♪ ♪ >> So I don't think anything's going to change over the next 6 months of the Biden administration.

He hasn't been calling the shots.

>> A congressman from Kentucky is calling for an investigation following the president's debate performance.

Who does he want to testify?

>> And and here in we've seen really significant success streets.

>> We take a look at new technology.

The FDA says is helping some people battle their addictions.

>> People want to come to communities where they have somewhere to go somewhere to hang out, to be around other people.

You know, the 3rd space.

>> And how the city of Owensboro turned their riverfront dream into reality.

>> Production of Kentucky edition is made possible in part by the KU Team Millennium Fund.

♪ ♪ >> Good evening and welcome to Kentucky EDITION on this Monday, July 8th.

It's a brand new week again, folks, I'm Renee Shaw, thank you so much for winding down your Monday night with us.

We're taking Kentucky Edition on the road again this week will be in Owensboro, bringing you stories from the Commonwealth's 4th largest city.

We'll also explore the region with a look at some of the interesting places and people that call this corner of Kentucky home.

But first, what was once a powerful category 5 storm has made landfall in the U.S. and what's left out of Hurricane Berle could soon impact our weather.

The storm swept across Houston early this morning knocking out power to millions and canceling more than 1000 flights.

The National Weather Service says remnants of the hurricane will bring rain chances to parts of Kentucky later this week.

Meanwhile, storm cleanup continues today in West Louisville after an E f one tornado touched down on the 4th of July.

More big names are giving to the Republican Party of Kentucky building fine.

That's in our political news.

The Kentucky Lantern reports the fund raise more than $300,000 in the past 3 months.

That raises the total to more than 3 million dollars.

Most recently beam Suntory owners of Bourbon brands Maker's Mark and Jim Beam donated $100,000.

So did a TNT.

And Kim Lynn gave $50,000.

The Republican Party of Kentucky is using the money to expand its headquarters in Frankfort.

The 2017 Kentucky General Assembly passed a bill allowing unlimited corporate donations to party building Fonz.

More political news Governor Andy Beshear is planning another trip overseas this time to Japan and South Korea.

His office says Bashir will leave later this week to meet with leaders of companies already in Kentucky and quote, businesses considering future investment in United States.

According to the release, there are 200 Japanese owned facilities and Kentucky and 7 Korean owned facilities.

Together, they employ nearly 120,000 people across the state and maybe share went to Germany and Switzerland on similar trips.

His office says was meant to boost economic development in Kentucky.

That's those are all turning now to national politics.

U.S. Representative James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky's first congressional district, wants to hear from President Joe Biden's doctor.

Politico is reporting that Congressman Comer sent a letter to White House physician Kevin O'Connor requesting that he appear for an interview behind closed doors with the House Oversight Committee, which Comer chairs.

The congressman was on Newsmax yesterday discussing the issue.

>> I believe that over the past 2 years, Joe Biden hasn't been calling the shots.

So I don't think anything's going to change over the next 6 months of the Biden administration.

He hasn't been calling the shots.

We really don't know who.

And there are people that said Obama was calling the shots is a rising but the river from our investigative work, I believe it's a it's a select few people that that really aren't that well known better pulling the strings.

>> Comer's request comes after President Biden's debate performance last month, which some in the president's own party have criticized him for in a letter to congressional Democrats today, President Biden said he has no plans of stepping down.

More on the debate over President Biden's political future and more as we discuss national politics tonight on Kentucky tonight.

We hope you'll send in your questions and comments tonight at 8 Eastern 7 central right here on KET.

♪ ♪ Overdoses in Kentucky were down nearly 10% last year.

Still more than 1900 Kentuckians died.

Most of them overdosed on opiates.

Now the FDA has approved a new treatment for opioid use disorder.

It's called the net device and it's being used a facility here in Kentucky.

More in today's medical news.

>> Overcoming the.

>> Cravings and withdrawal some years is a huge step in achieving a life of sobriety, which a lot of people have convinced themselves is no longer possible.

We know we believe, but we know it's possible.

The net transcranial alternating current stimulator similar to the tension.

The intensity of which is controlled by the client.

Re stimulates the body's own natural production of neurotransmitters.

And orphans.

And in Kathleen's chemicals like dopamine and serotonin, which really stressing create a sense of well-being.

These have been depleted replaced by the drug of addiction.

So when a person tries to stop using the substance, the body goes into acute withdrawal.

The net device reduces the cravings and the withdrawal symptoms allowing the person the freedom to choose to not use drugs and to fully engage in treatment.

Because of the intense cravings and withdrawal.

People.

A lot of people no longer use it for euphoria.

But just for survival on the wonderful things about this device is that it is not a basis.

>> I guess that the ultimate payments of the device that gives choice.

So do I want to know that I've got no craving no with trolls.

