about 7 kind of you know, it's serious candidates are running, you know, well-funded campaigns for the Republican nomination.

I know.

you know, probably just as many of, you know, kind of lower-profile candidates as well.

So that's going to be a lot of Republicans to choose choose from in that primary.

And so some political leaders are wondering if it might be best to go back to a runoff system in which if no candidate racks the 50% threshold, then we take the top contenders and have a runoff race after that.

So that everybody who, you know, pass to a vote for, you know, one of the more minor candidates might have another option to to vote for somebody.

Otherwise you might have somebody winning with a really low threshold of that this really comes into play, especially with the the possibility of former governor Matt Bevin running which actually in this here leader Auditor Mike Harmon is put it to say that he's 95% sure that the former governor's going to run again, which, you know, Matt Bevin has a really high name recognition.

A lot of the top Republicans still think he's a pretty problematic unity, especially is because of the controversial pardons he And when he left office, but also that he lost that race to Andy Beshear and really got to make a lot of enemies over the course of his of time, an officer and political enemies, namely, you know that the teachers union so there's some talk of that sounds like they're kind of walking back from that option.

But you never know once the legislative session what could happen, especially in that first week when lawmakers are are trying to kind of pass some of the big bills and the initial part of the session.

>> We should mention that the filing deadline is January 6.

They go into session January 3rd.

So if they haven't really discussed this are there seems not to be a consensus.

Is there logistically time to deal with this issue and get it passed by that Saturday because we know they could go in that Saturday.

>> Right.

And that's what they like to do sometimes is trying to pass as quickly as possible in those first and full of days to try to pass some big bills or the other bill that they said they're going to pass in the first week is a, you know, something, cutting the the income tax.

And probably that's a bill that we're we're.

Why are higher threshold of votes because it's something that would be related to budget and appropriations.

That's how it works in these in these odd year.

Sessions.

Yes, the having that filing deadline of January 6, you know, that's so close to the start of the legislative session.

I think, especially with something like this, this runoff consideration possibility in the works that will I get I could wonder if they would want to be delaying the filing deadline once again, which they did earlier this year after kind of some problems with the redistricting process.

So there's a few things I think folks are thinking about right now.

But again, it could just go straight forward.

Every candidate is going to be on the ballot this year needs have there their forms.

And by January 6th and and no runoff going to have been.

So you're just have to deal with having 14, 15 Republicans running for primary.

Yeah, that's what it looks like now.

But who knows if anything?

>> Well, that's right.

That remains to be seen.

And we know that we did have this role up until the what the late 2000 and it was a 40% threshold.

So, you know that could really change things if that was reinstituted.

>> It really having a whole other election.

And and yeah, imagine if it's just the top 2 contenders after that.

Like what?

What does that look like?

Especially on those high-profile 7?

And it is it's kind of unclear at this point who would be the top 2 vote getters and especially what that would look like after a May primary.

>> And and and the funding of that.

I mean, are we I mean those things, those elections don't happen for free ride.

And what did the county Clark say about having to conduct another election?

Right?

Because we heard a lot about that during COVID when they were doing this kind of time lapse of voting about how costly that could be.

So how much would a runoff really cost the state?

>> And adding on to that, the recent reforms in Kentucky where there's early voting where now there's at least 3 days of early in-person voting and, you know, and more people become aware of absentee mail-in balloting as well.

Yeah, the turn around that time frame.

It would be a whole a big difference from how elections have been run in the last, you know, say 2 decades right?

>> So some measures that we're following mentioned a few about the tax reform measure that reduces by 0.5%.

The income tax.

We talked about that.

But there are some other may be cultural or wedge social wedge issues that are being discussed dealing with the transgender community.

>> Yeah.

Republican Representative Bill Wesley has filed a couple anti LGBTQ bills specifically targeting transgender people.

He was the kind of carried the the House version of the Senate bill earlier this year that of banned trans girls from participating in in essentially a girls sports and of middle school or high school and even college girls.

Sports.

So these one's one it?

That's similar to the old transgender bathroom bill you know, North Carolina passed back in 2015, Kentucky considered but never ultimately took took up.

It will require the ban.

