♪ ♪ >> we're really turned off by politics.

So that's why it's important to really connect with people on their values.

>> Half the League of Women Voters of Kentucky is working to get more Kentuckians to the polls.

>> You know, I'll give you the law that Sunday, maybe more than most.

>> The governor tries to debunk the myths about FEMA's disaster response.

♪ >> I will.

>> And from operate to offer a Kentucky is known for every type of music out there.

And you can hear it all in one place.

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

♪ ♪ >> Good Evening and welcome to Kentucky EDITION on this Thursday.

It's October, the 17th, I'm Renee Shaw.

We appreciate you spending some of your Thursday night with us.

The League of Women Voters of Kentucky wants to get you to the polls.

>> Now that voter registration is over, the nonpartisan a policy group is using a new grant to encourage key demographic groups to get to the polls.

This week the league was at Transylvania University in Lexington to mobilize young voters and to speak out on one of the elections.

Hot button issues.

More on that as we begin tonight's election.

2024 update.

>> We recently received a $10,000 grant that we've been utilizing mobilized voters across the state voter registration deadline has passed.

So our efforts have switched to voter mobilization.

We're doing door knocking because the most effective way to reach people is to have 3 touches and talking to them in person is a great opportunity.

So canvassing neighborhoods with voters who did not turn out to the polls is really what we're focusing on and using that money that way young people, that is our huge demographic.

And that's why we're here at Trans E. But we're also trying to reach people of color and reach into those communities because historically there have been so many barriers preventing them from making their voice heard.

And we've also been putting resources into amendment to our official stance is to vote.

No, because this would absolutely devastate our public schools.

We are non-partisan so we don't endorse certain parties or candidates.

But we do take stances on issues like education because not all issues are partisan.

They're simply policy issues that effect Kentuckians across partisan lines.

We are in poor rising times.

We've then it in this time for quite a while.

And people are really turned off by politics.

So that's why it's important to really connect with people on their values and these key issues and breaking down those partisan barriers.

>> On October, 26, the league is having a statewide day of action to encourage voter participation and distribute election information.

A coalition of health organize and or health organizations, rather asserts that a proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot in Kentucky involving education funding.

It's also a health issue.

Amendment 2, if approved in less than 3 weeks, could create a path for public funding for private education.

Some health groups have coalesced against the amendment saying it could harm students, health.

>> Why is this a health issue?

You might ask?

Well, because education is one of the most significant predictors of health outcomes.

People with more education live longer, healthier lives.

They are more likely to access quality healthcare, secure, well, paying jobs and it affords them the opportunity to live in healthier environments.

This is why it's critical that every child is able to receive a quality education and a properly funded public school system is the only way to guarantee this access for all kids and not just to see.

>> Since private schools are not required to follow state and federal anti-discrimination regulations that protect students with disabilities.

The schools can cherry pick students that they choose to enroll in states with vouchers.

Parents report that their children with disabilities were often denied admission to private schools or were not retained in class for the entire school year.

So they were constructed initially and then dropped to either because of their behavior or lack of progress.

Parents also reported that some private schools charge them for therapy services that were in the child's IEP, something they had never encountered in public schools.

Research shows that school meals improve student health, including obesity rates and behavioral mental health outcomes.

>> School meals also improve academic performance, including through reduced hardiness, fewer disciplinary office referrals and improve math and reading test scores.

Siphoning money away from public schools to provide tax funded voucher programs for private education.

Not only creates a 2 tiered education system, but it also widens the hunger gap that we faced as a commonwealth for all too long.

Let's KET kids healthy and fed by saying No to amendment to this November.

>> What would it mean for the schools in your district having already spent decades doing more with less to have their budgets cut even further.

It would mean cuts to health services, such a school nurses, health screenings, counseling and mental health services.

It would mean the elimination of wellness and nutrition programs.

It would mean increase class size and limited resources for special needs, making it challenging for teachers and staff to deliver individualized attention.

These cuts would go beyond impacting student's ability to succeed academically and socially.

They could create negative consequences for their physical and emotional health into their adult lives.

>> We need to be clear the impact of this amendment would not be felt equally.

>> The last of funds could force public schools to cut or scaled back health screenings.

>> Transportation and other services and programming that are especially important for our vulnerable populations.

Kentucky's public schools are the backbone of our communities and they provide critical access to education for all children.

>> Amendment 2 was one of the many topics we discussed Monday night on Kentucky tonight, our panel of young Republicans and young Democrats talked about what passage of the amendment would do for Kentucky.

>> It allows the conversation to move forward.

The legislators will be able to come together and meet with the policy experts and decide what works best for Kentucky.

But why would go ahead and put forward?

Is that what we're doing currently is not what serving children.

>> Do you think that rule voters buy into your argument when they may not have the population to support having a parallel system of schools still.

