music >> He was basically the the quintessential all American.

It's it's unfortunate.

It's heartbreaking.

[MUSIC] >> A Kentucky soldier killed in action is laid to rest.

We hear from those who knew him as hundreds turn out to pay their respects.

[MUSIC] >> I have heard from countless teachers and parents and students out of Fayette County begging, asking for our help.

[MUSIC] >> Major changes could be coming to the state's largest school districts and their school boards.

>> If you're carrying unpaid medical debt, you are much less likely to go seek medical care.

[MUSIC] >> Plus, the partnership that's helping thousands of Lexington residents wipe out their medical debt.

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

>> Good evening and welcome to Kentucky edition for this brand new week.

It is Monday, March the 23rd.

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

Hardin County said goodbye to Staff Sergeant Benjamin Pennington on Saturday.

His funeral was held at Central Hardin High School, where Pennington attended school and ran cross country and track and field.

Hundreds of people gathered at the school to pay their respects to the soldier who was killed while serving his country earlier this month.

>> As staff sergeant, Pennington's body was transferred from Fort Knox to his hometown of Glendale on Friday, hundreds of people lined the streets to honor him.

Those who knew him say being an American soldier was Pennington's dream.

Tom Pitt was one of Pennington's teachers at Central Hardin High School.

He says Pennington was a special kind of student.

>> He was basically the the quintessential all American.

It's it's unfortunate.

It's heartbreaking.

It's not surprising.

He was always, to me, was always the type of person who would who would do things for the betterment of others.

>> You love the service.

You always wanted to be in the service.

And when he made his commitment to be in the service, he was 100% gung ho.

Ben was doing what Ben wanted to do, and I am in a safer place because people like Ben do what they do that I don't know what it is, but they do what they do and I can go to bed at night comfortable knowing that I'm safe and we all can.

>> On Friday, the Kentucky House of Representatives adjourned in remembrance of Pennington.

Lawmakers commended his bravery and his sacrifice.

>> As we grieve his loss.

Let us also honor his life by holding close the values he fought to protect courage, service and love of country.

May we never forget Staff Sergeant Pennington and may his memory inspire us to live the same honor he exemplified every day.

Though Benjamin was only 26, his bravery and commitment will leave a lasting mark on all who knew him and all of Kentucky.

May we never forget Staff Sergeant Pennington, and may his memory inspire us to live the same honor that he exemplified every day.

Rest in peace, comrade.

>> Staff Sergeant Benjamin Pennington died from injuries sustained in an airstrike on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.

He was 26 years old.

>> Thank you so much, Mackenzie Spink for that.

Staff Sergeant Pennington was laid to rest at Kentucky Veterans Cemetery in Radcliff.

Turning now to state politics, the House passed a piece of legislation on Friday, but with a change that could overhaul the school boards of Kentucky's two largest school districts, some Louisville Democrats crossed party lines in support of the measure, but another Lexington lawmaker was not pleased with the changes.

Our Emily Sisk has more on Senate Bill four in tonight's legislative update.

[MUSIC] >> Senate Bill four, in its original form, initiates a principal leadership program for new school principals, but a house change targets the Jefferson and Fayette County school boards, requiring the state treasurer to appoint two school board members with financial backgrounds to each board.

>> There's going to be a combination of five elected and and two appointed.

The two appointed will be coming from the state treasurer.

That those individuals have to have at least ten years of financial background, experience and understanding for them to be Knott, for them to be appointed to the boards.

>> Both Jefferson and Fayette County Public Schools have been in the headlines for budget shortfalls in the districts.

Senate Bill four would change the number of elected board members in Jefferson County.

Redrawing the district to bring the total to five.

A Louisville Democrat raised concern that this could set a precedent for more school board changes.

>> Do you anticipate that if we pass this bill, it will be a slippery slope where we continue to take away more and more elected positions?

Add more appointed, continue to tinker with Jefferson County Public Schools.

