The flu cases KET on coming as more Kentucky school decided they have to shut their doors.

>> Charles Booker had some help as he cast an early ballot in his race for the U.S. Senate.

>> This is exciting because it's a way of us paying bite what our veterans have done for us >> after years of delays, work begins on a 50 million Dollar project will offer long-term care for those who've served our country.

>> The impact the Breeders Cup had from its very inception was revolutionary.

>> What the Breeders Cup has met for Lexington and the rest of the state.

Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the KET Endowment for Kentucky Productions.

Leonard Press Endowment for Public Affairs and the KET Millennium Fund.

♪ ♪ >> Good evening and welcome to Kentucky EDITION on this Thursday, November 3rd, I'm Renee Shaw.

>> Thank you for spending some of your Thursday night with us.

Kentucky's flu problem continues to get worse.

As we told you yesterday, flu numbers and Powell and Wayne counties enforce those school systems to close down for the rest of the week.

The Powell County superintendent told us attendants was at just 74% before schools closed.

We have word today that Clark and Madison counties are also closed.

This map from the Kentucky School Boards Association shows 11 school districts that are now closed because of the flu flu cases in Kentucky tripled during a 2 week period in October.

Now, just 5 days to go as Kentuckians pick a U.S. senator, U.S. House members, members of the Kentucky General Assembly and more today was the first day of no excuse early voting in Kentucky.

It continues Friday and Saturday.

Each county has a location where people can vote among the people voting today.

Charles Booker, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate who voted in Louisville.

He voted with his family and encourage other supporters to vote early after voting this morning in Louisville, Booker headed to Central Kentucky with campaign stops in Madison, Washington and Woodford counties.

We spent time with Booker's opponent to U.S.

Senator Rand Paul as he campaigned in Georgetown on Tuesday today.

Senator at voters at a Republican picnic in Wayne County and held get out the vote.

Rallies in Berks full and Glasgow.

Former President Donald Trump is again blasting U.S.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky with some of his toughest criticism yet he even called for McConnell's impeachment, which isn't possible.

Trump was a guest on a radio talk show hosted by conservative John Fredericks.

Trump was critical of McConnell for reaching a deal with Democrats to increase the debt ceiling.

Trump said, quote, It's crazy what's happening with this debt ceiling.

Mitch McConnell keeps allowing this to happen.

They ought to impeach Mitch McConnell if he allows that they have something on him, how he approves.

This thing is incredible.

End quote.

A United States senator cannot be impeached.

A senator can be expelled from the Senate.

Trump also said if he runs for president again in 2024, and winds, he guarantees that McConnell will not remain as Republican Senate leader.

U.S. Representative Andy Barr continues to crisscross the 6 district before Election Day.

He's opposed by Democrat Jeff Young yesterday.

Bar was in Lexington at the Kentucky Fraternal Order of Police Building.

Speaking about the fentanyl crisis.

He was joined by Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, the Union representing Border Patrol agent.

Our Casey Parker Bell was at the event where the 2 spoke about the impact of fentanyl in Kentucky and securing the border.

>> Congressman Andy Barr says he wants to finish building a border wall and improve funding for Border Patrol agents to stop fentanyl for making its way into the country.

>> Today we're here to talk about and the epidemic that is sweeping to our country, creating holes for families that can never be filled and what we can do in Congress to fix this crisis and save lives.

>> The president of the National Border Patrol Council was in Lexington with bar.

He says Border Patrol agents can't KET up with border crossings because of a lack of resources.

Unfortunately, due to policy that we're currently seeing right now.

There's no way that we can get the crisis under control, whether that's the illegal immigration crisis or whether that's the drug crisis that's crossing our borders today, Congressman Barr suggested policy solutions to KET fentanyl from entering the country from across the border.

He touted the Border Patrol Protection Act and the hope that no act as possible solutions and he wants to reform the credible fear standard or the standard that is used to determine eligibility for people seeking asylum.

>> And we need rehabilitation programs.

