>> We've been made and this >> Governor Andy Beshear talks about the state's abortion trigger-law as a judge temporarily allows abortions to resume and Kentucky.

>> It is kind of just go to the training.

So you have to go to the training for.

Yeah.

Hired.

>> They help keep your children safe from the water and public swimming pools need more of them.

Our concept of this cat cafes, couples not cages.

>> If you like cats, do we have a cafe for you?

Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the Kaye E T and Aument for Kentucky Productions.

Leonard Press Endowment for Public Affairs and the Kaye E Team Millennium Fund.

♪ ♪ >> Good evening and welcome to Kentucky EDITION for this Thursday, June 30th, I'm Renee Shaw.

Thank you so much for walking us into your homes tonight.

Abortion can resume in Kentucky today.

A Jefferson County Circuit judge temporarily blocked Kentucky's abortion ban.

The ban triggered when the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe v Wade last Friday, the ACLU Planned Parenthood and the E M W Women's Surgical Center sued to block the law.

They argue the trigger law violates the right to privacy in Kentucky's constitution after Judge Mitch Perry's decision, we spoke to David Walls of the Family Foundation, a conservative organization that opposes abortion and supports the trigger law.

>> Thank you.

I appreciate the opportunity.

Only.

>> So let's talk about today's ruling.

The judge and Louisville, the Jefferson Circuit Court has temporarily blocked enforcement of Kentucky's trigger law that would ban all abortions.

A press release that organization sent out called it an appalling act of raw judicial activism.

Expound on that for sir.

>> obviously in light up, we're just a couple days from the from a tremendous ally state route to the United States Supreme Court when they overturned Roe and recognize that there's not a constitutional right to abortion and in doing so.

They were specifically return the issue of abortion to the states and to the people in the states that are elected representatives.

And as you know, Renee, we have a a conditional trigger ban that has gone into effect that prohibits abortion once wrote was overturned and that is the law.

The law of the land here in the commonwealth in.

And that has been the over over 100 years here in Kentucky.

And so to have now have act of judicial activism at the state level to have a single state judge stepped in.

the law in Kentucky is just a it's egregious.

And unfortunately, and this was one out in the discussions yesterday and in the court hearing buddy to regionals office.

What this means is that the abortion industry probably as we speak now is literally resuming killing children in the womb and that is a that is unfortunate.

It's tragic.

Ultimately, we believe we're going to 100% pro-life victory here in Kentucky.

But this is SAT act of judicial activism.

>> Well, the restraining order is in place until next Wednesday.

So it's not quite over.

This is just a temporary block of that trigger law.

How optimistic are you that there will be a full restoration, if you will, for the lack of a better term of the trigger law and Kentucky.

>> You know, we we expect it's going to ultimately going to prevail.

And whether that's it at this level in the in the in the tussle hearing that's going to take place next week or as we move forward.

And as you Kentuckians are also going to have the opportunity to ensure that this kind of state-level judicial activism will never continue permanently here with the yes for life, constitutional amendments on the ballot on November 8.

And this is just a very straightforward prolife constitutional amendment that says 2 very simple 70's.

The Kentucky Constitution does not contain a right to an abortion and it does not contain a right for our tax dollars to pay for abortion.

And so while we all recognize the attorney general recognizes there is no right to abortion in the U.S. Constitution, there's no right to abortion in the Kentucky Constitution, voters will be able to, in fact flee ensure that we don't end up in a situation where a single state judge tries to impose his will over all Kentucky INS.

So we look ultimately to the scene, all unborn life protected in the Commonwealth.

>> The ACLU and Planned Parenthood say they realize this is just temporary, but it's still important that abortion can resume.

They say for now.

>> Today's news is huge for the people of Kentucky.

Abortion bans put the health and safety of Kentucky ends at risk.

We're here to send a clear message, the ability to control your own body and make your own medical decisions is a fundamental human right.