>> I can tell you flat out I'm not going down the point of process for the whole board.

I just think that's taken away the election process.

>> Several Democrats crossed party lines to support the measure, including Representative Tina Bojanowski, who teaches in Jefferson County.

>> We need to do something to increase the confidence in Jefferson County public schools, both in this body and in the community.

I support this bill despite the angst that it may cause me for taking this vote.

But we have to do something.

>> Another key part of the revised legislation is that teachers who reside in one district, but teach in another, would not be able to serve on the school board where they live.

This would effectively oust Fayette County School Board Chair Tyler Murphy, who teaches in Boyle County.

He has come under fire in recent months over the district's financial Handlings Lexington Democrat, voiced her opposition to this rule.

>> When you vote to take away somebody's right to run for office, we are not doing good things for the Commonwealth.

>> But a Nicholasville Republican praised the legislation, saying it was time for the General Assembly to step in and act on behalf of the state's largest school districts.

>> I have heard from countless teachers and parents and students out of Fayette County begging, asking for our help, asking for us to step in and do something.

And I believe that Senate Bill four is a great first step because we have to step in.

>> Representative locket filed an impeachment petition against Tyler Murphy seeking to remove him as Fayette County School Board chair.

The House impeachment Committee has not issued a recommendation in that case.

Locket was the only lawmaker representing Fayette County who voted yes on Senate Bill four.

The measure passed on a 74 to 15 vote.

It will return to the Senate to consider the bill's changes.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Emily Sisk.

>> Thank you so much, Emily.

Now, speaking of Fayette County schools, the district's leader could be leaving.

Kentucky Superintendent Demetrius Liggins is a finalist for a position in Missouri.

Hazelwood School District says Liggins is one of three candidates for its superintendent job.

All three will participate in a forum at the end of this month.

The school district intends to announce its decision on April the 1st.

Hazelwood has about 16,000 students.

That's less than half the size of Fayette County's public education system.

Liggins has led Fayette County Public Schools since 2021.

He is the 2026 Kentucky Superintendent of the year and was a finalist for the National Superintendent of the year.

Last month, an independent report found Liggins failed to fully comply with school board policy when the state's second largest public school district found itself facing a $16 million budget deficit.

The same report also found no evidence to suggest Liggins intentionally withheld information from the board.

The Kentucky House and Senate have each passed a budget, but there are some differences, and those differences have to be reconciled in the next few days.

We'll talk about the state budget tonight.

On Kentucky.

Tonight, we have a panel of six, including three lawmakers, and we hope that you'll tune in and send us your questions and comments.

That show begins at eight eastern, seven central right here on KET.

Shelby County residents heard from a couple members of Kentucky's congressional delegation this morning.

Senator Rand Paul and Congressman Thomas Massie held a roundtable discussion at the Farm Kitchen in Shelbyville.

They both expressed support for the Save act, which requires voters to show proof of citizenship and photo ID at the polls.

Paul says while mail in ballots were popular during the pandemic, he would like to see an emphasis on in-person voting.

He also said less money should go toward welfare for refugees, citing recent fraud in Minnesota.

And on the topic of the Iraq war, Paul says he doesn't believe U.S.

involvement is serving the nation's national interest, and it should come to a conclusion as soon as possible.

>> If our foreign policy is going to be that we're going to get rid of things that are bad in the world, that are evil in the world, there's no limit to evil, and there's no limit to authoritarian governments.

And so I've been a stickler for let's vote and then come together, you know, let's vote as a Congress.

And people say, oh, Congress is so feckless, they'll never be able to figure out how to go to war.

Well, interestingly, when we were attacked in Pearl Harbor, the vote was nearly unanimous.

When we were attacked on nine over 11, once again nearly unanimous.

So I think when we do bring the vote to Congress and the case is made for what it is.

But I'll tell you what sickens me, and I don't want to mention any names, but Lindsey Graham.

