♪ ♪ >> And on the campaign trail, I talked about voting for Mike conservative, constitutional and Christian perspective.

>> How one of Kentucky's newest lawmakers is bringing his political experiences to a new role in Frankfort.

>> What we want to avoid here at the is the headline.

It's a rush of wind and America for >> Kentucky's senior U.S.

Senator explains why he thinks it's important for America to continue supporting its Democratic allies.

>> We're seeing a lot of isolation and difficulty with coping Definitely an increase in depression.

>> And a community comes together, focused on helping Kentucky's young adults.

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

♪ ♪ >> Good Evening and welcome to Kentucky.

Addition this midweek, it is Wednesday March the 19th the day before spring.

I'm Renee Shaw.

Thank you so much for wind in your Wednesday.

Down with us.

We have our first veto of the 2025 Kentucky General Assembly session today.

Governor Andy Beshear said he's vetoing House Bill 216.

The bill was sponsored by Republican State representative Myron Dossett of Christian County in western Kentucky.

It would allow Kentucky Department of Agriculture employees to receive funds awards or contracts from their own department.

Governor Beshear says that's on ethical and on lawful.

>> So this isn't to me about that department at all.

It's about no one should be able to work in an agency and then apply directly to that agency for a loan or a grant from it.

In the end, I believe it's unfair to farmers that don't work for the Department of Agriculture that they're going to have to compete with someone else's, apply for the same loan and works next to the person is going to determine and >> Governor Beshear said he's still reviewing an abortion-related Bill House Bill.

90 started as a bill dealing with freestanding birthing centers and was later amended to also clarify medical emergencies.

Exempt from Kentucky's near total ban on abortion.

The governor says it's possible the bill might actually make it more dangerous for mothers.

More on that topic coming up in our weekly check in with MP ARES Rylan Barton.

The University of Kentucky is ending its contract with the PhD project following an investigation by the Trump administration last week.

The U.S. Department of Education said it was investigating more than 50 universities to see if they violated the Civil Rights act of 1964.

By working with the PhD project since 1994, this group has helped more than 1500 students are in their doctoral degree nationwide.

In a letter to the campus community, UK President Eli Capilouto said the university does not have students currently in that program.

Still, he said UK has, quote, discontinued any association with the organization given this review and concerns raised in, quote, he added the university will fully cooperate with the department's review.

Dr Capital also commented on key Bills.

State lawmakers passed this legislative session.

He specifically mentioned House Bill 4 which prohibits dei initiatives, offices and programs at the state's public universities.

Kappa Ludo says UK anticipated this change and already took several steps that, quote, positioned us to be compliant with these changes while continuing to honor our values of academic and scholarly freedom, unquote.

He also discussed House Bill 424, which requires faculty performance reviews every 4 years and makes it easier for universities to fire employees if signed into law cap.

Alito says the university would develop a process that will, quote, honor the fundamental importance of tenure in the recruitment and retention of faculty scholars, unquote.

Both bills have been sent to the governor's desk.

As the 2025 legislative session winds down.

We're introducing you to another new law maker.

Representative Aaron Thompson is from Russell and northeastern Kentucky.

We caught up with him at Graham Bow Lake State Resort Park in Greenup County where he discussed his passion for economic development as we continue profiling the freshman class of the 2025 Kentucky General Assembly.

♪ ♪ >> I was born in the early 1990's and I came here really good viewpoint.

Growing up in an eastern Kentucky during that time period when the economy was pretty well.

But my parents had good jobs and other things.

How things should be working effectively really draw a lot on my previous experience before working in government during college at UK ahead of several different internships or work in politics, including for my state representative at the time.

I also intern for Congressman Andy Barr when he was first running for office, working for the congressman really help to give me some good experience with constituent service and helping to help folks individually.

And then after that experience, I worked for 4 years during the Bevin administration as a field representative.