Do I want to turn to drug use a lot.

I want to be drug free.

We looking for patients to.

We're the device for 3 to 5 days and coming up to 70's, depending on the level of and drug use and which drugs are involved.

But looking for within the first 20 minutes to want to.

I feel the immediate response of the patient will be usually hunched over roll.

Can, you know, sweating and within 20 minutes to half the setting back more of a lot just.

The know I just hated and the trolls are starting to dissipate.

So the board of sweating, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, all the usual withdrawal symptoms.

The start of a lot of cement typically in the one we see people and wanting to eat little sleep.

Which is highly unusual in this.

This treatments, a tough season, these devices to Thursday and various rehab so close.

You and and here in we've seen really significant 6 ash trees.

People being set free.

The goal of net recovery is to eventually offer it to other providers across our state and to other states.

We have 30 devices.

>> But this device is used repeatedly.

So after a client received the treatment, which is usually about a week.

The electrodes are replace and devices are used.

I think many of the clients are curious.

Some of them are doubtful.

But we have witnessed that in many instances when clients have the the place that there's almost a ha moment.

I'm very quickly.

They notice a difference.

>> The Isaiah House is also working to help other states utilize the net device.

♪ ♪ The Ohio River is much more than just Kentucky's northern border.

It's also the backdrop of life and many of Kentucky's River cities, including Owensboro 20 years ago.

The bank of the Ohio River in Owensboro was just that nothing more but big dreams and decades long determination have transform the area into the bustling riverfront.

It is today.

Our Clayton Dalton takes us on the road to Owensboro River Front, too.

>> Winnsboro is Kentucky's 4th largest city home to over 60,000 people.

Bourbon and barbecue.

Aside, one of the city's hallmark says it's beautiful.

Riverfront, a gathering place for people of all ages but it hasn't always been that way.

>> In the early 2, thousands, our community just decided that it was time for us to start reinvesting in ourselves and from economic development perspective in the downtown.

>> And this master plan was not about unification.

It's out of that revitalization.

It's the place making economic development placemaking.

>> that that being that people want to come to communities where they have somewhere to go somewhere to hang out, to be around other people.

You know, the 3rd space.

>> Which is really where people need to.

They need to have you working at home and then you have your 3rd space places.

>> So we had a really an aggressive, a planning process where we brought a group in from around the country to look at different aspects of our community and how we will make this happen.

And we had probably 55 town hall meetings to talk about what it would look like.

Have we would move forward having with fund the project, but it was done very intentionally to involve everyone in our community.

>> Turning this dream into reality was no small task.

It meant the city would need to implement a new tax to help fund the riverfront project.

It was a difficult decision by city officials and a point of tension among residents.

>> We had a major at town hall with around 800 people that started the whole thing and we had a crisis point.

We had an inflection point, which is what usually happens, you know, but instead of burying our heads in the sand, we said okay, what what can we do here to really start reinvesting in ourselves so we can compete for in the future.

With anything when you when you get a raise revenue and raised taxes, people are unhappy and that's natural.

And it's and it's right.

We all need to be very discerning when it comes to embracing taxes and do it with very, but we understand the gravity of that.

Our community, this, but it was a matter of how can we best fund this project that we know that we have.

Thank God for Senator McConnell.

Got us are 40 million happily stepped up and talks ourselves so that we can make this project happen and they make these dreams come to fruition.

>> Breaks as the community investment has paid off.

>> Since that time, I believe it's been 5 to one with a private sector dollars to the public money that was put into the project.

So we're super excited about that.

And it's continuing every day.

You know, thanks for coming out the ground today.

If you if you drive around, there's a lots lots going on.

So when we look at the projects downtown and we look this mother's car, which was named one of the the top playgrounds in the country.

It's an interactive, fully accessible park and kids from all over come and look at our beautiful blue bridge and has lights on it.

Just a lot of really cool future features with that.

And then the other gathering spaces, there are bars.

There are restaurants.

There are outside spaces that people can gather and be together, have a performing arts center.

But the Riverpark Center, we have the Bluegrass Museum, which is a fantastic they need.

>> And a convention center of this bull with conferences and events constantly.

So there's just a lot of opportunity.

So, you know, next steps are just to continue to build on what we have now to make it an opportunity for more business investors to come and invest their dollars in our downtown.

>> For millennials and Gen Z-ers to come here and insight.

Tell us what they need from housing opportunities to entertainment options.

But but I think what we'll see is just more and more investment, more innovation and more people.

>> For Kentucky edition, I'm Clayton Dalton.

>> Thanks, Clayton.

One of ours Borough's most prominent residents was the late U.S. Sen Wendell Ford.

Senator Senator Ford served 24 years in the U.S. Senate from 1974.

To 1999. and was governor of Kentucky from 1971.

To 1974.

