the state of the race?

By the numbers, we'll look at new fundraising totals in the Kentucky U.S.

Senate race.

>> It just so happens that whenever you eat local, healthy, fresh food, you also get healthy at the same time.

>> A progress report on efforts to make Kentucky healthier.

>> Trade wars are not good for the economy on both sides.

>> And what are tariffs costing Kentucky.

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

>> Good evening and welcome to Kentucky Edition for this Thursday, October the 16th, I'm Renee Shaw, and we thank you for joining us this evening.

US Senator Mitch McConnell is quote all good.

That's according to his spokesperson after the senator was seen falling in Washington, DC today, video of the fall was shared on social media.

The 83 year old appears to trip while being questioned about arrests made by Ice.

He's seen being helped up and is able to continue walking on his own, McConnell's office says he went on to cast votes in the Senate.

McConnell stepped down as the Republican Senate leader earlier this year and announced he's not seeking reelection.

He said health was not a factor.

He's fallen several times in recent years, leading to injuries, including a concussion and a broken rib.

McConnell suffered from polio as a child and has long acknowledged some difficulty as an adult.

As a result, who's winning the fundraising battle in the 2026 race to replace Senator McConnell?

Let's look at the newest numbers.

Candidates have to disclose their fundraising numbers throughout the campaign.

The latest numbers on the Republican side show Congressman Andy Barr raised $1.3 million from July through September.

He has the most money right now.

Former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron raised $411,000 during that same time.

Nate Morris, a Lexington businessman, gave himself about $3 million in seven different installments during the three month period.

So far, Bill Barr has the most cash on hand overall.

It's a trifecta of agriculture, health care and public policy, plus efforts to ensure every Kentuckian has access to nutritious food and how to prepare it.

That conversation was held Wednesday with the Make America Healthy Again Kentucky Task Force in Frankfort.

Our Laura Rogers explains in tonight's legislative update.

>> Eat your medicine or you'll take medicine.

And I think that goes really to the heart of what we're talking about.

>> Kentucky Hospital Association and the Kentucky Department of Agriculture have partnered for the Food as Medicine campaign.

>> For me, Senator, it is selfish and what we're doing because we want to increase rural prosperity and profitability on the farm.

And in nearly every community in which there is a hospital there, the largest food consumers in that community.

>> They're also often the largest employer.

>> Health care typically has a very unhealthy workforce.

>> And so that's where this initiative started getting healthy local produce and proteins from Kentucky farms and hospital cafeterias.

>> It's a win win for our employees.

It's a win win for improving the health, and it's a win win for our local ag.

>> Community hospitals are also hosting farmers markets and their parking lot.

>> We're finding that now patients are scheduling their procedures, their intake, their checkups on the days that the farmers markets are there so that they can not only get their health care taken care of, but also participate in the farmer's market to get their food brought back to the house.

>> The task force had questions about how to measure the program's success, like hospital workers taking fewer sick days or faster recovery times for patients.

>> Will we be able to see numbers like that that are saving costs for y'all, that we'll be able to to see and analyze.

>> One of the powerful statistics that Jim mentioned are our readmission rates.

>> Appalachian Regional Healthcare says those readmission rates are way down.

They also see it as an investment in their workforce.

>> If we have healthy employees, they're going to be productive employees who are happy to come to work every day, and they have the whereabouts to work a 12 hour shift and care for very, very sick patients all day long.

>> Commissioner shell says they do need a more robust system to track total outcomes.

And then there's the funding issue from both private insurance and state and federal programs.

>> If we're subsidizing trillion dollar pharmaceutical companies through reimbursable Medicaid and Medicare opportunities, why are we not doing the same thing on proven metrics that we know will get outcomes for healthy food and healthy living on the front end?

>> Some of those efforts are also offered through the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service, who discussed the impact of nutrition education.

>> For those individuals who attended seven or more sessions.