What sickens me when people go on national news and say, we're going to get so rich from this war, this war is going to make us rich, and we're going to you know, the high oil prices are good for our companies.

We're going to get rich.

It's like, no, no, I look as if I'm sending you or sending one of my kids to war.

That's what war should be about.

It's not a game.

We we had Sergeant Pennington, who died just last week.

He was from Hardin County.

And, you know, our soldiers are brave and they put their life on the line, but they shouldn't put their life on the line where people are squawking off, talking about how much money we're going to make from a war.

>> The Pentagon is requesting $200 billion in funding for the war.

Congressman Thomas Massie says before that's approved, the administration should outline what the money will be used for and how long the war will last.

>> I don't think we fully measure the cost of war, and a lot of the cost is borne by the families and the members themselves, but the families of the members.

And I think, honestly, if we evaluated the cost more accurately, we'd be less inclined to engage in wars for other countries overseas where it's not clear what our our interests are here at home.

>> Massey is up for reelection with a Republican primary challenger.

This May, some spring break and business travelers will have to navigate some long lines at America's airports.

The federal government shut down weather and a fatal plane crash last night are all adding to delays.

Our June Leffler has more on what Kentucky fliers should expect.

>> Tragedy struck a New York airport late last night when a jet collided with an airport fire truck at LaGuardia.

Two pilots died and the airport shut down, temporarily canceling hundreds of flights to and from New York.

That includes nearly a dozen flights arriving or departing from Louisville, Lexington and northern Kentucky.

Today, travelers across the country have seen long lines at security gates due to the federal shutdown that started on Valentine's Day.

TSA agents are no longer receiving paychecks, and hundreds of workers have quit.

TSA staffing woes are most affecting hub airports like Houston, Atlanta and New Orleans.

But Lexington's airport says business is as usual.

Quote, we are extremely grateful for our local TSA agents.

They have continued to show up and work throughout the shutdown.

Therefore, our wait times at checkpoints are currently fairly standard for what we typically experience.

Louisville's airport says fliers should show up as early as they usually would.

Quote.

Passengers are encouraged to arrive one and a half to two hours before their scheduled departure for travelers departing before 8:30 a.m.

it's strongly recommended to arrive two hours before their scheduled departure.

The federal shutdown is over.

Funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement Ice agents are actually still getting paid from funds previously allocated, so Trump has called on Ice agents to help TSA at more than a dozen airports.

Louisville, Lexington and Cincinnati's airports report they do not expect Ice agents to arrive for this task.

For Kentucky edition.

I'm June Leffler.

>> Thank you so much June.

Now in other news, Kentucky will soon have some extra eyes on the lookout for natural disasters, Governor Andy Beshear says National Weather Service meteorologist John Wilson is joining the Kentucky Emergency Management Operations Center.

The National Weather Service is placing meteorologists in emergency centers nationwide.

And with Kentucky's recent surge in natural disasters, Beshear says the new position will be crucial for keeping residents safe.

>> His new role is based at the Kentucky EOC.

It includes working alongside the team to conduct special briefing for state agencies and provide support on blue sky days, major weather events and everything in between.

We've had 15 federally declared weather disasters in the last six years, and that didn't include many that should have been declared and storms like we just had coming through.

This is a resource we desperately needed.

We're glad we have it.

There's more support that we get from the National Weather Service, but this is a this is a good day in terms of us being prepared for what comes next.

>> Kentucky is one of the first states in the country to have a meteorologist in this role.

Toyota is preparing to make a second electric vehicle right here in Kentucky.

The car company made the announcement today, adding it's investing $800 million into Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky in Georgetown.

The money will also help the Scott County plant produce more Camry and Rav4 vehicles.

Tmmc is Toyota's largest manufacturing plant in the world.

This year marks 40 years since Toyota broke ground in Georgetown.

[MUSIC] Colorectal cancer is one of the most common cancers in the US, and there is an alarming trend.

