music >> He knows that I've been with him all the way.

And I'll be his number one champion in the United States Senate as well.

>> So a major endorsement in the race for U.S.

Senate.

[MUSIC] >> It has inspired me.

It has fueled me.

It has enabled me to feel confident when I am with my students.

>> Thousands of teachers have been trained on a new way to teach literacy.

But has it improved reading scores?

[MUSIC] >> Everybody has to experience something like this once in their lifetime.

>> And it was a Kentucky Derby for the record books.

[MUSIC] >> If we follow that diet, well, we can significantly lower our risk of dementia.

[MUSIC] >> Plus, taking food for thought to a whole new level.

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

>> Good evening and welcome to Kentucky Edition for this Monday, May 4th.

May the 4th be with you.

I'm Renee Shaw, and we appreciate you spending some of your Monday night with us.

A major shakeup in Kentucky's U-S Senate race took place this weekend.

On Friday evening, President Donald Trump endorsed Congressman Andy Barr.

And that's not the only news.

Trump made over Derby weekend.

Our Emily Sisk explains as we begin tonight's coverage of the 2026 primary election.

[MUSIC] >> Big developments in the Republican primary for U.S.

Senate.

President Donald Trump posted to Truth Social on Friday night, offering his official endorsement of sixth District Congressman Andy Barr.

The president said, quote, Andy is the only candidate who will easily defeat the Democrats in what will be one of the most important elections in American history.

Andy Barr has my complete and total endorsement to be the next United States senator from Kentucky, end quote.

Barr spoke about the endorsement at the Kentucky Derby on Saturday.

>> I've been communicating with the president not only throughout this campaign, but since my first since his first term.

We've been working together for a long time.

That's why he has confidence in me.

He knows that I've been with him all the way, and I'll be his number one champion in the United States Senate as well.

So it was it was great for him to personally call and and, and give me that endorsement.

>> The president also announced on Friday that he met with candidate Nate Morris, asking him to, quote, step aside from the race.

The president said he offered Morris a position as an ambassador in his administration.

Instead, Morris spoke to Spectrum News about the change on Saturday while attending the Derby.

>> I'm so honored and humbled that I'll be his next ambassador representing America, representing Kentucky and representing the America First agenda.

>> In another turn of events, Morris gave his endorsement of Congressman Barr Morris and Barr had previously sparred against each other in debates and through political advertisements.

>> I think Andy's got the winning hand here.

Obviously, he has the greatest endorsement in the history of politics.

He's got the president behind him, and I think that's virtually impossible to overcome in a place like Kentucky.

>> The Barr campaign quickly released a TV ad highlighting the president's endorsement.

>> President Trump makes his pick for Kentucky Senate Andy Barr is a proven winner.

[MUSIC] He'll cut taxes, unleash American energy dominance, and secure the border.

>> With Morris withdrawing from the race.

That leaves former Attorney General Daniel Cameron as Barr's main opponent.

Cameron appeared on Live Now from Fox, saying even though he did not receive the president's endorsement, he is still confident in his success come May 19th.

>> You opted not to drop out of the race.

Why?

Why not go along with the president?

Trump is saying when when one of your fellow candidates already did that, you're making the decision to stay in this race because you believe Wright that there is still a path to victory here.

>> There is definitely a path to victory.

And the path is I'm going to win on on May 19th because of the folks that are supporting this effort all across this great Commonwealth.

>> A panel of Kentucky journalists spoke about the shakeup just as the news broke on Friday night during KET comment on Kentucky with Bill Bryant.

>> The pressure is going to be on Daniel Cameron.

Is he going to be offered a judgeship?

Is he going to be offered a job in the administration as well?

Will he take it?

That's the real question for him now.

All the pressure is going to be on Daniel from this point forward.

>> The latest poll released last month from Emerson College and W d KY TV in Lexington, showed Barr with 28% of the vote, Cameron at 21% and 15% for Morris, 29% of voters were undecided at that time.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Emily Sisk.

>> Thank you Emily.