We saw 98% of those participants showed improvement in one or more diet quality indicators.

That's huge.

>> They also offer programs for children and say they're getting results.

>> And then when we looked at the older kids, third to fifth grade, we really saw some impressive gains, especially with almost two thirds of them reducing the amount of sports drinks that they were drinking, 72% drinking fewer sodas.

>> They were asked about a recent loss of federal funding and congressional budget cuts.

>> With that, the big, beautiful bill that was signed into law on July 4th, it eliminated funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Education Program, which we call Snap-ed.

>> As a result, 85 positions were eliminated as of September 30th.

>> We need to change the concept that the government isn't going to make you healthy.

You're going to make yourself healthy.

So you continue to share great resources of how people can invest in themselves.

You've got wonderful programing and we're very appreciative.

>> For Kentucky Edition.

I'm Laura Rogers.

>> Thank you.

Laura, on the Frankfort front again, should the Kentucky General Assembly consider a bill that would seal dismissed eviction records, some state lawmakers say it could help Kentuckians find a safe and affordable place to live amid the state's lack of affordable housing.

Our Emily Sisk has that and more from today's Judiciary Committee meeting in Frankfort.

>> A Republican lawmaker wants to reintroduce legislation to seal dismissed eviction cases, which she says can hinder Kentuckians from getting housing if the case is on their record.

>> This bill is important as it increases the ability for Kentuckians to have access to safe, affordable housing.

While explicitly maintains the property rights of the landlord.

>> Representative Whitten said the bill would only seal eviction filings that are dismissed and it wouldn't impact landlords ability to get back any money they are owed.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle voiced support for the bill.

>> I represent a lot of, you know, parents that find themselves single and a lot of times their one child support payment, one spousal support payment away from missing their rent, and then it's just a snowball effect.

And I think this will help some of those single parents.

So they're not living in a hotel, paying a weekly amount when they could be getting a rental and putting their family in a home.

>> It is only applicable to dismissed cases.

It is only applicable for when there's no other right, no other issue at hand.

It does not curtail landlords options.

It's a very real, tangible barrier for people who are trying to find housing at a time when we're trying to fix that issue.

And this is just, to my mind, very low hanging fruit.

>> The Interim Joint Judiciary Committee also heard a proposal for a new mental health treatment facility, which would serve youth under the age of 18 who suffer from mental illnesses that make them extremely violent.

The Department of Juvenile Justice commissioner said the facility would have 24 beds.

That number raised questions from some legislators.

>> 24 beds doesn't even sound like it scratches the surface.

I don't know why.

If you were going to build something, why you wouldn't build it so they could come.

But so I guess I'm my question is, you landed on 24 beds, how would we even staff it?

Because all I hear every time we come in here is that the turnover rate, people won't do it.

People at the hospital walk out when they see it.

So even if we built a state of the art facility, how are you going to get people to work in it when they're getting beat up and their hair pulled and beaten with bricks every day?

>> We don't need a solution for them until they become 18.

We need a solution for them their entire lives, many of them.

And what we've done in the 60s and 70s is we've we've we the pendulum was too far on these mental health institutions, and now the pendulum is way too far on the other side.

So I think this is a Band-Aid approach, and it's too expensive for a Band-Aid.

>> The Department of Juvenile Justice commissioner said he believes this facility would be a better option for youth than a detention center or private hospital.

As for staffing, he said he hopes they could recruit college students or recent graduates to work at the facility for Kentucky Edition.

I'm Emily Sisk.

>> Thank you, Emily, the Department of Juvenile Justice commissioner said Jefferson or Fayette County would be the best location for the mental health facility because of their population and central location in the state.

The Kentucky Supreme Court heard arguments today on the governor's appointing powers.

In recent years, the General Assembly voted to give Kentucky's other state constitutional officers, like the attorney general or state auditor, more say in Who's on state boards and commissions.