We need addiction recovery programs.

And we've been an advocate for those programs in the Congress working with the University of Kentucky, our Addiction Recovery working group and and wonderful not-for-profits that work with people were struggling with addiction for Kentucky edition.

>> I'm Casey Parker Bell.

Over 70% of overdose deaths in Kentucky list.

Fentanyl as a contributing factor.

>> That's according to the last year's overdose Fatality report released by the state.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid.

That's about 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine last year, nearly 107,000 people died nationwide as a result of a drug overdose.

The DEA says 66% of those deaths involved synthetic opioids like fentanyl.

Alcohol was a factor and one out of every 5 deaths among Americans ages 20 to 49, according to a new study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study covered the years 2015 to 2019, but Kentucky did better than the national average.

While the number is 20% nationally.

It's between 15 and a half and 19.6% and Kentucky alcohol related deaths include vehicle accidents, alcohol poisoning and liver disease.

The number of alcohol related deaths have grown in the last decade.

And political news today, Governor Andy Beshear announced some good economic news about Kentucky's future news that he says means Kentucky can move forward with his education plan.

>> Yesterday, I believe I received the current forecast from our budget office that is predicting general fund revenue growth.

That is significant right now.

We're projecting this next fiscal year.

We will have a budget surplus 1 billion, 357 Million, $500,000, which would make it the largest budget surplus in our history, even larger than the last 2 years.

This is great news and it shows that despite what's going on in the rest of the country are concerns.

Our economy continues to hum in Kentucky.

And that's in terms are individuals out make it better wages than just about ever before.

More corporate profits, which contribute to it as well.

So we have more than enough.

We have significantly more then enough.

To put into place our education first plan.

But I talked about last week with those scores that have come out.

The concern about learning through the pandemic.

We that learning if we don't have qualified teachers in our classroom as we sit here today, we have over 11,000.

Shortages spots unfilled spots for educators.

11 1000.

>> The education plan announced by the governor last week calls for a 5% raise for teachers and school staff funding for Universal PRE K loan forgiveness programs and the restoration of pensions.

The Kentucky General Assembly would have to agree to those programs.

After the governor's education announcement last week, state Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer released a statement saying in part we do a biennial budget and have no plans to open up the budget in the middle of the cycle.

Funding decisions won't be made again until 2024, unquote.

A reporter asked Governor Beshear about Democratic losses in the Kentucky General Assembly since he's been in office.

Joe Sock of the Courier Journal ask Governor Beshear if he has later of the state Democratic Party felt some responsibility for the party's political setbacks.

>> As my job as governor is to be governor all the people of Kentucky and my commitment when I ran and how I've served is to spend the vast majority of my time being governor not moving a stay to the right or the left, but moving it forward.

What I've been doing in these last 5 or 6 months is creating jobs, trying to expand health care.

I'm trying to lay out a vision for education where we can give our the very best.

If if there are individuals in a critical about how it spent, my time has being governor.

Trying to do the right things.

I'm trying to move the state forward I've tried to be there to help various candidates that I believe in that are running on great But the quite candidly, my job is to do the very best I can as governor each and every day.

I don't think the when you run for these jobs, people are trying to elect a head of a party there trying to elect a governor or representative or Senator.

>> Governor Beshear also said there are national trends that have helped the Republican Party and hurt the Democrats in Kentucky.

Kentucky is getting more flood and tornado recovery money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development denounced 74 million dollars in March 3 months after the December tornadoes in western Kentucky.

Now HUD says it will give Kentucky almost 49 million more.

Conversations began some 30 years ago that Bowling Green needed a place for military veterans to receive long-term care.

Decades later, that work is underway.

The governor's office says it is a 50 million dollar investment that will create 120 jobs.

♪ >> Well, my father was a a 30 year.

I'm a veteran and he was in 2 wars and his leadership style was.

Mainly just to take care of his troops.

>> He worked >> this is a super exciting We know that the work of it being put together over so many years, the vision that it took from the local veterans who came up to Bowling Green needed a nursing home.