Daniel Cameron is slated to speak to the press tomorrow in Louisville to address what he calls the state of the race.

Former state Senator Ralph Alvarado, who is running for the seat Andy Barr is vacating, has also landed President Trump's endorsement.

Alvarado was one of the Republicans in the race for the U.S.

House in Kentucky's sixth district.

In a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump called Alvarado a, quote, America First Patriot.

The post goes on to read in part, quote, A true friend to Maga.

Ralph was a featured speaker at the 2016 Republican National Convention and a member of the National Hispanic Advisory Council for Trump.

Ralph has been with us from the very beginning.

A very successful family physician, a former Kentucky state senator.

Ralph has dedicated his life to serving his community, end quote.

Shortly after the endorsement, Alvarado posted on X, quote, thank you, President Trump, for your complete and total endorsement.

I will not let you down.

End quote.

One of Alvarado's Republican opponents in the race, Ryan Dodson, a state representative, sent a statement in response to Trump's endorsement saying, quote, I have tremendous respect for President Trump, and I understand the difficult decisions that come with endorsements in a crowded primary field.

But since this announcement, my phone has not stopped ringing.

Supporters, donors and grassroots conservatives from across Kentucky and the country have called, texted, and reached out to encourage me to keep fighting harder than ever.

That is exactly what I intend to do, end quote.

Our candidate conversations continue on Kentucky tonight on KET this evening, as we look at the fourth Congressional District race.

You can send us your questions and comments tonight.

That starts at 8:00 eastern, seven central right here on KET.

Some candidates in the state House are getting support in their GOP primaries from an unexpected source, Louisville Public Media reports a new political action committee, or PAC, is funding ads supporting representatives.

Josh Calloway of Irvington, Kim Holloway of Mayfield and Deanna Frazier Gordon of Richmond.

The candidates tell Louisville Public Media they were surprised to find out that sports betting companies like DraftKings and FanDuel were behind the PAC, since each have voted against legislation that supports that industry.

Calloway and Gordon both voted against legislation in 2023 that made sports betting legal in the state.

They joined Holloway this session in voting against House Bill 904, a wide ranging gambling bill.

The PAC did not respond to a request for comment.

This weekend marked the 152nd running of the Kentucky Derby.

And what a race it was.

I'm sure you saw it.

Golden temple came up from behind to win at 23 to 1 odds.

History was made all over the place as Cheri DeVoe became the first female trainer to win the Derby.

Jose Ortiz, now only the ninth jockey to win both the Kentucky Oaks and the Kentucky Derby.

NBC says it was also the most watched Derby on record at 19.6 million viewers.

But thousands still showed up to see it in person.

We talked to a few of them about what brings them to the track.

The first Saturday in May.

>> I have to have a mint julep.

If you're in Rome, you got to do what Romans do.

>> The Derby really, truly makes Louisville something special in the world.

No matter where you go in the world, you say the Kentucky Derby and everybody knows where it is.

To say that you've actually been to the Derby and be able to have this experience, it's so worthwhile.

>> I think like every horse owner, it's a dream.

And now, you know, we're standing here.

It's a dream come true.

I absolutely love it.

Everyone is so friendly and the track's gorgeous.

We're lucky to be here.

We love it.

>> It's the best day of the year.

It's always such a blast, rain or shine.

>> I grew up three miles from here.

Right over that way.

Never came here, but I could hear it every year.

That's the amazing thing.

You hear the noise and you think, someday I'm going to be there.

And then I thought it cost too much.

Whatever.

You know, I had other things to do.

And then I get a job in media and they're telling me, get out there and interview people.

I'm like, I don't even know where it is exactly.

And it's been nothing but a party ever since.

For over four decades, I've loved this.

I love the energy.

I love the happiness.

It's spring time.

People feel like the new year is finally opening up.

The dark winter months are over and now they feel like now is when the fun starts.

The first Saturday in May opens the gates.

>> That is legendary longtime radio personality Terry Meiners, of course, working his 42nd run for the roses.

More than 150,000 fans packed Churchill Downs for Kentucky Derby.