That includes the State Fair Board, which oversees the Kentucky Fairgrounds, and the Kentucky Convention Center, both located in Louisville.

The Attorney General's office argued on behalf of the Agriculture Commissioner.

>> We're a divided executive.

When he was governor or when he was attorney general, attorney General Beshear couldn't have sued Governor Bevin so many times if we were not a divided executive attorney general.

Cameron couldn't have sued Governor Beshear during the Covid lockdowns if we were divided.

Executive, we are, in every sense of the word, a divided executive proudly so.

And what that means for today is that every four years, Kentuckians elect their agriculture commissioner.

And under our Constitution, there's no impediment at all to the General Assembly simply giving Commissioner Shell an outsized role with respect to the Fair board, given the big role that the Fair Board plays in Kentucky agriculture, that's the very essence of good government.

>> In 2022, the General Assembly gave Kentucky's five other constitutional officers an appointment on the Executive Ethics Commission.

A justice asks why the governor would need more power on a board that investigates his administration.

>> Don't you think it's more fair to have the appointee appoint authority dispersed between the around the executive branch to end up?

Because some of these, the ethics committee will be could review the governor himself, couldn't they?

>> It oversees and enforces the executive branch ethics code over not just the executive officers, including the governor, but all employees of our executive branch.

That's not what the question here.

The question is, can the legislature take away the governor's appointment authority and give it to another officer who has no express constitutional powers or duties in violation of the express commands of section 69 and 81?

And that is what House Bill 334 does here and violates those sections and is unconstitutional.

No.

>> Supreme the Court of Appeals ruled differently in these two cases, siding with the governor on the State Fair board and against the governor on the Executive Ethics Commission.

Of course, the state Supreme Court will have the final say in both matters.

We've reported many times on the Trump administration's tariffs and their impact on key Kentucky industries like soybeans and bourbon.

Last Monday on Kentucky Tonight, we heard from economists of different perspectives on what tariffs are doing in Kentucky and beyond.

>> Tariffs are most definitely a tax.

And they do affect consumers.

And trade wars are not good for the economy on both sides.

Economists generally tend to indicate that free trade among countries is beneficial for both countries.

In most situations.

We can talk about some exceptions here in just a minute.

But but the idea is it really gets down to the issue of comparative advantage.

We can can produce certain things here in terms of goods and services, very, very well.

We can specialize in that.

And other countries can specialize in the things that they have comparative advantage in.

And in total, what ends up happening is we increase overall production by specializing in the things that we're really, really good at.

As a result of that, our quality of life goes up.

We have more goods and services available and they tend to be cheaper.

So we enter into a trade war.

We tend to disrupt that, and we end up actually reducing the amount of goods and services that are being produced.

>> This also helps our foreign competitors with certain products.

I was in Glasgow, Scotland last summer and took a tour of the Highlands.

Some of the Scottish whiskey manufacturers there, the distilleries, and they thought it was good news that, you know, United States and the supplies of Kentucky, Kentucky bourbon, you know, whiskey made here in the United States was going to face retaliatory retaliatory tariffs from our trading partners.

And they saw it as an opportunity to to gain in sales.

So we now only have the problem of not being able to export and to make money.

But again, we're losing out to foreign competition.

They're going to gain market share.

The other thing with with tariffs, if you do see the foreign goods coming into the United States many times, many corporations, instead of trying to keep their prices the same and gain market share, they just raised their prices to match the foreign competition once they got once the goods get here.

>> You can see more of that conversation about tariffs and about the federal government shutdowns.

Effect on the economy.

That program is online on demand at ket.org.

Wendy.

Tonight, Governor Andy Beshear is urging President Donald Trump to fund $24 billion in energy projects, projects threatened by cuts.

That includes $537 million in projects planned here in Kentucky.

In a letter, the governor says canceling the projects would mean job losses in Maysville, Hopkinsville, Shelbyville, Louisville and Lexington.

