♪ >> something that we nurture and bill, every day.

A Kentucky group has idea is to make that happen.

>> While of highway breezy on mile down the road.

But a mile of runway.

Take you anywhere in the world.

>> How Ek you is helping students soar.

>> They will be forever special in my heart to me any day if >> calm.

Cool.

Teamwork.

Help save an 11 year old's life.

It's just about beautifying Covington.

And an empty Ali becomes the inside of a home and a new immersive mural in Covington.

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

♪ ♪ Good Evening and welcome to Kentucky EDITION on this Wednesday, November.

The 20th, I'm Renee Shaw.

Thank you so much for winding down your Wednesday with us.

>> The League of Women Voters of Kentucky, a self-professed a non-partisan group focused on government transparency, released its second legislative report today describing tactics used in state government.

It believes hinder democracy.

Last year's report included maneuvers used by legislators to fast track bills to final passage this year, they identified more problems.

They say discourage voters from participating in Frankfort.

Here's more on those challenges and propose solutions from Kentucky additions Clayton Dalton.

>> We the people have the right to participate in decisions that affect us.

That's the mantra of the League of Women Voters of Kentucky.

The group published a 30 page report highlighting legislative practices.

They disagree with.

They say these maneuvers make it difficult for Kentuckians to engage in the lawmaking process.

>> With the passage of House Bill 1020.

22.

The U.S. has access to file bills which previously allowed the public to preview legislative grass.

In response, the Legislative Research Commission was passed with creating a colleague, wife say for a draft legislation.

However, today, no such resource exists.

The delay is troubling.

Really good at that.

House Speaker David Osborne, the price was for a possible 10 emphasize the importance of central resource during committee hearings.

We're still waiting.

Without access to draft legislation published in the door, unable to engage in discussions are provided feedback on proposed laws until it is often too late.

>> The League of Women voters also criticized the regularity of committee schedules.

>> This year.

>> That House and Senate cancel 56% of their scheduled meetings office giving critical sessions for committees responsible for the state's two-year budget.

Both chambers.

Appropriations Committee cancel more than two-thirds of their planning.

Nearly half of the sessions that her last minute surprise Sessions.

A House Budget Review subcommittee, but did not be at all the session.

The state budget effects every Kentuckian canceling these essential meetings.

They're not as a public, even many legislators, the opportunity to provide input on one of the most consequential decisions made by our General Assembly.

>> The group suggests there are steps the legislature should take to increase transparency like restoring the pre filing process for bills, setting regular meeting times for most committee hearings and publishing records online in a timely manner >> its responsibility to us rest solely on the legislature.

Each of us has a role to play and strengthening democracy.

I urge every Kentuckyian to speak up engage with the legislative process and demand transparency and accountability.

From our elected officials.

Democracy isn't a one-time that it's something that we nurture and build every day.

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

Thank you, Clayton.

And we'll get response from Kentucky legislative leadership to that story later this week.

>> Kentucky Attorney General Russel Coleman has randomly selected 12 counties for post election audits.

This process is routine and occurs after each election.

You can see the county selected today here on this map there in yellow.

They are barren Boyle Callaway Campbell Davis Edmonson Jefferson Jessamine Lincoln, Metcalf Trade and Warren counties.

The audit is required by state law.

Attorney General Coleman says his office will be paying close attention to Jefferson County were.

There were numerous reports of problems with voting machines on Election Day.

>> You're a guard, Justin County.

I had the conversation with our circuit court clerk yesterday, certain Park County clerk, rather yesterday missiles goal.

We haven't had a conversation just to you.

If she had been drawn certainly she was willing to be of assistance, willing to cooperate.

We talked about generally this process here today.

And I expect that that is non.

This is not an adversarial process.

This is an opportunity to show Kentucky news that if something is broken in something was broken in Jefferson County, we know that we know those cause is made comments to that effect will continue to flush that out.