152 in other news, a law enforcement agency in a growing county officially unveiled its new home today.

Officials held a ribbon cutting at the new Warren County Sheriff's Office in Bowling Green.

The county purchased space in Sugar Maple Square that's been renovated into an office, dispatch center and training facility.

Operations have been located for decades at the old Warren County Courthouse.

Sheriff Brett Hightower calls their new headquarters the heartbeat of the agency.

It includes a virtual reality training system.

>> This was a $65,000 piece of equipment that our county attorney, our Commonwealth attorney, our jailer, Steve Harman, K Ko, the sheriff's office all partnered together on this to make training a reality.

So you will see this and how it's set up in here as we have people go through there.

It's about de-escalation now.

It's about talking to people, using your concealment and not rushing into failure.

This is about training and our folks at the best, the optimal level.

>> And I'd like to say one thing about government the closer it is to you, the better.

I think your city and your county government do a good job.

They're responsive.

People come up to me and they say, I heard the state government has a $4 billion rainy day fund.

I said, that's great.

And they say, well, how is your rainy day fund looking in Washington?

I said, what's -$39 trillion?

That's not so good.

The main difference is your local government has to be fiscally responsible.

They balance their budget.

The state government does.

Your federal government does not.

I'm working on that.

We'll keep working on that.

But I'm proud of this facility and proud of our local government for doing the right thing.

>> I'm glad.

>> Sheriff Hightower says.

Warren County Fiscal Court has also previously invested $750,000 for a new body camera system.

This location was once home to a grocery store and library, and the sheriff hopes it will be a place to host community events.

[MUSIC] Thousands of Kentucky teachers have been trained on a new way to teach reading, and a new report says student literacy outcomes are improving as a result.

The language essentials for teachers of reading and spelling or letters for short training is part of the Kentucky Reading Academies, created by the Read to Succeed Act back in 2022.

Educators say the training has transformed how they teach reading in the classroom.

More on this in our education news segment.

[MUSIC] >> We have been very excited to have over 7000 Kentucky educators and administrators to join, register for letters training.

And what that does is it focuses on the signs of reading, how you learn and how the brain processes language and how to teach key components of reading.

It is a heavy lift.

It's two years for letters for educators, which is the teachers component.

And that training kind of consists of asynchronous learning.

And we follow up with virtual sessions with a person, a trainer to kind of go over the key components.

>> Sometimes it would be a video clip of a teacher working with a student to show you exactly how that strategy could be implemented.

Sometimes it was a video of a researcher sharing the latest knowledge that they had found through their research studies.

It is very transformative, I think, in the way that we approach reading for students, because I think that it really gives us a true lens of the research.

And this is this is the way our brains, you know, work and this is the way our brains learn to read.

We have to be explicit with it, and we have to be systematic.

And so I think to have the tools and the training to understand that has really just helped me to transform that in my classroom.

If you notice to if a child is maybe not having success letters equipped us with a lot of tools and strategies because of the what and the why and the how to be able to reteach with those students or to really drill down to what they need.

>> You know, we really had two different rounds of evaluation at this point.

And the first was through our third party evaluator, ICF, and they showed that initially we were seeing gains for students who had had letters, trained teachers in consecutive years at fourth and fifth grade.

And so that was very encouraging.

It was exciting that in that, that data translated to students who were exceptional as well.

So students who may have individualized education plans.

And so, you know, those are some of the students that we want to provide the absolute best supports for in terms of access to high quality reading instruction.

Now, we can say that that there is significant growth in proficient students for schools that have over 10% of their teachers trained.

Not only did we see more students moving toward the proficient level, but schools and districts with higher percentages of letters.

Trained teachers also saw a reduction in the novice reading level.

So that's a celebration that that we're seeing that reduction in novice, but also an increase in proficiency.

>> You know, I had been in the classroom for 18 years when I started letters.

So this is my 20th year in education and it has inspired me.

It has fueled me.

It has enabled me to feel confident when I am with my students.

It has enabled me to feel confident when I'm talking with their parents about their reading and their writing and their speaking and their thinking, and I just think that it is so valuable.