Jobs are headed to Nicholasville at the future home of Altex Biological Fertilizers production facility.

It's a $4.5 million plant, paid for by Alltech and a grant from the U.S.

Department of Agriculture.

>> We moved in to the first office 40 years ago, and to jump forward now and think where we are today, to be breaking ground on a new fermentation facility that will focus very much around our crop science business is really, really exciting.

Talking about the future, the future of agriculture, and how chemicals are not going to be the way forward.

In fact, it's products like those that we will be producing here, fermented products, biological products that will be that future.

Leveraging the science, leveraging and harnessing nature to really create something quite special.

>> This is all tech's first domestic manufacturing facility.

Kentucky's drought picture has improved, thank goodness.

And that's thanks to the huge downpour last week.

This is the new map from the U.S.

Drought Monitor.

Most of the state is now white, which means normal.

There are still areas in southern and western Kentucky that are abnormally dry or in the moderate drought category.

Louisville's Muhammad Ali Center will soon have a new leader.

The board of directors announced.

President and CEO DeVaughn Holt.

Will Holt will step down from his role on October 24th of this year.

Lonnie Ali, the center's co-founder and widow of the late Muhammad Ali, will be appointed chairman and will serve as interim president and CEO as the organization transitions leadership.

In an email to colleagues, Holt said, quote, the worsening problems in our country and around the world have compelled me to begin identifying an even greater platform to advance the fight for democracy, human rights and freedom for all people, end quote.

But he didn't elaborate on specific plans.

DeVaughn Holt was just named president of the Muhammad Ali Center.

In July of last year, the center's board will begin an international search for a new CEO very soon.

New research by the University of Kentucky details an evolution in the state's rural economy.

The study, by Blueprint Kentucky, takes stock of population, employment and industry trends across 85 rural counties.

One notable finding is the reversal of a longstanding trend in rural population decline.

But due to remote and hybrid work options that gained in popularity during the Covid pandemic, things are turning around.

Alison Davis, executive director of Blueprint Kentucky within the Martin Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment at the University of Kentucky, says rural counties account for about one third of Kentucky's total employment, with small and midsize businesses making up a larger share of rural Kentucky's economy than in urban areas.

>> Kentucky is I often I often state that I think Kentucky has a really cool diversity of industry, particularly some of our cities.

Lexington, for example.

Rural areas are not quite as as diverse.

Over 50% of their population comes from manufacturing, from health care, and from retail.

A lot of our really rural places don't have any manufacturing.

So then we're talking about government.

We're talking about school system, the school systems, the local government, health care and retail.

And you know those I'd like to see more diverse portfolios.

I'd like to see more attention paid for.

You know, how do we think about career ladders for folks who might be in our service sector so that they know that there's a future for them to have a quality of life?

But, you know, there's we just don't see a lot of like financial services, accounting services, lawyers.

Well, we do see some lawyers, but a lot of kind of creative industries and so forth.

I'd love to see a little bit more of that.

Right.

Just so that, you know, I think about eastern Kentucky and western Kentucky that lost, you know, mining and manufacturing.

So that one when one industry goes away, you're okay.

And that's what Lexington is so great about, is if one industry or one company goes, we are surrounded by just a whole host of other companies and industries to support us.

>> Care to share with us a main takeaway that we haven't already talked about?

>> Well, I wanted to talk just.

>> Briefly about why our population has changed, because I talk about this a lot, because I think we just say, oh, population increases or decreases and understanding why our urban areas in Kentucky grew because of the in-migration of of migrants from outside the country, you know, likely to Louisville and Lexington because of higher ed and because some of our industry there.

But about 85% of our population growth came from international migration.

That's huge.

In our more rural places, why we see population decline.

Some of it is because people are leaving, but a lot of it is because we're not healthy.

And, you know, we look at, you know, our births minus our deaths.

You know, we're not having babies as much as we used to, but we're also our life expectancy in rural places is lower.