We hope that this will be a collaborative process with her.

And as we go forward and then if I were the limiting factors are and then if they have been corrected, those can be corrected.

Doing food.

>> The attorney general said his findings will be presented to a grand jury is in each of the selected counties.

That process wouldn't be wrapped up, though, until next year.

The United Auto Workers says it wants to unionize the blue Oval SK Electric vehicle battery complex being built in Hardin County.

The UAW says two-thirds of the workers hired so far signed cards expressing an interest in a union.

Ford and SK on our building.

2 plants in Hardin County with the first expected to open early next year in August.

Governor Andy Beshear said that the blue Oval Plant would not be unionize because of the deal between forward and the UAW.

But the UAW told the Kentucky Lantern there is no deal.

The 2024 Kentucky Kids Count Data book is out to mom gets findings and increasing number of Kentucky children lack health insurance and the state is making very little progress in reversing childhood poverty.

>> 2 or 3 things that jumped out this year is the persistent issue of childhood poverty.

We seemingly can't move on that today.

120,000 kids woke up in Kentucky living in poverty.

No one no one can believe that's acceptable.

Secondly, an area that is going to be easily overlooked is that we have a serious downward trajectory when it comes to children being covered with health insurance, all the indicators are that more and more kids are failing to have health insurance which creates enormous problems.

And while the current level looks good, 96%, we're at a 5 year to climb.

And I worry that we're getting ready to take a quick dip down to us.

>> The annual report is a detailed breakdown of statistics that affect Kentucky children looking at everything from food, insecurity to absentee rates in Kentucky.

Schools.

Much more on this tomorrow night on Kentucky EDITION.

Fly high with a college Education and Richmond, a future home of eastern Kentucky university's new flight training facility.

That's more than just a figure of speech.

>> In just a few minutes, we're going to break ground on the new Ek you flight training center.

This major project.

It's going to further fuel all the good things happening.

Eddie Ku here in Madison County.

>> And all across the Commonwealth.

>> I know it's been in the toxin in the works for a couple years now that we're finally being able to break ground are at which is going to be awesome for students.

I love a good place like become full, a comfortable FBI to go into and around flying.

And it's it's going to feel like home and I'm so excited that our students are going to have a home in a KU.

>> As a young boy, I grew up in southeastern Kentucky.

I watched planes soaring across the sky.

I dreamed of the day that it would join them.

The men and women finds planes he ready to you.

I got that opportunity and I've been able to advance my time here with great instructors in this new facility will be better able to quit the leaders of tomorrow as they change the industry.

>> Excited just 4.

It's a new look.

facelift that says that are here.

The have something new to look forward to in the nuisance coming in will have something to look forward to as well.

And I think it'll bring a lot of growth to university.

PKU is going to train the pilots.

>> That truly open the door and bring people to our new Kentucky home and the opportunities that await.

BK you already provides are only university-based aviation program.

Right now, the program has more than 460 students.

And I'm not sure they got a lot of applause for this next statistic that they should.

>> 100% job placement rate.

How about that?

>> Whenever you hear aviation, you think airlines, you think commercial aviation, but nobody ever thinks about fighting starting jobs which are helping build our future of pilots like it is.

They're teaching our future.

Pilots and instructors are so important.

I cannot thank our instructors enough for all that they do the callous hours they put in and aviation has so many opportunities and jobs to to put out there for people.

>> In a few short years, many of U.S. students will be instructors ourselves or and during a new airline job.

But we'll always have a place near and dear to our hearts.

Well, we all start here at UK, New Aviation.

I was once told a mile of Highway brings a mile down the road, but a mile of runway takes you anywhere in the world.

>> Completion of the 25 million Dollar facility is supposed to be finished in 2025. the Kentucky General Assembly agreed to fund the project earlier this year.

♪ Time now for midweek, check-in of some major political news so far this week with Rylan Barton who's an editor with NPR National Public Radio.

Good to see your island.