So I'll say this.

The idea while West Virginia.

Recently passed it on school choice program and it hasn't fallen apart in rural West Virginia.

As far as that education system falling apart.

That hasn't happened.

I'll say I think a lot of a rural Kentuckians, especially world Kentuckians who are planning on supporting President Donald Trump want to get behind school choice.

President Donald Trump has been a fierce advocate for school choice.

And I think that they're going to hear about that.

I say this to you know, I think that a lot of individuals, Spence, I'm thinking of several names on the west end of Louisville.

They're begging to have charter schools.

They're begging to have some sort of school choice because they're realizing we need something to be able to move forward.

You're from Louisville.

Tell us about that.

Yeah, so I I'm living will now Iran and a Democratic primary and every voter I talked to.

>> Almost to a person was we need to defeat this amendment 2.

And there's a lot of people in the district that Iran and that send their kids to private schools that don't support an amendment to because they understand that their decision to send their kid to private schools, a choice that public dollars the belong in public schools.

>> I agree with Sebastien.

The status quo is not sustainable, but the current status quo that we have is a Republican supermajority passing bill after Bill session after session, depriving our public schools and the resources that they need and refusing to give teachers raises.

So we can be competitive and have the best and brightest in our classrooms and refuse refusing to fund transportation in Louisville, for example, that was a debacle.

The beginning or school year.

That's the status quo that's not sustainable.

Taking even more money out of that system and giving it to private schools as night.

It's going to have a very small group of people who are not the words, not where we need to be spent targeting are spending right now.

>> We also talked about amendment one the other night, the amendment that would ban non-citizens from voting in the state.

Something that isn't happening and our panel discuss the presidential race and Kentucky legislative races.

You can see all of that online on demand at KET DOT Org.

Slash K why tonight?

You have probably seen this commercial on your screen with U.S..

Senator Rand Paul of Kentuckyian his wife Kelly supporting amendment 2.

The Kentucky Lantern reports one man is responsible for this ad, Jeff.

Yes, Pennsylvania billionaire and longtime Republican donor.

Yet as from a political action committee called Protect Freedom.

A report from the Federal Election Commission shows that the PAC received 5 million dollars in donations from July through September.

And that more than 99% of the money came from Jeff Yass.

Senator Paul says he prefers former President Donald Trump to Vice President Kamala Harris and next month's presidential election.

But he says he disagrees with Trump on some things, including Trump's plan to impose new tariffs on all imported goods.

Here's Senator Paul on that Tuesday in Bowling Green.

>> As we get closer to the election as it comes up.

Without question, I want to I want to go to the Harris there's some things I don't like and that means we all agree on.

I think in a national for Houston was a international trade.

Makes us rich.

As we came here, national players, every country that were involved in international trade be a phenomenally rich.

That's who we are as I want tariffs only temperature and the amount they and protectionism to be a good thing for us.

It will simply be disagree with and without question.

But I believe that we need to without question.

I think what we have to do is we take them out, though, for now we have to elect Republicans.

We have to preserve what made this a great thing.

>> Senator Paul, who lives in Bowling Green spoke during the Warren County Republican Party's Lincoln dinner on Tuesday night.

School safety measures in Kentucky.

Do they work?

And how much do they cost John Acres of the Kentucky Center for School Safety broke it all down for state lawmakers in Frankfort yesterday.

And that conversation included talk about school resource officers or sro's as they're often called.

Those are law enforcement officers assigned to work out of schools.

>> And of all >> contacts that kids have with the SRO is where there's been a behave or less than 2.6% of all those come that all those contacts and up in charges being filed against a kid.

So you're looking at 91 7% Have not gone to juvenile court where the principal and the SRO work together with the family to KET the kids out of juvenile court and see if we can set them on the right path to correct their behavior.

I think sometimes there's a misnomer out there that these guys are just, you know, want to get the paddy wagon back up to the school and put as many kids.

And there's that can be.

That's not the way it operates.

These guys are good.

And ladies, I mean to mention, too, are fantastic role models and the training that came to these folks because of Senate bill, one of 2019 that revamp the entire.

SRO training up 220 hours.

And I will say this and Chris will agree with me.

We had some grumblings from the sorrows back in that time.

So, you know, we've already been trained.

We do need to be trained again.

But when the older officers went through the new training, they said we wish we had this training earlier on because we divided that basically into camps again.

And so much of that deals with mental health issues that these kids are dealing with.

>> Baker says the Center for School Safety has had training with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security on how to respond to swatting and other threats.

In other news, Governor Andy Beshear today denounced misinformation spreading about FEMA's disaster response.

He says it's not affecting people in Kentucky, but it is affecting our neighbors to the South.

>> Misinformation, disinformation and had we see some people straight outline about what the man is or is not doing her.