And so once you've got that just ahead, that was here.

Those conditions and lied to get the ball.

>> this will be our 5th Veterans nursing Each one is five-star rated, meaning it is the very highest quality.

We'll provide the same to our veterans right here in Bowling Green.

>> The cast of characters, one of our facilities.

But in this 2031 that will bring joy and look to this community and you want to have a staff.

That comes to work.

Every day.

>> We all appreciate our veterans and I have so many good friends in that community.

People that I've looked up to my whole life.

But then you put names like, right, bigger staff and Robert Speller.

With that project to serve their country bravely and then came home and spent their whole lives trying to serve the veteran community and their their comrades.

Was persistent.

Going to Frankfort, talking to the politicians.

>> I'm writing letters, do what they needed to do to get this done.

>> It will be a great asset to our community.

It will be some new jobs in town and help all of U.S. veterans out.

It will be a place where we do enjoy his company, we believe is a veteran is like we're not in the home.

At least we can go visit some of our friends.

It may be in it.

We're fulfilling our obligation to our veterans.

>> They have fought for us they have sacrificed for us.

And the least we can do is take care of them with the best state of the art health care and facilities, especially in later years.

And Warren County alone.

We've got over 7,000 veterans here.

>> So there's a lot of veterans in this community and lot of us are getting up in age.

As you know, many of our our agent and we'll need our assistance and help weather and this facility or others.

>> It's going to be really, really important to the veterans, not just in Warren County, but all over South Central Kentucky.

This facility is going to serve about 17 or more counties in the It was a group effort community.

You know, the governor here was a stay there for federal money to build this.

It's been.

>> County, it's been city.

It's been state.

It's been federal.

The federal delegation.

Everybody has marched to the beat of the same ground on this and work together, taking care of our Something.

>> We should all not only agree on that be able to work together on.

>> This is exciting because it's a way of us paying by what our veterans have done for us over their lifetimes.

>> Today's a day like know whether I serve with 100st airborne division.

First at the division, very proud.

It's a very elite group.

The long term.

>> The Bowling Green Veteran Center is being built on 25 acres in the Kentucky transfer arc.

It will include 60 beds in each veteran will have a private suite.

Their original plan was for 90 beds and there are hopes the center can expand in the future.

You'll say flags at half-staff tomorrow at all.

State buildings.

That's in honor of Officer Logan Matlock of the London Police Department.

Police accused a Tennessee man of driving under the influence and hitting officer Medlock screws are early Sunday killing him.

Flags will be at half-staff from sunrise to sunset tomorrow.

Officer Medlock funeral is at noon tomorrow at current Baptist Church in London.

It's probation and a fine but no major sanctions for the University of Louisville basketball program after an investigation into accusations of recruiting violations.

An independent panel gave the program 2 years probation and fined $5,000.

The Cardinals will face recruiting restrictions, but there is not a ban on postseason play.

So if the cards qualify for the NCA tournament, they can play in it.

And a panel did not punish.

Former coach Rick Pitino.

He was cited by the NCAA for failing to promote an atmosphere of compliance.

The most serious allegation involved a shoe company Adia Adidas.

Adidas was accused of offering money to the father of a Louisville recruit Brian Bowen with the knowledge of assistant coach Jordan Fair.

Kentucky's new drought map is out and there's not much change from last week as you can see, the worst drought is in western Kentucky.

The red means extreme drought.

The darker oranges, severe drought in the lighter orange is moderate drought.

Yellow stands for abnormally dry.

The dry weather has prompted 24 counties to issue burn bans, meaning no outdoor burning the forest fire season ends December.

The 15th.

A poll of 3,000 tourists shows the popularity of several Kentucky tourist sites.

Aqua Expeditions conducted a survey about what us landmarks, people most wanted to see.

Cumberland Falls was 13th on the list.

Red River Gorge was 28 Mammoth cave was 35th Natural Bridge 94th and Grayson like State Park was 240st on the list.