>> CT Monday.

>> So let's talk about our governor, Governor Andy Beshear has been making the rounds quite a bit since the election of November.

The 5th, he's been had some op-eds.

One appeared in The New York Times that asked the question about why what's next for Democrats and what tips he could give them and he's been on face the nation as recently as Sunday.

So what has he been saying and how is this improving his national bona fides?

>> Yeah, what he's saying is he's trying to come up with a plan for what Democrats are going to do in the future.

At this point, there's been a lot of finger pointing, a lot of different ideas of what went wrong during this election, which really up and down the board seems, you know that her favorite Republicans and Democrats not perform well, whether it's in congressional presidential election, any of that.

So he says that what needs to be is, you know what, he's what he's done throughout his governorship, peace as much as you know, focus on bipartisan issues, focus on meat and potato thing mean to say those things like like jobs like infrastructure like access to health care.

He says those are the things that we'll get Democrats or they need to be.

Now that I think a little bit of the complicated part is when he talks about the other issues like this.

They say LGBTQ issues which year he is accusing some Democrats have, you know, these very saying the Democrats should not throw those issues on the bus, that he has been a governor, his been able, you know, to Vito, Anti LGBTQ legislation that's passed the legislature.

Granted, those are policies that would easily be overridden by the legislature after that.

But he's saying that if you can still do that, the Democrats can still do that.

But at the same time, focus on these other issues and and that should be the plan going forward.

Big picture here is the bench of Democrats of this points pretty pretty thin or at you know, there might be a lot of different players out there, but none of them have really developed into those net or not.

Many of them have developed a these national figures.

A lot of those national figures we've seen of credit age tower gone the way our last big elections and over the last decade, the Clintons, Bernie Sanders, now Kamala Harris of some of the some of the figures that we've so I think there's there's a big moment right now for Democrats of trying to figure out who the face of the party is going to be going forward and really most immediately who might who a nominee might be a next time in 2028 and yeah, I think a little bit of this any this year trying to jockey for a place to be one of those figures.

For turn, folks to weigh in on during the primary election ahead of that.

>> So we know that there's been some developments when it comes to leadership and Congress.

Tell us about that.

>> Yeah, well, the biggest one which we've known about for a long time is going to happen either way with this election is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stepping down from his position as leader of the of the Republican Party.

So that that takes effect and now that will be taken over by Senator John Thune.

And so that that's a big change for folks in Kentucky.

You have then it's been the longest serving Republican leader.

He's one of the longest-serving Kentucky senator's and Kentucky history.

And it's going to get to see what is your role is like taking a step back from that leadership going forward.

And, you know, probably eventually on to retirement at some point we saw over the last couple years there him.

They're having trouble in big televised moments.

But anyway, that's one of the big changes.

Another big change is that Senator Rand Paul will go from being the ranking member on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to being the chair of that committee.

Apparently that is, you know, that's a big leadership role.

Have a lot of oversight will have a lot of it's another oversight committee.

It's a committee also that will be in charge of nominating and confirming to being the first step in the confirmation process for some appointees of Donald Trump's including Homeland Security secretary who Donald Trump has nominated South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem for that position.

But I think we can also expect him to use, though that oversight role to continue.

They are probing over the government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

That's been of a favorite topic of his for the last few years.

And I think of the position to to continue that, as you said, but House leaders remain the same.

Jamie Comer, Western Kentucky's going continue to be chairman of the House Oversight and Investigations Committee.

It's powerful committee that is used last time around to try and draw reasons to impeach President Biden didn't work out so well, but he'll have we'll continue that oversight role.

We'll see what he does with that next.

And then also into parts can the the the could be the chair of the the House Financial Services Committee.

So Kentucky continue to punch above its weight.

A lot of a lot of Congress, people in various positions of power.

>> Yeah.

Representative Brent got 3 of the second Congressional district, a powerful subcommittee that he may be in charge of.