Some people, North Carolina and Georgia and Tennessee and those are Americans deserve to have the right information to get back on their feet have been through this.

I haven't talk to so many people were trying to figure out how they were going to put their lives back together after one night after an hour, wipe down everything and then work forward deserve to have the right information for someone not to politicize it.

Already trying to take advantage of that.

You know, I'll give you the lot of the burns me maybe more than most because there's a number that are out there.

The idea that all FEMA is providing people $750 totally untrue.

That is the immediate needs money.

That's to help you get groceries.

This to help you get diapers as they help you to get through the coming days and the next week.

If people believe that that's all that's available.

If they believe those messengers that are providing the misinformation and disinformation in the Florida laws and they might not apply for what's now more than $40,000 that can help them.

They might not apply for the buyout if they're not going to rebuild where they are.

I mean, that could be the difference between somebody getting back on their feet and never being able to do it.

And we got to see the best of humanity after our natural disasters.

We didn't have to deal with the shenanigans and I hope those that are engaging in that type of misinformation will not get off these of the lives of our American citizens deserve the right information to ultimately access all the services that will help them.

>> During his weekly press conference today, the governor also announced steps to help people who've committed crimes and pay their debt to society.

The governor signed an executive order creating the governor's Council of Second Chance Employers.

The council will have 15 businesses and community leaders as members in need 4 times a year to educate employers about the benefit of giving jobs to people after they've served their time.

The governor says this will help them provide for their families and help them stay on the right side of the law.

The Mountain Parkway expansion could move ahead faster than expected states as a new federal grant of 160 million dollars will help.

The state finished the last 13 miles of work from the Dauphin County into Floyd County.

When the work is Don.

32 miles of the parkway will be 4 lanes wide and also be 13 miles longer.

And the state says that will mean a faster safer ride and more economic development.

♪ ♪ The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments this year on the constitutionality of a Tennessee law banning certain medical treatments for transgender minors.

Nearly half of U.S. states have enacted bans on transgender care for minors, including Kentucky.

This week, the Family Foundation of Kentucky along with other family policy organizations filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to rule in favor of the Tennessee law.

>> We believe that the Supreme Court has a duty to uphold this law and that health care providers should not be able to perpetrate these.

The surgeries and 10 give these sorts of life altering that vacations to children.

Supporters of this treatment called gender affirming care.

I would say it is gender destroying care.

Gender is something that is encoded in us.

Biologically, we have it is a very nature of our being and any type of medical procedures are which?

Reports to be able to change.

What is a immutable biological reality is not affirming.

It is destroying a person's gender we understand that there are kids who are affected by this and we have a heart for those children.

But we also understand that many of these children grow out of body dysmorphia as the day progressed through adolescence and so we want to protect them so that they don't take this life altering the course of treatment before they have the opportunity to actually mature out of this phase that they're in.

If the Supreme Court decides against our side against objective reality, which yeah, and I don't think that they will.

But supposing that they do the Family Foundation is committed to continue protecting children from these medical procedures.

Whether that be through additional means of legislation.

Park.

Anything really that is available to us.

This is a fight that we're not going to stop fighting.

We're not going to back down.

>> No date has been set for the hearing, but the Family Foundation tells us they expect the case to go before the high court in December.

Addiction.

Recovery care, known as ARC has closed for more residential centers.

According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, that's a total of 9 closed in the last 2 months as the FBI continues its investigation into possible Medicaid fraud arc has not been charged and is cooperating with the investigation before the closings are cad.

40 centers in Kentucky.

Its spokesperson says the closings are because of cuts in reimbursements for addiction and mental health services arc is Kentucky's biggest addiction recovery provider.

♪ ♪ >> Louisville's Frazier History Museum now has an exhibit called 120 cool Kentucky counties.

It's we're saying, but it's also worth hearing because that exhibit showcases great music from every single Kentucky County.

Our friends with Katie's Kentucky life spends the tenants.

♪ ♪ >> You can't pigeonhole Kentucky in terms of its artistic identity.

We associate Kentucky with bluegrass music, folk music, country music, all of which is phenomenal.

But Kentucky has produced so much more than that.

And it's a shame that we don't talk about enough.

♪ I've worked in marketing at the museum since 2017 in 2021, I started giving tours of our cool Kentucky exhibition and I made it a mission in mind to learn more about the pop culture of the state.

Start watching more Kentucky movies reading more Kentucky history books.

One big blank spot in my Kentucky knowledge was music.

So I took the drastic step back in 2021.

Of deleting everything on my Spotify starting from scratch and building up a play list.

Only Kentucky music.

As I started building this list that realize, wow, I'm growing geographically, I'm learning a lot of music genres that I enjoy that I had and enjoyed before.

But also the geographic diversity of Kentucky as realizing there are 120 counties in this state.