So Kentucky had 5 locations in the survey and that's the 9th best showing among the 50 states.

That's according to the Courier Journal.

NASA says it will try to launch the Artemis won on November 14th.

As you know, technical problems and weather forced NASA to scrub planned launches in the past.

This is a moon mission with Kentucky ties.

The payload includes a satellite worked on and Morehead State University.

It will look for water on the moon water that would be used by a future space station.

One of horse racing's premier events kicks off tomorrow.

It clean.

Can Lynn, the Breeders Cup is expected to bring in tens of thousands of people from around the world and that means an economic boost for Lexington and the state.

>> The impact the Breeders Cup had from its very inception was revolutionary.

And when Breeders Cup came along, there was no year in world championships.

There was just the spring derbies.

And then summer, Racine and at the end of the year, there was no culminating event.

That said this is the champion for this race division.

>> So when we came to the London 2015.

>> The doubters were so many right.

They thought this track is too small.

You only go to big venues.

You.

How are we going?

>> Deliver on such a quality event.

So, you know, we really knocked it out of the park was set the by bar really high and 2015 with American Pharoah having a storybook ending, you know, with capturing the grand slam, the Triple Crown and then the Breeders Cup classic.

We KET we really have to top it.

And then of course, Twenty-twenty hit.

And we were in all kind you know, setback.

We realize we were going to be able to have the event we planned on.

So we KET we had to give can land and Lexington a do-over, which we did.

And we decided to come back as soon as we can.

Keelan is so important to the Lexington Business community.

Breeders Cup is very important.

And at the partnership Keelan the racetrack and Breeders Cup, the organization with the community, it's a really an incredible thing to see, especially, you know, the surrounding festival of the downtown events that they they get.

Calendar, didn't put on the schedule because the community really wants to be involved in the entire championship.

They have been itself probably has about a 60 to 80 million dollar impact on the surrounding community hotels, tech version, everything that goes into I'm bringing up almost 3,000 participants.

Plus, racing fans here from all over the world.

We're truly international event.

Some of the economic impact studies that we've done in the past have shown nearly 70% of the attendees come from outside of the host state.

So and a great many of those are international.

So it's it's a huge opportunity to showcase Lexington to the world.

I really enjoy seeing the same owners and come back every year and compete.

It's really some of these people I've known for 40 years.

You know, I since I started in the business so seeing them attain that same level of quality every year is is really special.

But I really love seeing the new owners and trainers who are experiencing breeders cup for the very first time.

Their joy at just being part of this.

And, you know, historical and amazing.

And that is really special.

We try to really put on a good show.

The Breeders Cup is a non invitational of them.

So every owner, you know, needs to qualify to be here and it it is quite expensive to travel, especially from international locations.

So we really want to make sure that they're treated to a first-class experience and that they they leave here.

You know, we were often say there's 14 winners.

There's some a lot of other people that need to have had the best experience, you know, so that they don't feel like, you know, they they came here in vain that they tried their best.

The horses gave it all there on the racetrack and they were treated to a an amazing 2 days of racing in the heart of Central Kentucky.

>> The first breeders Cup races tomorrow morning at 11.

55, the final race.

The Breeders Cup classic takes place Saturday at 05:40PM.

♪ >> Chances are you'll be watching some sort of rivalry game this weekend, whether it's on the football field, basketball court or even the boxing ring.

Kentucky is full of classic rivalries that go well beyond sports.

Kentucky Edition contributor Kelsey Starks tells us about a new exhibit at the Frazier History Museum.

That is all about these classic Kentucky rivalries.

>> Well, you know, the rivalries and Kentucky go far beyond UK versus you of Allen.

Here to talk more about that is president and CEO of the Frazier History Museum and Eat right.

And thanks for being here.

>> Great to see you, Kelsey, although that UK U of Oliver is a pretty big one.

That's a big one.

But it didn't start there.

And this is what your new the rivalries exhibit is all about dating all the way back to the hat field and McCoys.