And Thomas massive.

You could be in the Trump administration.

So we'll see a lot to KET our eyes on.

And in the Kentucky state Legislature.

Let's talk about the leadership roster there for the Republicans.

The Democrats have yet to decide that.

But the Republicans have had some changes in the Kentucky Senate and tell us about those.

>> And so one of biggest departures from the Kentucky Senate Floor Leader, Damon Thayer and in that position will be replaced by Max Wise who's been in positions of leadership, I believe, has lost on his Senate Senate majority with.

So that'll be a big change just in the day-to-day operations of the Senate.

There was a central figure there for many years, I guess is at least 10 that position.

And then another big departures, Senate Republican Caucus Chair, Julie Rocky Adams.

She still a senator, but she's not in that leadership position anymore.

She was the, you know, the soul of a woman in leadership in the state Senate there and she will be replaced by Senator Robby Mills, who is Daniel Cameron's running mate last year of Henderson.

So some changes their priorities looking for for the legislature.

It looks like they want to continue to lower the state income tax.

There's still some talk of some versions of tort reform related to a medical tort reform.

That's something that's had trouble getting past.

The state Supreme Court will see if a different version of the state Supreme Court might consider that differently or if they have any creative ideas of how to right that up next.

And then, of course, the yeah.

Bills related to dei programs and higher education that's been mentioned is something that will come up again this year, although it seems like a lot of Kentucky universities are being proactive about that and dismantling their dei offices and programs on their own ahead of ahead of legislation like that.

Yeah.

>> A lot to look forward to not that many weeks between now and January.

I think it's the 7th when the Kentucky General Assembly starts in Congress on January 3rd.

So we know that you'll be keeping your eye on both fronts.

Thank you, Rylan.

Always good to see you.

♪ ♪ >> be laters and schools save lives.

And here's a story that proves it in tonight's Medical News.

This video is from Jefferson County Public Schools last Tuesday, a student and Jefferson counties Kammerer middle School, 11 year-old Noah Mattingly became dizzy and passed out on the playground for school.

Staff members rushed in to help him.

>> Seeing his eyes rolled back in, not breathe in that certain points, not having the polls blue, everything that everyone describes the dead body.

I mean, we have that at one point, I did not feel a pulse either in his neck and that by that time I had my stethoscope and I could not hear a heartbeat.

So that's when we started CPR.

But there was a couple minutes there where I mean, I believe he was with us.

>> Gosh, someone rushed to get an automated external defibrillator or AED as you hear it called Al Jefferson County schools have them the for followed the AED instructions.

And after 7 minutes they heard a gasp of air.

>> So he was back breathing with the polls.

When EMS arrived, they took over.

And we were relieved.

It was.

>> Pretty scary.

I'm not even going to pretend like it wasn't.

But I think all of us we just we acted.

We didn't it wasn't even a thinking.

It was like I'm going to take over for you.

The communication that we had.

Our team did so great.

I couldn't be more proud of anybody right now, but I never want to have to do have again.

I will.

But I really would like to not have to do that ever again.

>> But he did ask me if he died when he says so they're heroes, the Knesset guess because the people that are also hoping that the story will also show the the other family members in the public and routers in county.

The JCPS does care for our children.

They care a lot on a personal level, not just the teacher or principal.

That's their kids.

When they're at school, he will do anything for him.

Even if that means doing CPR for 7 minutes in the middle of the playground, which is what happened you, they kept him alive for 7 minutes to the MSU arrived on scene as they will be forever special in my heart to me any day, the thing, but maybe.

>> Well, they are heroes indeed.

Noah's mother says if this hadn't happened at school with an AED nearby, he might not have survived turns out no, I had a defect that was sending extra electrical impulses to his heart.

And surgeons have now fixed that our best a little Noah.

After today's Kentucky continues to lead Tennessee and a big Blue Crush.

It's an annual blood drive to benefit blood centers in the 2 states.