So I move back home to Greenup County been back here since then after graduating at UK working for for the a conservative overall, you know, on the campaign trail, I talked about voting from a conservative constitutional and Christian perspective in those are the 3 things that how we strive to consider and that I've considered with him a lot.

But then also in particular, how on voting on things for eastern Kentucky economic development is really one of the most critical things that we we need to be working on overall collectively as a team.

You know, if you look over the past 2 to 3 decades, we have lost.

>> Well over 25,000 people in some of our county's overall, that's essentially like taking a population.

>> About the size of Carter County and just just removing those people completely.

And a lot of that has been the job loss that we have faced overall.

And you can talk about, you know, large manufacturers that have left the area such as the coal plant.

Alex Burger AK Steel works good corporate jobs that ash from coal use tap and also works.

A key hospital like Dolphin Hospital for and R D Mountain counties.

We've lost a lot of jobs because of the coal industry.

And this is by far the biggest issue facing eastern Kentucky.

And if we don't fix it, it's really going to make things difficult for future generations.

We've got all a good work force that I know that if we have more jobs in our area that will be able to fill those jobs with with with good people overall, you know, the first session has been very interesting for me.

I really have went into it just trying to trying to learn, you on tourism and outdoor recreation, post-secondary education and state government.

These 3 committees, we've dealt with a lot of different issues over the course of the 2025 session.

But that could be really good understanding for how the committee process works, how to work effectively in how that legislation will ultimately makes it down to the House floor and through the entire legislative process was very excited.

Take my first vote on House Bill one, which was the income tax reduction to take that down from 4% in 2025. to 3 and a half percent in 2026. legislatively of done a couple different things this year that I'm I'm pretty proud of.

First and foremost, I carried House Bill 191, which is actually signed into the law by the governor on Saturday.

So we have 5 veteran cemeteries across Kentucky state veterans cemeteries will get support for those from the federal government.

But there are currently some in eligibility rules for some of our our veterans that were in the reserves or certain components of the National Guard.

If they were not deployed outside of the state and prohibitions from them being able to be to be buried there.

Federal law was changed, but we hadn't made that state for all I was able to carry that bill with the support of some more experienced members of the Legislature.

But we're able to get that through.

It passed both the House and the Senate and the governor signed as really outside of being state representative it.

What's important to me most is really just making sure that I make a good dad and husband.

I have a 2 year-old at home.

And so just balancing that as it is truly important.

But really make sure that I continue to be involved in the community when I'm when I'm not in Frankfort, that something that's important to me.

Also.

>> Representative Thompson also says he's looking forward to the interim period that begins in June over the summer and fall.

State lawmakers discuss issues and policy ideas that can serve as a foundation to what they'll consider in the next regular lawmaking session.

Now turning to national politics has a limited cease-fire between Ukraine and Russia seems to be taking shape.

Kentucky senior U.S.

Senator says he is playing his part from the sidelines.

Speaking to reporters in Hardin County yesterday, Senator Mitch McConnell said he's urging more military spending to protect the U.S. and its Democratic allies.

Our Jen Leffler has more.

>> McConnell is a steadfast supporter of Ukraine as it fights Russia's invasion.

>> What we want to avoid here at the end and is the headline.

It says Russia went on and America loses.

>> Yesterday McConnell spoke to Kentucky reporters the same day that Trump had a link they call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

He may know speculations on how that talk and future negotiations could go.

Well, as you know, that the president.

From falling it's a star.

And deal.

We'll see whether that deal.

Did you cry is want to mow.

>> Yesterday Trump did broker a limited truce between the 2 countries.

Ukraine and Russia have agreed to not attack each other's energy infrastructure for 30 days.

Well, all I can say is I think the Ukrainians.

>> And they have to decide not they're comfortable a list of all those who benefit from that.

I don't think the European countries are going to do that.

No matter what we just >> As the White House negotiates McConnell, earmarks, tax payer dollars for the Pentagon and U.S. allies.