Planned Parenthood will not back down until this right is permanently protected in Kentucky.

>> Tomorrow Wieder of Planned Parenthood says if a woman wants an abortion, she can call Planned Parenthood and a range.

It.

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron who supports the ban, says the judge's decision has no basis in the state constitution.

In a statement, he said, quote, We will do everything possible to continue defending this law and to ensure that unborn life is protected in the commonwealth, end quote.

Governor Andy Beshear today reacted to the judge's action today and to the trigger law itself.

>> Said before the trigger law is an extremely small.

The vast majority of Kentuckians disagree with it provides 0 exceptions for victims of rape and incest, giving them no options.

Despite the fact.

That they have been harmed and what they're going through is through absolutely 0 fault of their home.

It's also creating a significant concerns and everything from IVF to other areas.

I think we're just beginning to see the challenges is going to create good.

So that was the state's top prosecutor.

A young girls in their teens or sometimes earlier.

That had been violated, sometimes even by family members.

And if the trigger law goes into or stays in effect, it will have 0 options.

And that's wrong.

>> Governor Andy Beshear also discuss reports that President Biden and Senator Mitch McConnell had reached a deal for the president to appoint Chad Meredith as a federal judge in Kentucky.

In exchange, McConnell would ease the way for Biden appointees in the future.

Meredith is an antiabortion conservative who served as chief deputy general counsel under Governor Matt Bevin and also worked for Attorney General Daniel Cameron.

Governor Beshear says Meredith was involved in Bevin's last-minute pardons, including pardons of rapists and murderers and says the president would be wrong to appoint Meredith.

>> I don't know how the president I can say is for public safety.

If you make this nomination and I don't know how or current attorney general says he's pro law enforcement given that he hired and employed this individual after the pardons, including after all the information came out to him for so long.

>> The governor says Meredith has not been formally nominated and he hopes the nomination won't happen.

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling today has Kentucky applications.

The court ruled 63 that the Clean Air Act doesn't give the EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is praising the decision.

He says the ruling freeze Kentucky's power producers to provide customers with cheaper, more reliable electricity.

President Biden called the ruling, quote, devastating and says it aims to move the U.S. backward and the fight against climate change.

The House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection wants to hear from a man with Kentucky ties.

As we told you yesterday, the committee was considering whether to talk to Pat Cipollone, the former White House counsel who attended Covington Catholic in Kentucky.

Now the committee has subpoenaed Cipollone Tuesday.

The committee heard from Cassidy Hutchinson, a Trump White House aide who testified that Cipollone had urged Trump to denounce the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol.

Kentucky is dry and the problem is getting worse.

Take a look at this map from the U.S. drought monitor the area you see and Brown is the moderate drought category.

The area you see in yellow is considered abnormally dry.

White means normal.

This is worse than the map we showed you just a week ago when only a small part of Kentucky was in a moderate drought.

Here's another summer problem.

The lack of lifeguards public swimming pool say they're having trouble finding enough of them, bowling green parks and recreation says it's taken steps like raising wages and offering bonuses, hoping to entice more people, especially teenagers to apply.

>> It was slow going for us for a while.

Hiring lifeguards this When we opened, we basically had the bare minimum number of staff needed to open.

Right now.

We have about 24 25 We have a couple in the process of doing some paperwork to get hired.

So we have 36 position.

So clearly that's that's less than, you know, the maximum that we could have.

Lifeguard in general is kind of a tough job to recruit for because it does require certification.

There's a fee involved in that that most kids don't know that we actually cover that fee.

But that's one boundary that prevents people from looking into life guarding the 30 hour course with, you know, that's pretty intense class for a lot of kids win.

They can go to almost any other job and more.

Let's get hired on the spot.

Start right away.

>> Tough because if something happens, it's on you to know what to do to make everyone make sure everything goes well and everyone is safe.

So it is a good possibility.

But it's also rewarding way.