The rate of diagnosis is steadily increasing in adults under the age of 40.

Doctor Wayne Tuckson, the host of KET Kentucky Health, talks about this new trend and why and what may be causing it.

That story in today's medical news.

>> Who's the typical patient?

Is there a typical age group sex that has developing colorectal cancer, and how is that changing?

>> I think in general, it used to be 50, 60 year olds, you know, just a function of age and having more time to develop these mutations or these polyps is what we used to screen for.

As you had alluded to in the beginning of the episode, that is markedly decreased to a much that population actually their incidence of colon cancer is decreasing and alarmingly and younger people that it's almost a public health crisis at this point.

Colon cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death in men under the age of 50.

Really?

And it's the leading cause of cancer death in women under the age of 50, third leading cause under the age of 50.

So I think that, you know, it's every opportunity for research and grant funding and everything that the NIH is after is after trying to figure out this early onset colon cancer.

So honestly, it's mostly I think the risk is higher in men that are under the age of 50, more so than women.

A lot of the studies that are out there will show, you know, obese males or smoking male like it really they really seem to hit harder on the male population.

It's not to say I haven't seen women that are early onset colon cancer, but it is men are slightly more affected.

Certainly the African American population is also more affected.

I think they're considering dropping the screening rate specifically for African American males, but they haven't made that move yet.

And those are the kinds of, you know, we really are at a race to sort of see how early do we screen.

And, you know, the guidelines can only change so many so often.

>> Yeah.

Any particular things that might explain why we're seeing young people?

>> I think that those modifiable risk factors that we had talked about are actually seem to be, in my mind, kind of more present in that in that age group, the sedentary lifestyle, maybe not so much, you know, we aren't walking and biking as much as we did in the 60s or 70s, but I wouldn't blame it all on that.

I think the obesity rates really the speak to us as far as what's going on in the country, the amount of DoorDash and Uber Eats and like the just the convenience of being able to eat out more that that that generation basically between 15 and 40 actually get 40% of their weekly calories from ordering out DoorDash and UberEats.

And that's the generation that will pay for convenience.

Right?

And they grew up tech savvy, and it's easy for them to pull it up on their phones.

>> Fascinating information.

You can learn more about colorectal cancer, including the different screening methods and some good news about treatment.

When you watch Kentucky Health, it's streaming online on demand right now at KET dot o r g. An estimated 70 to 100 million Americans have some form of outstanding medical debt, with most owing more than $1,000.

Nearly 10,000 people in Lexington no longer have to worry about their old medical bills.

That's thanks to a partnership between the city and the national nonprofit Undue Medical Debt.

Lexington paid $1 million to fund the partnership, which acquires medical debt in bulk from local health systems.

Through that investment, the city says it expects to wipe out almost $90 million in debt for some lucky lexingtonians.

>> On the local level, it is pretty much impossible for us to really impact the national health care system and the national health insurance system.

I think everybody can agree that our health care system is messed up, that our health insurance system is messed up, that things like eligibility for Medicaid, Medicare, our insurance rates are constantly going up.

So it's a really, really difficult issue for us to impact on the local level.

This felt like something we could do on the local level.

The other big thing that attracted me to it is the return on investment.

We're getting 100 to 1 on our money on this relief, which is amazing.

If you told me that this was a 1 to 1 deal, that every dollar we spent relieved a dollar of medical debt, we would not be doing it because we simply couldn't afford to relieve that amount of debt with the budget that we have.

But because we can get 100 to 1 on our money, that million dollars we allocated can relieve upwards of 90 to $100 million.

>> We purchased directly from hospitals, health systems, physician groups, and the secondary market.

We purchase those files for pennies on the dollar, taking advantage of the already existing medical debt market, we focus our work on individuals who earn 400% of the federal poverty level or below.

That's roughly $100,000 a year for a family of three, or whose medical debt equals 5% or more of their annual income.

>> I had guessed that most people affected by this would be people without health insurance.