McConnell has stepped down as Senate majority leader and stepped in as chair of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and the Washington Post this month, McConnell wrote an appeal for more defense spending even as quote, fresh eyes see cut.

>> It revised many of the 30's, the slogan themselves for the Year.

America First.

If you get into a war, if you're concerned about spending.

If you want to avoid a war.

At the height of World War, 2.37%, of our gross domestic product was spent on the encourage 13% in Vietnam.

9%.

The Reagan buildup.

Almost 6%.

So we're waiting in the previous administration.

Didn't submit a budget.

It kept up with inflation.

And now it's pretty obvious.

We need to change course.

>> Congress's latest stopgap budget does bump military spending by 6 billion dollars while it cuts 13 billion in non-defense appropriations for Kentucky edition.

I'm John Leffler.

>> Thank you.

June McConnell also told reporters he hopes Trump's trade tariffs won't last for too long.

He says Kentucky is bound to fill the worse of a trade war between Canada.

We're liquor stores have stopped stocking Kentucky bourbon.

♪ >> Amari Rodgers joined by National Public Radio's Rylan Barton.

And we know Governor Beshear Island has several bills that are coming across his desk right now in this retail period.

He has received a letter from Planned Parenthood urging him to veto House Bill 9 D it was originally legislation that was pertaining to freestanding birthing centers.

But these are health care providers and reached out to the governor there concerned about the abortion substitute language.

I believe that's how they put it.

So tell us what their concerns are about the policies and this bill.

>> Yeah.

So this is a bill that was amended last week, kind of towards the end of that period record for the veto period where that's what lawmakers are trying to get that controversial legislation out that where they won't have to worry about the governor's veto because they can override his And a couple weeks when we come back, the last 2 days of session.

But this bill and they added language tempted to clarify when doctors are permitted to provide an abortion under Kentucky's medical exceptions for Kentucky bans abortions in all cases except for when a woman's life is at risk due to the pregnancy.

This attempts to start out but Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights advocates are saying that first of all, it doesn't go far enough to, you know, they've been calling for more exceptions to the state's ban.

But how lawmakers attempted to clarify this medical exception just adds a lot more confusion and could possibly out or harm.

So in terms of, you know, Mueller and ectopic pregnancies, those follows to treat sepsis and miscarriage.

But what some of these doctors are saying is that by only allowing this in serious and fatal cases and a miss care say or ectopic pregnancy said it still so far along in the process where a woman's life would be at risk that doctors are still going to be confused in that and that patients are going to be, you know, they're going to still be put at risk.

As you said, this was at a relatively not controversial bill doing freestanding, birth centers and also advocates are saying that this is just rush through the last minute without a lot of public input.

>> And then let's talk now about an executive order from President Trump that has public libraries, concerns that it could mean a major cut to their funding.

I know my local library has posted on social media about this asking people to reach out to their local state and federal leaders on this issue.

What can you tell us about this?

>> Yeah, your leader to a good story on this.

Looking into how much on how much Kentucky would stand to lose another one of these departments that are agencies that the Trump administration is just trying to basically delete, just holler out funding for and and Kentucky to lose about 4.3 million dollars to this agency, which of the grand scheme of things might not sound like a whole lot of money, but especially library says these institutions that rely and just like really shoestring budgets and do a whole lot.

>> A whole lot with the with the whole little bit of the current leader wrote down where a lot of this money would go.

And it's 2.7, 7 million dollars.

The Kentucky Department of Archives to 50 million dollars, the Speed Art Museum in Louisville $150,000.

The Kentucky Geological Survey and part of that, is it an effort to make sure that 200 years of historical geological data is updated and kept on track.

This is another one of these examples of how really states are going to stand to lose a lot of these funding cuts and what I'm starting to think about is what it's gonna look like next year for Kentucky.

When you know Kentucky Sen another budget writing session and they're gonna have to decide whether or not the state is going to baffle some of these programs if, in fact, the federal government goes through the following them out.