He died in 2015 at the age of 90, but his legacy lives on in Owensboro and beyond.

Our Kelsey, Starks takes us to the window age for Government Education Center in Owensboro.

>> He was just granted us lived right around the corner from us and his wife still does my grandmother still the U.S.?

>> To Clay Ford, he was simply grand dad.

But the rest of the country might remember the late senator forward as a country boy from Yellow Creek moniker.

He often used to describe himself, but a real-life persona.

His family remembers well.

>> It doesn't matter who you walk into a room with whether it be.

Kings and queens and and and people that had special titles or, you know, the anybody that you run into on the street or when he walked into a restaurant, he he went to the kitchen first, say hello to those people that were I'm preparing things and doing the difficult work on a day-to-day basis.

And those folks who are just as important to him was anybody else.

But Senator Ford was an important force in Kentuckyian national politics.

>> He was the first Kentuckyian in history to be elected.

Lieutenant Governor governor and U.S. senators serving as Democratic with in Congress.

He's credited with crafting a compromise to break a 5 year deadlock on the passage of the family.

Medical Leave Act.

He also sponsored the Motor voter law that made it easier for Americans to register to vote.

But it wasn't any law that became his greatest legacy.

>> It's not that he wasn't a partisan and some aspects of retail politics and campaigning.

He was that was important to him and and he fought for what he believed in.

Of course, but his.

But once the cameras were turned off and it was time to to get things done on behalf of Kentuckians.

He didn't care what letter was in front of your Most often he wanted to create relationships that would be beneficial to the people that we represent.

>> The art of compromise is at the center of the Senator Windle age Board, Government Education Center in his hometown of Owensboro establishments on his retirement in 1998, teaching young people the importance of 3 pillars.

He considered the foundation of democracy.

Civil discourse, cooperation and willingness to compromise.

>> For him, I think it was to inspire the next generation of young leaders.

The the mission of the center, though, was built around those 3 core principles that guided him in his career that were so made him so unique that we think made him so unique.

This idea of civility and cooperation and compromise that we think is somewhat unfounded.

And in our leaders today.

>> In 2012, the program expanded to include the Ford Statesmanship Academy, a four-year program for local high school students to learn about state and local government.

But most importantly about leadership.

We have students who are.

>> Engineers and scientists.

We have students who work on the Hill.

We have students who work in business.

We have students who were running nonprofits.

We have some great success stories of students emailing us and calling us saying the principles.

But you taught me in that program are some of the most important I've ever learned.

I learned to listen to professors who are different to me, colleagues who are different than me, a viewpoint that I thought I could never sit and listen to or understand who are always going to be a nation.

A community filled with Republicans and Democrats and conservatives and liberals.

If we don't learn how to compromise and cooperate and be civil when it comes to crafting solutions to move our community forward.

And I think and Wendell thought that there was no hope for the future.

We want kids to know that they can make a difference in their communities and that they can make a difference in their friends lives and their lives and their children's lives in the future.

>> Just might get involved.

You don't have to be involved in politics, but you do need to be informed about what's going on in your community in school systems and government.

Don't be shy.

Don't be to to step in because if you're if you're not willing to participate and who is.

>> For Kentucky Edition on the road in Owensboro, I'm Kelsey Starks.

Thank you.

Kelsey decades need a sleet passing a man from Owensboro.

He was remembered for his contributions to the civil rights movement.

Mon you sleep capture that time with photographs that tell the story of its impact.

Here's a story from our archives.

First brought to you by Laura Rogers last year.

>> The city of Owensboro known for Barbecue Bourbon and Blue grants.

Now paying tribute to one of its natives, a figure credited with some of the most influential photographs of the civil rights movement.

>> Very important man.

Very important to on borough and I believe everyone should know about and should be taught in schools.

>> He means that orange can produce some beautiful things.

And people that can contribute not just to our community, but 2, the history of our country.

>> Need to sleep.

Junior worked for Ebony magazine capturing key moments in history reflected upon today.

It just gives a greater context to what our history books.

>> Have tried to convey in 1969, sleet won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of Coretta Scott King at the funeral for her husband, Doctor Martin Luther King junior.

It humanized the that it didn't make it so far removed that because he was just this big icons that show that he was somebodys husband.

He was someone's father.

When we were in leadership Owensboro, we were charged with.

How do you make Owensboro better?

>> One of the ways that I thought we going for better was to lift up positive stories from our community that led to organizing a festival celebrating a man born in Owensboro that rolls to professional acclaim, becoming a friend to Doctor King.

He took pictures of those intimate moments.

>> Drew Hardesty and any was Lee traveled the country interviewing people most familiar with sleet, work, producing a documentary as photographers and videographers.

You know, you're kind of the unsung hero.

You stay behind the camera.

>> You don't get all the recognition.