You didn't need to know what to do and you do get to help save people every day.

When you're growing up.

>> And you have lifeguarding on your resume is a job that really speaks to employers about how responsible we are because you had to go through a certification class.

It is a position of responsibility.

You literally have people lives in your hands and the public is counting on you to keep them and their kids safe.

>> It was my first year and I was at the dying words and MS the end of the day.

And this little boy, he just went off and thought you So I've been gone on.

He's fine.

We're adding jobs.

It's fun and meeting new people and helping all the kids.

>> It's good.

You're going to enjoy it.

>> We raise our lifeguard pay nearly $2 to the 13, 50 starting pay for guards this year.

>> We started a new program this year actually with the Red Cross.

They have a a shallow water lifeguard program for kids that are just kind of start now maybe are unsure if there comes will be in a full life guard.

There's a course where they can only do Salah water, which is water, 5 feet or less.

It's a lot of our pool is 5 feet or less.

So it really helped us just to kind of from a wider group of kids who are capable.

>> Starting out with that certification and then hopefully if they stick with it, maybe over the years, they can ascend to be a full life guard.

Once they go back to school, there's a lot of other commitments that they with school and everything.

>> So we've actually put in a year-end bonus if they stay through Labor Day we do incentivize that with a $500 bonus for all those lifeguards.

Stay on staff.

We're still not 100% perfect, but we have been able to keep the pool open.

7 days a week we've been able to extend their hours just a little bit some days of the week.

So right now we're in a pretty good spot after kind of a rough start.

>> Kentucky jails are filled not just with criminals, but with people with severe mental illness who haven't committed a crime.

Sometimes they're behind bars for months or even years.

A new law improves mental health treatment in the state by allowing the courts to order out patient care for those with severe mental illness.

We talked to Jefferson District Judge Stephanie Pierce Burke about this new law that many judges have long advocated for.

So times law allows for the courts to enter orders for assisted outpatient treatment.

>> Or tea?

And a UT is the delivery of services to individuals who are seriously mentally ill through a court order.

So the courts can order persons to go to the hospital for involuntary commitments.

But this now allows the courts to enter orders for persons to go to outpatient They must comply with out patient care.

>> What is what classifies or qualifies a serious mental illness.

>> Most people who went into that that category of people who are schizophrenics or severe bipolar.

So they would have symptoms such as hallucinations or delusions.

They heard voices.

They're not.

The type of mental illness that, you know, the other 96% of the population may exhibit during their lifetime, but it's the 4% of the population that except it's very severe symptoms.

So it really only qualifies is something that was about one percent of the population when on because it's the people who are untreated, who are living in the community without any supports and they have a history of non adherence to treatment.

We're talking about a very small percent of the population.

One percent have many of them interface with the criminal justice system.

Is that how they come to be with the court's?

Yes, and obviously historically, they have ended up in our civil courts to mental inquest warrants and civil commitments.

But we know that they also many times are ending up in our criminal courts because they're arrested for their behaviors.

And so the new, though, the new temps law allows the courts to not just look at the history of hospitalization, which is what the prior built in.

But now it is much more progressive in that.

It allows the courts to look at history of arrests and incarceration and behaviors that would have led to arrests and incarceration, meaning the individual would had either made threats or acts of harm to self or others.

And you talked about how some of these have been these individuals have stayed in jail for weeks, months.

My last months, years years.

Yes.

And for not having committed crimes head and for not being able well, they may have done X that would equate to a crime, but because of their lack of competency.

Because of their mental illness, they have committed, you know, these crimes, they can't be held.

How nimble because of their mental illness.

So they get stuck in what is called the revolving door.

It is something that's done in 47 states.

Kentucky was kind of late to the It's very successful across the across the nation the statistics show that it reduces in this population by as much as 78%.

It reduces hospitalizations as much as 74%.

And it 6 reduces incidents of arrest and incarceration by as much as 82 to These individuals, they do have better outcomes.