Early literacy, to me is the foundation for everything.

We want our students to love reading.

We want them to be confident as readers, you know, if they are strong readers, when they leave us in those early years, then that's only going to continue to build for them.

>> Is your memory as good as it used to be?

Well, a growing body of research suggests that a new diet could slow the aging of your brain, improving memory, thinking, and decision making.

Our Christy Dutton spoke with a leading neurologist about the mind diet and why it matters that in tonight's Medical News.

>> Doctor Gregory Cooper, tell us what exactly is the mind diet and what does research show about the impacts it can have on the brain?

>> Sure.

So the Mind Diet was developed by Doctor Morris, a researcher at Rush University, combining elements of the Mediterranean diet, which we've all heard of, and the Dash diet, which was developed to help lower blood pressure.

But this diet was designed specifically for the brain for brain health and try to lower our risk of neurodegeneration.

It lists a series of ten categories of foods like leafy green vegetables, other vegetables, legumes that are good and gives us ideas on how much we should eat.

It also lists five foods that we should limit, and these are things like fried foods or fatty foods.

If we follow that diet, well, we can significantly lower our risk of dementia.

One study, one of the early studies showed if we followed it extremely well, we might lower our risk by almost half if we followed it pretty well, which I think is what most of us are capable of, we still might lower our risk by about a third.

>> Okay, so for somebody that just wants to remember better, want to have better memory, or, you know, just thinking and sharpen their thinking skills, does this provide any benefit?

>> It may not provide benefit specifically for that.

So this is this does improve our overall health.

And if our overall health is better, we do know we think better.

So in that way it might help.

But really the diet more than anything else is geared towards prevention to lower our risk from developing really serious problems down the road.

>> Okay.

Got it.

Name a couple of the foods in the mind diet that have perhaps the biggest impact on brain health.

>> Probably at the top would be leafy green vegetables, vegetables like kale or spinach.

Right behind that would be fruits and particularly berries.

Things like blueberries or strawberries seem to be very good.

>> So why those two?

What is what do those two foods do?

>> They are particularly high in certain nutrients.

If we step back a little bit, this diet is very focused on foods that have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, two things that are important for the brain.

And those types of foods have high levels of carotenoids or flavonoids that are particularly good at that.

>> Okay.

Do you have to be on this diet your entire life, or is it ever too late to start?

>> It's not too late to start now.

The longer you're on it, the more you adhere to it, the better.

But it is absolutely never too late to start.

>> Okay, so, you know, so maybe somebody who is starting to show signs of dementia, it's not too late for them to see some benefits from this.

>> If it's early on, probably not.

It probably is a good thing to start.

Now if someone has advanced dementia.

To be fair, this probably isn't going to make a big difference.

But there is more and more research that would show if we have a very early condition, like it's called mild cognitive impairment, changes in diet, along with other lifestyle strategies like exercise, may really help to at least slow, if not even partially reverse, some of that memory loss.

>> Reverse some of the memory loss.

>> There are some studies of now not just diet alone, but looking at multimodal lifestyle strategies.

So looking at looking at your general health, looking at exercise, looking at diet, looking at sleep, a number of things.

If we do all of those things well, there is some evidence that some people may do a little bit better.

Now, those strategies again, are mainly aimed at trying to help preserve cognitive function, but some of the early results are promising.

>> Okay, just a few seconds left.

What is one thing that you could tell viewers watching at home to do to get a little closer to that mind diet?

If they're not able to jump all in.

>> Focus on fruits, focus on vegetables, limit red meat.

>> Okay.

Got it.

Doctor Greg Cooper from the Norton Neuroscience Institute.

Thank you so much for being here.

>> Thank you.

>> Louisville's Butchertown neighborhood is considered the oldest neighborhood in the city, and it has quite a history.

Almost 30 years ago, a local developer had a vision to bring the neighborhood back to its former glory days by bringing small businesses back to the area.

Our Kelsey Starks sits down with developer Andy Blieden to learn more about how he made his vision a reality.