And yesterday, Kentucky leads with 986 donations to Tennessee's a 24.

The competition runs through Friday and you can give at any Kentucky blood center give and get a free long sleeve T-shirt and become eligible to win 2 tickets to the Kentucky Louisville football game on November.

30th, Kentucky won last year and leads the series.

21 to 14 with one tie.

Go big Blue.

♪ Wenzel House is a new immersive mural in Covington that open to the public on October 19th.

It's in tobacco Alley next to Wenzel whiskey.

See this out of the ordinary mural and our weekly Arts and culture segment.

We call tapestry.

>> And the whole idea was it would you would walk into this house and would feel like you're in the house.

And that's why the mural on both sides of the alley and I wanted it to be.

You couldn't quite tell if things were if it was real or not.

The city of Covington offered a quality of place grand.

So I wrote for that and got it.

I have never done anything like this before.

So it's a lot of problem solving >> figuring things out and as you can see, we we figured it out.

So it was a huge learning experience.

The project has been in the works for about 2 years, but we've been painting for a year.

This came about when I graduated high school friend came to me and offered me position here.

>> And it was hard to envision because nothing like this has ever been done before.

But, you know, when you're fresh graduate, you like been painting?

Absolutely.

>> It was really great to work with a bunch of painters and be able to collaborate and get feedback every single day from everybody working together.

>> We work with a team of 14 artists total.

And, you know, we all paid 14 different ways.

So we had to navigate that.

Find our strength.

>> And we kind of bounce a lot of things off of each other.

And that really added to the consistency of the now.

>> And they're all so talented and they were fantastic to work with and was really need because when they were painting, we were inside and and I would walk in and I would they would know that I was there and I would hear them all.

>> The music playing and they would be talking in just 10 out and painting give each other all very happy and they were friends and and it was just this wonderful environment.

What I want is for people to come and play in the alley and have fun.

So you start with you.

Start with the sampler and that leads you to the scavenger hunt that lead you through the Aliso.

Then lots of things to see if you're not a puzzle person.

There are lots of things to see and tons of details since it is interactive.

You get to touch things you get to.

You're more.

Influenced and you're more likely to get up and cooked up close and personal and want to be able to solve the solve the puzzles on at the map.

Was the first idea.

That's where it started.

But it didn't take long for me to realize it was going to be really hard.

So if there were kids, if they were, you would probably have to look things up.

And I didn't want to use any technology.

There are it places on the map and then the addresses of which have to do is figure out what is at that address.

And then what in the mural course, Ponds or represents what's at that address.

So what I realized was people coming from out of town that that is going to be hard.

The artist came up with this idea of the silhouettes and hiding every and each artist got to pick an item.

And so each of these items have meaning.

>> To the artist, it's just about beautifying Covington.

This alleyway was just kind of drab before.

There wasn't really anything going on back here.

And this just really highlights this area and makes it and interactive art piece.

You know, it's something so much better than the sun alleyway.

Now.

>> Once the distillery opens, I think when people come up from distillery tours and people out of town will then come and they'll be in the alley.

And so it'll be kind of a tourist attraction.

Love those ally Project.

So just in case you're wondering, the artist did not directly paint on the surface of the historic buildings in the alley.

>> Instead, they painted on separate panels.

I was curious, too.

Students at a Louisville Elementary school say they need their space.

>> Friends exploring space.

I love space.

And the reason I do want to go to space isn't worried.

>> I can go in a black hole or something.

>> All will avoid the black hole and show you what these kids are learning from M****.

That's tomorrow night on Kentucky edition, which we hope you'll join us for again at 6.30, Eastern 5.30, central where we inform connect and inspire.

Connect with us all the ways you see on your screen there, Facebook, X and Instagram to stay in the loop and send us a story idea and public affairs at KET DOT Org.

I'm Renee Shaw.

Thanks for watching.

See you tomorrow night.

♪