They they start getting well.

And what we're seeing is that they're staying in their housing.

They're taking their medication.

They're reuniting with their family.

Some of them are working.

And it's it's really amazing to see the transformation.

And it's just a matter of taking care of them.

It's very simple.

None of it is rocket It's just a matter of being more humane and in trying a little bit harder.

>> Esports has taken the world by storm and now it's taking over Kentucky high schools.

We spoke to coaches, players and professionals across the state to see how esports is impacting not only education, but also career readiness.

♪ >> It's one of the fastest growing sports in the world.

But instead of taking to the field, these players are taking to their computer screens, esports or competitive video gaming is now a billion-dollar industry with the U.S. viewership surpassed by only one other professional sports league.

The NFL.

But it isn't just capturing the attention of people online.

He's also caught the attention of schools across the country, including here in Kentucky.

When it first started, it was a video game club here at the school and people just came play games after school one day a week.

Okay to say.

>> Announced that there would be a formal esports league.

So they competed and they won.

And then we start telling parents this is in the club anymore.

This is a varsity sport.

That's kind of how you support started here in >> I decide to join because one like I.

Do enjoy games a lot.

And one of the games that was on the sports team was a game that I like to play a lot.

I had a lot of nerves going into it.

But now that I've gone through, it gets.

>> What and give it up for the world.

>> And experts say you can forget the stereotypical image of a video game player when the misconceptions is that everyone who plays video games going to turn into a couch potato and disconnect from to side.

And if you go to a video game tournament, I got to the sport arena.

You don't see anybody like that.

>> Making just simple connections was pretty easy since I only had to talk with people through screen, which is much easier than in person.

And then when in-person practice started, I already knew who he bore.

>> Honestly, hard to remember who I didn't didn't know beforehand because we've gotten place together.

It's their place when before they may have felt more isolated to that, I knew were more isolated are not anymore.

You have instant body of friends and then you can talk about everything.

The played the night before on the bus on the next day.

Right in.

>> It's very good at that socializing socialization now a football kits like their football team that feels like their home in their family.

Same with possible saying within the same with any other sport.

And now these kids who want to community around games can and it's really cool that they can do that through their >> But esports programs aren't just having an impact on the students.

Relationships.

According to Davis, Chan, they're also having an impact on their academic experience.

>> Having it there to look forward to after school after class and being able to see the faces of all of my fellow athletes in the holes smile at each other.

We have in each other has it's going much, much more enjoyable experience.

>> That more positive outlook on school.

I'd be excited to go to school to see your teammates definitely impacts the classroom.

The ones that I'm I have in my class of all improved in my since being a part of the scene.

>> And there are opportunities to keep playing in college.

Many schools now have varsity esports teams and some are even offering e-sports scholarships.

It's no longer just as novel saying that they do.

It is a feasible way.

Think go to college.

>> Get a scholarship.

And compete.

Parents understand e-sports is an avenue in which there students can pay for their education is going to be.

>> The pathway for them to get that degree.

>> My parents are pretty traditional people.

So they were like there's no I in this game for not having fun with your friends out there.

And it's like now I commuters like I mean, paid to play games.

>> But they're not just getting scholarships.

Students say being involved in e-sports is also help them focus on a career path.

>> It definitely has inspired me to go into engineering engineering and, you know, this goes like going to esports state.

They have this massive overlap where its refining the process and breaking things down into individual components to try and refine.

And, you know, optimize every last piece of a system.

I built my own computer to play video games and computer science can help me play video games.

Make video games.

>> So it goes hand.

>> According to experts, the skill students learn playing e-sports will likely benefit them once they enter the workforce.

Originally we all thought of video games that you did for entertainment.

Whereas now I think.

It's really more about work.

>> You're having those tangible is that employers are looking for your communication or accountability showing up.

They're still marketable aspects for me on any sports team.

