Time now to recap some of the big political news of the week in Kentucky, where our good friend Rylan Barton, who is a senior editor with NPR State's team.

Good to see you on this Friday.

A rare Friday appearance.

Good way to kick off the weekend.

Let's start first with the JCP task force that was formulated by the legislature in this past legislative session.

Five people have been selected and there is one particular person from Louisville who has already expressed his opinion about school choice and charter schools.

Tell us about this task force and what they're supposed to be doing.

Yeah, So this is this is a task force that was created to, you know, just talk about the future of Kentucky's largest school district.

It is you know, I think it's the 20 something largest school district in the country, Jefferson County Public Schools.

So this was the Louisville School district.

There have been a lot of problems with CPS over the years.

I think that even within the system there, even its greatest cheerleaders will admit that, that they're tried to work through them.

But this has been a big priority of some Republicans, especially in the state legislature, to even consider possibly dismantling or breaking apart the school district into smaller parts.

That's what a lot of critics are really worried could happen from this task force.

So the task force is made up of several members of the public, also several state legislators, both Democrats and Republicans.

But something the critics are really worried about and how can this really show is the intention of this task force that they say this shows that the task force is going to look into breaking apart.

And JCPenney says that one of the members, Jodi Worden Berger, who's a former consultant at Humana, wrote an op ed in The Courier Journal last month in support of the the School Choice amendment, the so-called school choice amendment that's going to be on the ballot this coming November in Kentucky, which would allow a taxpayer dollars to go to scholarships that end up going to students who go to public schools.

This has been a big controversial issue in Kentucky, where the state constitution actually currently bars public dollars for going to nonpublic education.

But this amendment would attempt to do something to change that language.

Anyway, this panel is going to start meeting next week.

It's going to be very interesting to watch to see what these discussions are like and see if they are actually able to address some of the issues that have brought on the JCP House recently, one of which last year was a huge problem with the rollout of the of the district's new transportation plan.

Recently, the the school stopped providing transportation for magnet school students.

And these are and some of the folks who are going to be most impacted by that or that are the most vulnerable and the poorest students in the district.

So a lot to talk about.

And, you know, I think that there's it's always disturbing to provide more attention for some solutions to the district.

Right.

And we understand that they're to submit their recommendations by December the first so that when the legislature convenes in January, they can perhaps take up those recommendations.

Next topic, a federal prison is a step closer to being built in eastern Kentucky.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons released its final environmental impact statement this week.

What do we know about this?

Why is it necessary?

This is a big priority for Hal Rogers.

Republican Congressman Hal Rogers of Eastern Kentucky.

He's been trying to make a federal prison happen in eastern Kentucky.

This is a big issue in Kentucky and especially Central Appalachia.

The area has become a hub for some of these federal prisons.

They are billed as economic development initiatives, job creators for the region.

There are some grassroots groups who point out that a lot of those jobs don't end up materializing, or at least nearly to the extent that some of the proponents of these see will happen.

This projects and projects similar to that have come up by the time again in recent decades.

And they've been eventually scuttled.

So this is but this is kind of the farthest that they'd ever gotten to actually have that environmental impact statement approved just because basically that means that, I mean, if this doesn't happen, it's not going to be for these environmental reasons.

There's a kind of a big coalition of opponents from the so say it's the box and like the Washington, D.C. area and also eastern Kentucky who have been trying to oppose this, because a lot of the folks who would end up in this prison would be coming from of, say, Washington, D.C., where if you're charged with a felony or convicted of a felony, you might end up in federal prison that is relatively nearby.

But still, you a hundred miles away in eastern Kentucky, they're saying that that's a hindrance to their ability to be able to visit.

Family members there in eastern Kentucky say they just don't need it.

So there's still a few more steps to take for this for this to actually happen.

But I think the opposition in support of it is just kind of getting.

Yeah.

And final item, there is an adult oriented website that has had to shut down in Kentucky because of a new state law.

Tell us about this.

Yeah, about pornhub.

That's an online pornography website has said that they're not going to do business in Kentucky anymore because of the recent state law requiring people who visit the website to prove their.

To prove their age which would require them uploading identification materials which the which the site says they're just not interested in doing.

This is something that's happened repeated in a lot of other states across the country as legislatures and passes and I will say also this is passed by the legislature and signed by Democratic Governor Andy Beshear.

I think there's a dozen other states that have done this so far, including Indiana, Florida and Idaho just recently.

But there have been lawsuits over it as well.

The a little bit in flux right now.

But, yeah, it has.

This law goes into effect in three days, but the website went ahead and shut down service starting this week.

Yeah, well, thank you, Eileen, for breaking it all down for us.

And we look forward to seeing you probably at the regular time next week and mid-week.

Have a good weekend.

Thanks for having.