>> And then we took these buildings and they could become Small headquarters for businesses that needed 1000ft█!S or 2000ft█!S and all local.

You know, we have over half of our businesses are women or minority owned, which is like really important and really great.

So there's, there's a nice level of diversity.

It's like kind of, it's like capitalism with Hart is what we try to do.

Yeah, but it's still capitalism, right?

>> Right.

Well, you gotta make money.

You got it.

Yeah.

>> You got to make money and you can do stuff when you make money.

But so it's like, you know, kind capitalism.

And that's one of the things about Louisville, you know, is it's not really stab you in the back dog eat dog.

I mean, the people are pretty nice.

And I can call up developers and say, hey, what do you think about this?

And vice versa.

>> Well, everybody wants to see this neighborhood succeed, right?

Everybody wants to see Louisville succeed because and, you know, in in the butcher block are those old shotgun homes.

That's what they look like.

>> Yeah, they're old camelbacks.

They're old shotguns.

And there was one welding warehouse that was built in 1948, which is where Moondog is.

And there was a 1954 Ford truck buried in the back.

Wow.

That was like halfway.

And, you know, he's like, the truck comes with it.

And I'm like, wow, that's awesome.

>> Sure.

Throw it in.

>> I mean, it looked like something out of saw.

I mean, it was terrifying.

>> Wow.

>> And but it again, you know, the before and afters are that's one of the coolest things is, is to go in and sort of see because these, these buildings are amazing and they're built to fit into these little pockets and the craftsmanship is really good.

So I just love it, you know, and then we have these 12 buildings and they have a shared courtyard.

So our next thing is to really activate the courtyard, have some live music, do some lighting back there on the nice summer nights.

And it's sort of like an oasis that's hidden.

>> Yeah.

>> That people don't see.

That's important for the uniqueness of Louisville.

Yeah.

You know, it's like you can only go to this place in Louisville.

>> Sure, sure.

>> And it's kind of wacky.

>> You can learn about how wacky it is and this neighborhood's rich history and how it's going back to its roots on Inside Louisville that you can watch online on demand streaming there@ket.org.

Now, appropriately, our Toby Gibbs has some Kentucky Derby themed topics of interest because we can never get enough Derby.

As he looks back at This Week in Kentucky history.

>> The Secretary of the Treasury, John G. Carlisle, addressed a crowd in his native Kenton County on May 9th, 1896.

[MUSIC] Many Kenton Countians were angry about the state of the economy after the panic of 1893, and some pelted the secretary with rotten eggs.

It bothered him so much he retired from public life.

Governor Bert Combs dedicated the state capital's floral clock on May 4th, 1961.

He'd been criticized for the clock and the cost, but it became a popular tourist attraction.

The Kentucky Derby was broadcast on TV for the first time on May 6th, 1950, when it aired on WHAS TV in Louisville.

It only aired locally.

The first network TV broadcast was in 1952.

[MUSIC] Secretariat won the Kentucky Derby on May 5th, 1973, on his way to winning the Triple Crown and ending up on the cover of time magazine.

Secretariat won the race in less than two minutes, a minute, 59 and 2/5 seconds, a Derby record that still stands.

Queen Elizabeth, an avid horse racing fan, attended the Kentucky Derby on May 5th, 2007.

On May 4th, 1964, Congress voted to officially recognize bourbon as a distinct American beverage.

And that's what was happening this week in Kentucky history.

I'm Toby Gibbs.

>> Many thanks.

Toby Gibbs.

And as we said earlier, we are continuing our candidate conversations with the fourth Congressional District race.

Congressman Thomas Massie will be here tonight.

That show is at eight Eastern seven central, and we'll have a recap of the discussion tomorrow night on Kentucky edition, and we hope you'll join us for that at 630 eastern, 530 central for Kentucky Edition, where we inform, connect and inspire.

Thank you for being with us tonight.

Hang in there.

PBS NewsHour is next.

And then Kentucky tonight comes in right after that.

Thanks for your time, and we'll see you a little later on.

Take really good care.

[MUSIC]