And there's there's just no, this is just one small part of this whole effort.

>> Yeah, it's interesting to think about the other services that libraries provide beyond just a place to check out books in DVDs and things like that to my local library has even a transit service.

For a little and the community.

So they really do it on providing Internet access for rural areas and things like that.

So it's been interesting to see how those services could potentially.

>> The limited.

>> Yeah, and it's always going to disproportionately affect rural communities that do not have as much many opportunities for funding sources and where this kind of money disproportionately is a large part of the budget.

>> And along the lines of federal funding cuts, let's talk education because this has been something we've been hearing so concerned about this from teachers and administrators ugly Lieutenant Governor Jacqueline Coleman holding a press conference on this today and Louisville.

So what are we hearing as far as the Department of Education goes, what the Trump administration wants to do there?

>> teachers and education advocates rallied in Louisville today calling for the Trump administration to reverse this action.

The new education secretary has already laid off 1300 federal workers.

That couple department it happened waiting to see how this affects federal funding Kentucky receives about a billion dollars in federal funding to go to schools each year.

About half of that is from the Department of Education at 550 million dollars.

The other for the comes from the Department of Agriculture for food programs.

But all this is is is under fire at this point.

And again, this is something that this funding, if its, if it is in fact zeroed out.

It's something that affects Pearl District's a lot more than an urban district, although there's a lot more money that certainly goes certain districts.

So Jefferson County schools, for example, they received almost a almost 100 million dollars.

The Department of Education funding that that's going to be a big hit to them but doesn't make a a giant percentage of their budget.

Obviously county.

Meanwhile, this is according to Kentucky Public Radio, Tulsa State receive about 40% of their funding from federal education dollars.

The legislature and state governments are going to do a lot of hard questions to answer and a lot of things that have to figure out what's the reading and budget to get months.

These cuts go through.

>> Roland Martin with National Public Radio, we appreciate you so much.

Thank you.

♪ >> Soon the Social Security Administration will no longer allow people to verify their identity over the phone.

The administration says it's an effort to limit fraudulent claims.

Instead, people will have to verify their identity online or visit agency field offices of which there will soon be fewer.

The U.S. Department of Government efficiency Ordos that website says leases for dozens of Social Security field offices around the country have been or will be ended, including and Kentucky.

♪ ♪ ♪ It's March 19th.

You know what day it is what's also known as Kentucky Agriculture Kentucky Department of AG Commissioner Jonathan Shell made the proclamation today.

Commissioner shall has been crisscrossing the state this week to promote agriculture just yesterday.

Governor Andy Beshear signed a bill into law stab wishing a friends of Kentucky Agriculture, Special license Plate House Bill.

157 sets the initial fee for the plate at $28 with $10 going to the Agriculture Program.

Trust Fund.

According to the CDC, about 40% of high school students reported feelings of sadness and hopelessness during the last 2 years.

While more than 20% have reported seriously considering suicide.

This week, the University of Louisville's Peace Hospital held a summit focused on ways to help youth cope with depression, anxiety and other behavioral health issues.

More about this in today's medical news >> we're celebrating our 3rd annual behavior health, some of our community members include psychiatry, a psychiatric nurse, a therapist, social workers, peer support.

Specialist we have 27 vendors.

So these represent just community agencies that work and substance use disorder, residential facilities, outpatient therapy, mental Our overarching theme is what is affecting our youth and young adults today.

We know that there are a lot to use in young adults that are struggling with behavioral health issues where we want to bring.

Education and raise awareness.

So we're talking about, you know, making sure that the treatment is not one size fits all that we're all the same and that we need to kind of thing outside the box and beyond just your traditional outpatient therapy in traditional medications.

We're seeing a lot of isolation and difficulty with coping Definitely an increase in depression and symptoms of anxiety as well.

I think social media is good when you're trying to stay connected to your peers in a positive way.

