Time now to check in with Rylan Barden, a senior editor with NPR State's team about the big political developments of the week so far.

And they have been pretty mighty.

Thank you, Rob, and for joining us.

Good to be with you again.

So, of course, all the news we're talking about is the now presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Kamala Harris, and who she may pick as her running mate for vice president.

Of course, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.

His name is among that pile and he has been vetted.

We have learned.

But there also an important poll out today that could give him a leg up.

Tell us about it.

Yeah, this poll shows Governor Beshear with he's always had a high approval rating throughout his being governor with a 67% approval rating, which is the is the highest among all of those other governors here, a potential picks or a VP candidate by Vice President Harris.

So 67% approve his job performance.

And this is you know, this comes as he's he's really been auditioning for for this role over the last week although Beshear had it several times said that he he plans to complete his second term in office.

His statements about that have gotten a little bit more flexible, saying that if the opportunity arises and if he can help Kentuckians on the national stage, he would consider that.

But we saw a little bit of that audition this week.

He's been flying around to the National national news shows, and I think his tack has really been to try and go after the public and vice presidential candidate J.D.

Vance, questioning his Kentucky credentials and supports both Hillbilly Elegy, a memoir that includes a lot about his time spending time with his grandmother in eastern Kentucky.

And everybody here said so.

A little bit of context on the credentials that governor she was trying to through the town.

You've seen that the hair his team seems to like that four Twitter account has been retweeting some of those hits, but it's also been retweeting hits from some of the other contenders, like North Carolina Governor Cooper.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh SHAPIRO is also in the mix.

And Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly.

So there's a bit of a contest among these white men who are in elected office right now that the Harris team is apparently trying to is forwarding to that as being running mate, writing the ticket.

Yeah.

Much more to follow on that front.

So let's shift now to a familiar name in the news.

Kim Davis is back in the news.

And for those who may not remember, she was the row former Rowan County.

This is in Kentucky clerk who had said that she would not sign same sex marriage licenses.

And there has been a conservative legal group that has filed a brief on behalf of her that says this actually could have the US Supreme Court overturning the right of same sex couples to marry.

Why is this news again?

What's happening?

So the latest is that they're appealing this ruling, a judgment that she was ordered to pay a $100,000 to sue the men which sought a marriage license from her Davis back.

And I believe that was August of 2015.

And saying that she shouldn't have to and really bringing back all the reasons why she defended her actions back then, saying that it violated for sincerely held religious beliefs, which should be protected under federal law, for her to have to sign off on those marriage licenses.

So her attorneys, Liberty Counsel, they've been representing her since very early on in this process, way back to 2015.

They they have said that they do hope that this could ultimately lead to overturning that that Supreme Court ruling from June of 2000 that legalized same sex marriage, saying that that was wrongly interpreted.

And they're hoping that under this more conservative version of the U.S. Supreme Court, that they'll be successful in that.

So right now, this argument is at the appeals court level.

There's still a bit to go before it goes up to the Supreme Court.

But, you know, whatever happens, this next step could tell us a lot about what's going to happen on the road.

John Tillie may be a familiar name to some.

He was the former secretary of the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet is also a former state lawmaker.

He was found not guilty of rape by a Fayette County jury, acquitted him after about 5 hours of deliberation.

Remind us of how this story started in the case.

Yeah, this started back in April 2022.

You know, police said that he had raped a woman who was too intoxicated to be with him.

And and this is this kind of lingered for a long time support system, but ultimately turns you know, ultimately, the court ruled that there wasn't there wasn't any indication that this counted as rape.

You know, the lot of details about this came out during this trial earlier this year.

Tili was also, you know, he was with a group of men who had been found.

They were hopping around bars and Lexington, and they encountered this woman and she ended up going to a hotel with him.

And, yeah, that's ultimately with the the judgment was this was a, you know, a bit of a fall from grace for Tillie, who had been a Democratic state representative for a long time from Hopkinsville.

He then joined the Republican administration of Governor Matt Bevin, and that this really put the brakes on his career for a while after this incident.

And once considered an aspiring attorney general or perhaps someone who could have aspired for higher office.

Last matter in about maybe 45 seconds, there's a lot of news surrounding Jefferson County public school system, bus transportation.

We know that according to the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, the good work there probably just clerk who was able to obtain some records from the U.S. Department of Justice.

That school bus delays in Jefferson County have caused kids of color, black, Latino kids and multilingual kids.

It affected them more than it affected white kids.

And then there's also the other development with using dark to make sure that some of those snafus that happened last year don't happen at the start of this academic school year.

Right.

And it's coming up the start of the school year and local is August 8th.

So Louisville is 30.

JCP is, you know, testing a lot of city bus drivers, charter bus drivers to become school bus drivers.

And so they can double up their hours there and just to try and build in their ranks.

They've had a lot of trouble recruiting bus drivers, but trying to make sure that they have enough because last year there's so many problems with the rollout of this city's transportation plan in their schools, transportation.

They're trying to make sure that goes a lot better this year.

Yeah, well, something to keep our eyes on as all the kiddos head back to school in just a few short weeks.

Thank you so much, Rhode Island.

Thanks, Renee.