Transgender people from using school bathrooms of their job, gender identity and require them to use their, you know, biological sex from their birth certificate.

And then another one that would require doctors to either signify male or female for every child born on their birth certificate.

That is currently the case in Kentucky.

But it would specifically ban doctors from, you know, putting an if they didn't want to sign a particular sect.

>> Well, thank you, Rylan for always breaking it down for us.

Good to see you will see you next week.

♪ >> A major advance and fusion research was announced in Washington on Tuesday.

Scientists say that for the first time they were able to engineer a reaction that produced more power that was used to ignite it.

>> The breakthrough at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California used powerful lasers focusing an enormous energy on a tiny capsule filled with feel.

But researchers and outside experts acknowledge it will likely take decades more before Fusion might one day be used to produce near limitless carbon free Energy, UK physics professor KET a loose as this breakthrough is really key for weapons.

Defense research.

>> This isn't an alternative path.

>> To produce more fusion energy, that delays are input.

>> Now, if some day you can produce laser energy cheaply and that he can produce more fusion.

And for that for the short term, they can collect lot of data from this.

This type of experiment to help.

What has research.

I was saying.

>> U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and other officials say the breakthrough will pave the way for advancements in national defense and their future of clean power.

♪ A familiar face to many Kentuckians acclaimed writer and poet Frank X Walker is sharing his personal comic book and memorabilia collection with the public.

The collection centers on black superheroes and Walker shares with us the impact these characters had on him growing up more in tonight's Wednesday.

Our segment, we like to call Tapestry.

I first started buying come books.

I was 10 or 11 years old and they were very for double.

And I was a nerd and I love books.

And these were the most affordable books I could have.

So I was built on librarian side of a milk crate.

>> And as my careers change ahead.

>> A chance to have more expendable income.

I was really was able to to make a large investment and high in all right and action figures.

And by then it was argument session and the first comic actor us all of color.

I was actually stunned by the image because I've never seen it before and had not expected have grown to expect that people who look like me would not appeal the covers of books.

Magazines are be the storyline would even be on television.

So I didn't realize how hungry for what I was.

And the heroes were almost always a white male.

And the last 40 to 50 slowly moved in a different direction towards more characters of color, not just in comments but in mass media in general.

A lot of the comic books have this one off into movies.

So it's always Nice is a comic book kid to see those characters come to life on the big screen in a way that I think enhances the overall story.

There's so many stories like that.

Black Panther is a fictional story, but they're probably 500 other individuals whose real-life stories a worthy of that same kind of treatment.

And I hope that, you know, those future filmmakers with figure that out and make it happen.

This particular exhibit is the combination of books.

Art action figures and memorabilia.

Also around the theme of black superheroes.

And this is a one of the rare opportunities to take it out of the box and put up for people to enjoy it.

So putting these images together and these figures together, these books together into the same space as a way of celebrating the importance of those images for young people and people of every age.

And I think every culture as well.

It's just another way to let the local communal that they are important and they are celebrated.

I think it's great for young people and older people to walk into a space and see them.

So, you know, representation is important.

I think this exhibit for me is kind of a validation of going up being teased for being in there and a book where.

The very things I was teased for the kid really have the highlights of this exhibit.

Hope anybody who because it is a self, a comic Gary Dorr.

I'm a collector unifies.

The wait is exhibit the hope.

People who enjoy African history find their way to this exhibit.

It's really designed to appeal to every age individual.

>> The collection will be on display at the Lyric Theater and Cultural Arts Center in Lexington until February 28th 2023.

She led Democrats in the Kentucky House.

Now Joni Jenkins is leaving the Kentucky General Assembly tomorrow.

We'll talk to her about changes she's seen in Frankfort, including lawmakers pay.

>> People will quibble about what legislators make with their benefits are with their pensions.

Are.

But what what price do you put on democracy?

>> See my full interview tomorrow with Joni Jenkins on Kentucky edition.

That's all for Kentucky edition tonight.

We hope to see you at 6.30, Eastern 5.30, central tomorrow night where we inform connect and inspire.

I'm Renee Shaw.

Take good care and I'll see you tomorrow night.

♪