But it also can create a tendency to have unrealistic expectations standards that, you know, you need to be more snow pretty are skinnier or stronger, more muscular in some of those photos are the narrative is not always chirs in terms of pass because their photo shopped and things like that.

So it can create some symptoms of depression and anxiety and also when you're having difficulty kind of processing those things and you're alone and you continue to scroll, it just kind of exacerbate so symptoms.

Mental health effects, everyone.

It does not discriminate effects you that could affect young adults.

Seniors that, you know, we all go through difficult times in her life and we all need support.

And there's no shame in that.

And it's okay to reach out and ask for help were hoping that they can take away one tangible thing that they can either share with the family, a friend, someone that they care about, that they're not alone, that there is hope that they should not give up and that there are people that are really ready to listen.

We want to KET talking about it.

We want to share our stories and our narratives so that others can come forward and feel like they're not >> This year's summit also discussed childhood trauma and the use of art therapy as treatment for behavioral health issues.

Former northern Kentucky University president Dr James for Trouba has died.

Link Nky says Votruba passed away last night at his home.

He was in K use 4th president and served in that role for 15 years before stepping down in 20 12.

Current president doctor catty short, Thompson said, quote, he built a legacy as a legendary leader.

James for Trouba was 79 years old.

♪ >> In lieu of all, young artists are mastering a traditional skill while expressing their artistic side.

As you'll see in this Kentucky life story, the nimble fumbles, quote, club.

It's keeping the art of quilting alive by teaching it to the next generation.

>> I started sewing and I was about 6.

I sold all my clothes on through the rest of my life about 25 years ago, I moved here to Louisville and I was tired of making clothing.

So I said, well, I want to make something else and I didn't know what and I thought, well, maybe I'd like to quell since then.

I'm absolutely helped.

20 years ago, I joined the Louisville man, both in Bosque will appeal.

>> I suggested that we should have a show for the children so that it would KET quoting going and that the next generation needed to be taught right away.

The idea is for the children to just show what they did.

If they did not have any judging at all.

They didn't have to.

The ban is in somebody else.

It was just like them to put their build up and let people see what they've done.

>> And the children love it.

When they get to do this and they're so proud when people come to see their cause be that they can make something and not have to meet somebody else's standards.

If they can decide what they want it to be, they could make it any size that they're comfortable with and they can also get all the help they need.

This is not the rules say you have to do it all by yourself.

>> Not at all.

And so parents, grandparents, teachers get involved and help the children.

And it also creates an opportunity for the kids to interact with their adult with their teachers are with their grandmother.

Whoever's teaching to a will to be a quote, must have 3 layers.

>> There's the top of the batting for the soft stuff that's in the middle.

And there's another piece of fabric that finishes it on the bottom.

Now, those 3 layers have to be some together.

That's what a quilt is But the artistic part comes and when you start cutting pieces up and selling them all back together, this is where the creativity comes to where you can have fun with it and you have to follow any rules.

You can do whatever you want to if you can figure out how to make it work that way.

>> The arts contribute to people's well-being even if they don't do it, if they just see it, it contributes to their well-being.

It has a calming effect on the participants and to see you show it has a calming effect on those who come to see it I hear people say all the Well, quilting is just so out of date and it's time it's not something that's disappeared.

Nor is it going anywhere for the girls say all I want to KET on making real-time got some ideas.

I want to do something more.

It's doing nothing but growing.

>> Such creativity parents by Congressman Andy Barr brings out protesters in Lexington.

>> We're concerned that you are our government, the more concerned about profits for billionaires, the medical aid, food aid and financial security for the citizens of the U.S.. >> More on the protests to Barr's response and his take on doge and tariffs.

That and more tomorrow night at 6.30, Eastern 5.30, central on Kentucky Edition.

Thanks for watching tonight.

I'm Renee Shaw and I will see you right back here again tomorrow night.

Take good care.

♪