So and that's fine.

But it was his turn.

It was his time to get his recognition.

>> With ow photojournalist and specifically journalist like sleet, we would lose some of that history.

That's just so profound ingrained in our society.

It's important that we learned there's a person behind that photograph.

>> Several 100 people attended the festival which also included exhibits monologues and conversations.

I think it was something very important for our community to see.

>> That we can honor African Americans that have contributed to our community and also to the country or Kentucky edition.

I'm Laura Rogers.

>> Thank you.

Laura Sleet was inducted into the Kentucky General Hall of Fame in 1989.

He passed away from cancer in 1996.

♪ For many young people going to camp as part of the summer experience.

One camp is making sure Kentucky's LGBTQ+ youth get that summer camp.

Experience.

Camp Beacon is the first of its kind in the state and its founders say they want to serve as a beacon of hope for LGBTQ+ youth.

>> I think can't begin to me represents hope for the future for a future where LGBTQ people just get to be ourselves and get to experience.

Joy as opposed to.

Struggle.

I know a lot of us growing up who are LGBT adults when we were younger.

We.

Needed more of a community and we needed more support and more.

Places to be ourselves.

And I'm hoping that can be done is one of those places for future generations.

>> The idea for it started in 2021, we started putting together a leadership people in mental health youth leadership.

Youth leadership was really important to us.

So all of our >> all of our decisions are guided by the use, our logo activities.

All those things are, you know, it's not.

Us making it for them.

It's with them and supporting, you know what they would like.

We have about.

>> 10 of our 32 campers are from last year.

The rest are all new.

One important thing.

A thing to note is that about two-thirds of our campers are from world Kentucky.

So only about a 3rd are from Lexington or Louisville, which what's really important to We love our Lexington, Louisville kids.

But there's more resources in those places for LGBTQ youth.

And there is some rural Kentucky.

>> We're just trying to have a typical summer camp that anyone could go to.

There are.

Things that come up.

People feel upset they talk about >> things they've experience in school.

How fully knife out.

>> Struggling with mental health and it can be a lot.

A deal with I before I was here.

I worked at other summer camps as a camp counselor.

And it's actually more common than people realize that campers have mental health issues but counselors don't always know how to deal with them.

So here we figured it was better to get ahead of the game.

I I've had campers open up to me about things that.

We're really serious and because I know how to deal with them.

We were able to work through it and come to a better resolution that I think I I personally would have been able to as a camp counselor, 19.

>> First, it was really great.

>> We did surveys after can been and they all were they were all really positive as far as like what they told us and their experience that, you know, campus like family and they've all stayed connected sense then to each other.

>> There is definitely a change in the campers been day come in compared to when they leave.

A lot of them are shy.

A lot of time aren't very strong and making friends and you can really tell they're not used to new people.

And then over the only 3 days, really that we half of them, they really open up.

They make friends.

They make lifelong connections.

It's it's very empowering to see.

>> They support each other throughout this past year and >> they're from all different parts of the state.

So it's been really important to to, I think, have been had that opportunity to stay connected with one another.

>> So we know that especially recently has been very unfriendly from a political standpoint towards LGBTQ youth, specifically a lot of laws coming down and things like that that target those young people in particular.

>> We really strive to make it a place where, you know, their LGBTQ identity is.

>> Lived in a firm, but on so they're all their lived.

Experience who they are is the total person.

>> Camp begins, founders say for the safety of its campers, they only released the location of the camp to parents and guardians.

And historic execution and the birth of a beverage.

Our to be Gibbs has a look at some of the events that happened this week and Kentucky history.

♪ >> Happy birthday to happy Chandler.

Albert Benjamin Chandler senior was born in Henderson County on July 14th 18.

98.

He would serve twice as governor of Kentucky 6 years as a U.S. senator and his baseball commissioner.

When Jackie Robinson integrated the game.

Kentucky executed 7 man on 7/13/1928, the biggest single-day state execution in American history.

The state used old Sparky, the electric chair, the state penitentiary in Eddyville.

21,000 fans were on hand as the who performed at Lexington's Rupp Arena on July.

11th 1980.

It was just 8 months after 11 fans died in the stampede for seats during a who concert in Cincinnati.

150 off-duty police officers and security guards help KET the Rupp Arena crowd under control.

Tickets ranged in price from 8 to >> gl winds got of Winchester created the elite one soft drink on July 13, 1926, Wayne Scott sponsored a contest to name the Ginger Ale and citrus flavored drink.

The winning name is upon based on the phrase a late won.

Speaking of fruit, the BlackBerry became Kentucky's official state fruit.

On 7/13/2004.

And that's tonight's look back at this week in Kentucky history, I'm told the >> Thank youto be and we'll see you tomorrow night from Owensboro.

Don't miss it.

Taken care.

♪