Yeah.

And that really gets to this rivalry spirit that Kentuckians have.

We wanted to.

>> You know, discover where that came And so there are a number of industry things and family things in the exhibit.

And we we trace it back in the open panel to have fields and the McCoys, which, by the way, did you know inspired the show?

Family feud did not.

And did you know the Hatfields and McCoys were eventually on the family feud?

I would have loved to have seen that is so you're going to be a little taste of it in the exhibit when you first come in, there's an introduction panel that talks about the you know, where this rivalry spirit comes from the state of Kentucky.

And then behind that first wall is the family fued set and you can set yourself in there and learned that story you know, how that show is inspired by it and what happened when they ultimately went on the show?

>> That's Haha.

This idea with this come from?

>> Well, I'm a huge sports fan, as you know that.

you know, it what we have here in this commonwealth is with with U of L and UK.

And it's not just that it's Levy's high school rivalries all around the state that people are so passionate about.

So we want to tell stories that means something to people as the place where the world needs Kentucky.

This is a great Kentucky story.

And those are the only stories we tell about this common.

Well, we wanted people to see themselves inside the exhibit.

And let me tell you the high schools that are contributing to it are so excited and a little competitive about it as Hey, what's going on over there now?

You know, yeah, you're getting those questions, Emanuel and say next, Trinity >> all of those folks are helping us to cure rate the stories around great rivalries.

That's amazing.

And what do you hope people aren't going to take away from seeing?

>> Yes, well, first of all, it's going to be fun.

sometimes we do exhibits that, you know, are real thought provoking engaging in.

And, you know, we want all of our exhibits to make you feel something.

But this exhibit >> is going to make you have a good time.

You're going to have a ton of I didn't know that, you know that about this part, right?

And then the last for the last portion of the exhibit, the last gallery is just like having fun.

So it's Papa shot and you put yourself in pictures.

Lamb ducking the basketball.

You slide it from us and shoes and see how big they are.

You know, cornhole all kinds of different things, you know, based on rivalry so people can get a little competitive with whoever they're visiting the rivalry with.

>> And it's this is the is this a unique Kentucky thing.

I feel like it might mean.

I don't think there's any question.

I mean, if you look up the greatest rivalries and I've done all this work, you know, since we started doing this, first of all, many places list, Ali Frazier as the number one rivalry at all time.

Yeah.

And you know, kind of us.

Funny coincidence.

But we're very near the Muhammad Ali, right where the Fraser is a Haha, but it's good to main is is kind of part of that rivalry story.

>> But, you know, U of L in Kentucky is certainly up there.

We have radio stations that were founded on this ferry Congress that and we have, you know, we have families that are divided it's it's fun.

But it's also very personal for a lot of a lot of folks.

You know, first, we had to brother versus brother and the Civil war.

And now sometimes we have brother versus brother in the UK U of L Battle.

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

thank you so much.

Always love having you here.

We're looking forward to seeing the rivalries exhibit coming up at the Frazier History Museum.

It opens on November 5th.

>> Thank you, Kelsey.

That's a must see.

The Frazier History Museum is offering half-price admission for Opening Day this Saturday for anyone sporting their team here.

♪ We have a busy Friday on tap on Kentucky edition where there has pressed number gets a new autism center.

And of course, it's day one of the Breeders Cup will also review the week in politics with our pundits and take a look at what's happening around the commonwealth.

So you don't want to miss it.

We continue to update you on Fritz, the baby hippo at the Cincinnati Zoo.

Fritz was born in early August.

The zoo says Fritz is now teaming and ease the pain he likes to bide water ever is handy.

Fritz now weighs about 255 pounds.

Hippos can gain about 2 to 3 pounds a day.

We love us some for its good way to end the show.

We hope to see you again tomorrow night at 6.30, Eastern 5.30, central for Kentucky Edition, we inform connect and inspire.

I'll see you tomorrow night.

Same time.

Take really good care.

So long.

♪ ♪