I had about 60 of them represented just organically stuff, music that I found that I did enjoy it.

And I thought I wonder if I could find music from all the counties in Kentucky.

>> At the same time the museum was actually working on a new exhibit called one 20 what we're collecting stories and interesting history and myths and legends from the state of Kentucky.

And we thought, well, I'm working on this big play list when we just bake that into the exhibit.

So I eventually concluded my playlist already reached one song from every county in Kentucky.

We got Apple at Tyndall Summer music Emo Opera, Motown, a new way.

Latin pop music, prison rock feminists, hillbilly string music Micro, Sean, or is that you hadn't even heard of before that are represented by really creative innovative artists coming out of state of Kentucky.

His music is informed by their location in Kentucky.

I mean, this playlist has, of course, the big heavy hitters of protecting music history.

Merle Travis, Bill Monroe, Jean Ritchie, Loretta Lynne, the judges, Patty Loveless, n**** roots, Tyler Childers, what you KET looking, there are 120 counties to represent.

I just named about 8 or 9 artists.

We've got Andre done 10 more people just to showcase and the harder you look, the more you will find some really incredible counted.

People coming out of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

>> I mean, you know, if you're up in Kentucky for leaking this country.

A matter for music is in hot.

I was born and raised in Ballard County, Kentucky, which is like the real western Kentucky, right where we're way over there.

>> I just grew up in the mail.

High river bottoms.

Only essentially.

So grab hunt and fish and then all that stuff.

>> And honestly, just exploring.

I see Kentucky Chauvin on music.

With pretty much everything that I do.

You know, feel like Kentucky's a whole can be really complex I'm from a rural area.

I think there's a lot of beating and that, you know, there's a lot of pain.

There's a lot of everything.

It's really.

>> Complex.

I just have always tried to portray that.

And then.

Something to be proud of.

I think.

>> I was born and I love you leave because different not everyone does that.

Italy's when you flip your voice, I talked of higher and then you do it really fast and stuff.

I was coming back from vacation.

We heard Leann Rimes and have like a voice look, kind of a little thing I thought was really cool the next day and went downstairs and practice.

It's like kind of get it.

And then my mom introduced me to cowboy sweetheart, the song and then I thought was really cool because Toyota went and started.

You know what I thought on that I've.

♪ ♪ >> It's a very, very, very Kentucky bam.

We go around the world and say Kentuckyian a model ourselves after spring thing way says Jersey or read the sentence.

We started the saying in 1985.

Weve got kicked out of college, basically not left the we got together and Scott's the living room with the drummer named Kelly Myrick who just got off work most pizza came over.

It varies of 6 days on the road.

Well, hard and fast.

And I just clicked it wasn't magic off the map.

A terminology Cal Point lead in a van and we perfected it.

But Cal pockets like the melding of of country bluegrass with hard rock punk rock towns.

We sing about stuff that happens around Owensboro and that we grew up with and kind of set your walk in kind of making fun of staff, but still with a certain reverence to a certain reverence.

Yeah, for sure is like the perfect for us again.

Now we're not going to think about talk about some.

We don't know about.

♪ >> In the place where I grew up in Nelson County is it is all throughout my music.

We lived outside of the city in the middle of the forest.

And so my childhood was being in the forest alive and still to this day, the influence of Forest song and just the silence that also you here in the forest and that definitely influenced how I approach a sound making music making.

And, you know, I think the music that I make.

Is folk music in a way.

I think it's just a question of technology.

sampling of almost 100 year old song that was originally a old RMB or blues.

Are is it still a blues and folk song when it comes out with all of these new beats and synthesizer is on the right.

It's still kind of has that same lessons.

So, yeah, absolutely.

I see myself as kind of continuing a long tradition of southern and rhythm sciences.

♪ >> It's a nice play list for sure.

You can see more great stories like that.

One on Kentucky life Saturday nights at 8 Eastern 7 central right here on KET.

Well, tomorrow on Kentucky Edition, you made a transplant patient who talks about the doctors who gave him a new lease on life.

>> Thank you for millions power special.

>> It's all possible because of U of L health trigger transplant Center, which is celebrating 60 years.

More on the incredible work they do tomorrow night on Kentucky EDITION, which we know you'll join us for at 6.30, Eastern 5.30, central where we inform connect and inspire.

And we'll also have inside Kentucky politics and you can go inside on Facebook, X and Twitter and Instagram and you can connect with us there and get on the inside track of what's happening here at KU T even sent us a story idea of public affairs at T E T DOT Org.

And look for us on the PBS at that.

You can download on your smart device or tablet and watch all of our programs at YouTube Dot Org or you can stream those on demand.

>> Thanks again for watching.

We'll be right back here with on Friday to start off the weekend until I see you tomorrow.

Take really good care.

So long.

♪ ♪