The vast majority of the recipients of this relief have private health insurance.

So that means at some point their medical bills got so big, they hit their deductibles, and then they started paying out of pocket.

So it impacts your credit score, it impacts your pocketbook, and that you're putting money towards paying off debt that you could otherwise be buying groceries, paying for your college tuition, you know, starting a business, all those other things.

The other really big impact of it is if you're carrying unpaid medical debt, you are much less likely to go seek medical care.

>> We know that on average, 12% of Kentuckians are about 410,000 people report having medical debt in a given year, which is higher than the national average of 8.6%.

And we know that the recent congressional budget decisions are projected to increase the number of Kentuckians that are going to experience medical debt.

Nearly 46,000 people will add over $429 million in new debt statewide.

We definitely don't see our work as a silver bullet by any means.

You know, we provide that immediate relief to people who need help now.

But we do know that a lasting solution requires systemic change around affordable coverage, more fair billing practices, and stronger consumer protections.

>> Lexington is the first city in Kentucky to offer this kind of relief.

Undue Medical Debt has also partnered with an organization in Paducah, and soon plans to offer medical debt relief to residents of that city who qualify qualify.

Now, in case you're wondering, the program does not take applications since it can only erase medical debts it acquires from health systems or collection agencies.

[MUSIC] There is a new champ in Kentucky high school basketball that begins tonight.

Sports news George Rogers Clark defeated Saint X, 58 to 50 in overtime to win the double A Boys sweet 16 state championship over the weekend at Rupp Arena in Lexington.

It's their second title in the last four years, and it's a great time to be a Cardinal.

You'll remember GRC also won the Girls Sweet 16 championship last week.

That marks just the second time that the boys and girls teams have both swept state basketball titles.

The first was almost 100 years ago, back in 1928.

Now turning to college basketball today, the University of Louisville women's team held on to beat Alabama for a trip to their second sweet 16 in 3 years.

Number three seed Louisville will next take on number two seed Michigan on Saturday.

The five seed University of Kentucky women's team plays four seed West Virginia tonight.

Meanwhile, it's the end of the season for the men's teams, both programs lost in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

Now a consolation for you?

College football season begins and 157 days.

As the NCAA tournaments continue, we look back at some past Kentucky and Louisville championships.

And do you know about Thomas Edison's connection to Kentucky?

Well, our Toby Gibbs tells us more.

And this week in Kentucky history.

>> Legendary inventor Thomas Edison took a job in Louisville as a telegraph operator for the Associated Press on March 26th, 1866, while conducting an experiment, he spilled acid on his boss's desk.

His boss fired him, and Edison returned to new Jersey.

Happy birthday to Duncan Hines.

Born March 26th, 1880, in Bowling Green, he made a list of the best restaurants he found while working as a traveling salesman that became a best selling book.

[MUSIC] He eventually had a newspaper column on food and marketed cake mixes and other foods under his name.

The US Navy commissioned the USS Kentucky on March 24th, 1898, and scrapped it 25 years later to the day.

The Kentucky General Assembly authorized the first official Kentucky flag on March 26th, 1918.

The act called for a navy blue flag with the Kentucky seal in the middle, partially surrounded by a wreath of goldenrod.

[MUSIC] Aviator Charles Lindbergh landed in Lexington on March 28th, 1928, about ten months after his famous solo flight across the Atlantic.

3000 people turned out to watch him take off the next day.

The University of Kentucky hired Adolph Rupp to be the school's men's basketball coach on March 23rd, 1930.

He was one of 71 applicants.

He would be coached for the next 42 years.

His team would win its first NCAA championship when the so-called Fabulous Five beat Baylor 58 to 42.

18 years later, on March 23rd, 1948.

The University of Louisville won its first NCAA basketball title on March 24th, 1980, beating UCLA 59 to 54.

And that's a rundown of this week in Kentucky history.

I'm Toby Gibbs.