And so that upsets me when I see that the reason we're losing population is because we have this sort of net natural decrease in the population.

So I just I think it's a really interesting statistic and one to think about.

It's not just population goes up goes down, but why.

>> Right.

Yeah that's very interesting.

I know there's been some intentionality around maternal mortality and trying to improve maternal health, but we're still probably trying to climb higher on that.

>> Yeah, absolutely.

We have you know, one of my biggest fears, we do a lot of work in rural health and work with rural hospitals is closures of maternity wards.

And, you know, and being able to give birth in a place that you live.

That is a huge determinant.

When people are going to move to a place they don't want to have to plan, you know, when they're going to give birth to a baby.

And so that just breaks my heart to see these centers closing, because it just means more people are going to have to get up and go.

Yeah.

>> Well, we thank you, Doctor Davis.

It's been a pleasure.

We hope to the next study that you do.

We'll have to have you back.

>> Thank you so much.

>> For having us.

Thank you.

What a milestone for the Sanders Brown Center on Aging in Lexington.

40 years as an Alzheimer's disease research center.

This week, the center's leaders gathered to talk about achievements of the past and expectations for the future.

>> Our research at Sanders Brown is truly world renowned right here in Lexington, Kentucky.

We're at the forefront of groundbreaking discoveries and clinical advancements that are shaping the future of Alzheimer's and dementia care.

When I attend scientific meetings, whether it's in the US or international, it's our work here at Sanders Brown that's noticed and sparks conversations.

>> And that achievement is not lost.

On the almost 81,000 Kentucky residents currently experiencing the disease, or the 157,000 caregivers who mostly of whom are unpaid.

Every year, there are almost 2900 Kentucky residents in hospice with dementia, and over 1600 will die with Alzheimer's.

Annual Medicaid costs exceed 800 million annually, and those costs are expected to grow by more than 18% over the next five years.

Those numbers are truly astonishing.

And yet statistics and money don't really demonstrate what the disease does to individuals, their families and the friends around them.

>> So we're actually one of the most active centers in the country conducting clinical trials in dementia.

Our scientists are identifying new diseases that look like Alzheimer's but are not Alzheimer's.

They're pioneering the next generation of therapies, and they're leading studies that May 1st day prevent memory loss before it begins.

And we're able to do that, as you heard, because of the continued support from the National Institute on Aging.

Their investment in our Alzheimer's Center allowed us to build a 40 year record of discovery and innovation.

And this is a legacy that only nine centers in the nation can match us.

So continued NIH funding is going to ensure that we keep pushing boundaries, mentoring the next generation of scientists, and bringing hope to people in Kentucky and throughout the world.

So as we look to the next 40 years, our mission remains the same to advance science that improves lives, helping people maintain their memories, their independence, and their dignity as they age.

>> But we know, too, that now more than ever, this effort will require the work of policymakers and partners, research scientists like Linda van Eldik, teachers and scholars, communities and nonprofits, all of them working together with a shared vision and common goal.

A better Kentucky, a stronger Kentucky, a healthier Kentucky.

>> Hopefully, as we go into another budget session, I commit to you today.

This will remain a priority for me and I will do all I can to ensure that UK and Sanders Brown's has the resources they need from the Commonwealth to accomplish your mission.

>> Funding for the UK Sanders Brown Center began in 1972 with money from John Brown, who would later become governor, and Kentucky Fried Chickens Colonel Harland Sanders.

The center opened in 1979 and earned its Alzheimer's Disease Research Center designation in 1985.

Well, that will do it for us tonight, but we do hope that you'll join us again tomorrow night at 630 eastern, 530 Central on Kentucky Edition, where we inform, connect and inspire.

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Send us a story idea by email to Public Affairs at ket.org.

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Inside Kentucky Politics is tomorrow night with Bob Babich and Trey Grayson.

You don't want to miss it.

A lot of great