>> I really like it might help our problems deals.

And what about teamwork skills?

I guess at the same time a lot of these kids have been playing games by themselves for most of their lives.

So they've had to focus on me.

Me, me that to adapt to the team mentality when you're going to real world, got your real job.

You're going to be part of team.

>> You have leaders in the team and you have just members of the G you need to know how to interact with people on your team that have different roles than you.

>> While e-sports may be a simple pastime for spectators for players, it's a key to enlist See a lot of people think of esports as like, oh, it's just a game.

So it's like not to pour in for it like a waste of time to them.

It's more than just a game.

It's it's everything they care about right now to them.

That matters.

♪ >> I'm Doug Flynn.

Please enjoy one of the many stories we brought you this season on Kentucky life.

>> Cats are unique because they are extremely loyal to the people in their family.

Once you make a bond with your cat, it is it is unbreakable.

And it's amazing to me and we see that happen every single time when a catwalk steppens shoes is that person and you go well, she got adopt.

That cap now >> one of my favorite parts of this concept is how much outreach the Kentucky Humane Society has been able really supply us with cats if they're coming from across the the whole state, there's over.

37 different shelters get this feeds so they need was very, very great.

But one of the areas that has been a challenge for them is what they asked to call the retail piece of it, which is being able to get the keys in the homes.

That's what a cat cafe.

That's where a cat cafe comes in.

>> We are really, really proud of how free they are.

And our concept of this cat cafes, couples not cages.

We can give them plenty of space and exercise and free food.

They can run up and down the stairs during adult cats season.

If they want to stay away, they can get up on the shelf and have a little alone time.

>> And so part of the process here is even if you're not looking to adopt, you can spend time in this lounge in this nice pick space and play with the cats.

Come with the cats, help them trust people.

And that's really, really important.

>> This location both here in Louisville and in coming to Kentucky.

The wonderful thing about it, it's become a draw.

It is actually a big tourist kind of thing to do now with people that are animal lovers.

>> Every single cup of coffee or event you attend.

Not just coming in here to enjoy the kiddies in the Kitty Lounge.

It all goes to help the Kentucky Humane Society and to help us keep this place warm and cozy and well supplied for cats just over the past 2 years, we started receiving kitties from hazard from far, far Western Kentucky all the way past Paducah, all the way in far Eastern Kentucky.

And normally that would be unheard of.

And we have actually heard back from the Kentucky Humane Society that shelters have contacted them to say we no longer have to euthanize because of the work we're able to do here at the Cat Cafe because technically when you adopt a cat, you're saving too.

Because you're sending one to the home.

But you're opening up the shelter for another one to get transferred in.

So we're really, really proud of our exclusive partnership with the Kentucky Humane Society.

>> I love that.

This is a business with a purpose.

What I love is that.

>> All of our team here is just so coordinated around that same mission.

And this can be such a job that gives back to me as much as I'm able to give back to it.

And I guess the most rewarding piece of that is that our hearts, our effort and everything that we have put into this is a team.

He's being so well supported by the community around us.

>> We know we are making a difference in not just the cats lives.

We're also making a difference in people's lives.

>> Well, that's a perfect feline story.

Saying goodbye to a loved one can be difficult.

Tomorrow on Kentucky EDITION will introduce you to a woman who's trying to make that process a little easier for Kentucky family.

So tune in tomorrow night for that story.

We do hope you'll join us again tomorrow night at 6.30, Eastern 5.30, central for Kentucky edition where we inform connect and inspire subscribe to our weekly Kentucky addition email newsletter and watch full episodes and clips at Ktb Dot Org.

You can also find Kentucky addition on the PBS video app on your smart device or TV and follow KETK on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay in the loop.

And you're welcome to follow me on Twitter at Renee K E T as well.

Thanks so much for watching.

Hope you have a perfect night.

We'll see you tomorrow.

Take good care.

♪ ♪