Some big name Kentucky leaders say it is time for a state representative to go.

Well, should.

A man who's supposed to uphold the law is accused of breaking a big one?

They always say, you know, you don't use it, you lose it.

Right.

So this is exactly that.

And dance class isn't just for little girls and to to sell.

Seniors are aging gracefully and living longer.

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

Good evening and welcome to Kentucky edition for this Friday, September 20th.

I'm Laura Rogers, filling in for Renee Shaw.

Thank you so much for joining us tonight.

Governor Andy Beshear.

And a growing chorus of prominent Democratic leaders say Daniel Grossberg should resign from the Kentucky General Assembly.

Grossberg is a Democratic state representative from Louisville's 30th House district.

The new calls come after new reporting in the Lexington Herald-Leader that a Louisville strip club banned Grossberg and allegations he offered to pay a dancer for sex.

This is after earlier allegations that Grossberg sent women inappropriate texts.

Here's the governor this morning.

I want to once again state clearly and unequivocally that Representative Grossberg should resign.

He should resign.

That soundbite is courtesy of Wave three in Louisville.

In addition to the governor, Lieutenant Governor Jacqueline Coleman, Democratic Party chair Coleman Eldridge and the House Democratic Caucus called for Grossberg to resign.

The caucus also voted to expel him.

Goldberg's attorney says he denies the allegations and will remain in office.

For more on the new calls for Representative Grossberg to step down, watch Bill Bryant and a panel of veteran Kentucky reporters tonight on comment on Kentucky.

That's at eight Eastern, seven Central right here on KCET.

Now to eastern Kentucky and a story getting attention all over the country.

A sheriff accused of shooting and killing a judge and his own chambers.

That law enforcement officer now charged with first degree murder.

This community is small in nature and we're all shooting.

The community of Whitesburg in Letcher County, rattled by a deadly shooting at a local high school briefly placed on lockdown.

What you're going to hear from Vicki Johnston's fired at District Judge Kim Mullins following an argument inside the courthouse.

He was pronounced deceased on scene and.

This w y EMT coverage of a press conference.

Kentucky State Trooper Matt Gayheart was questioned about a possible motive.

No, no, there.

Was an argument between the two to let up, but what exactly transpired prior to the shots being fired?

I still think that we're trying to get answers to.

KSP is taking the lead on this investigation.

Sheriff Mickey Stynes remains in custody facing a charge of murder in the first degree.

He was arrested on scene without incident.

This as the investigation unfolds into what led to this tragedy.

We're going to stick together, get through all night at the.

In response to Judge Mullen's death.

Chief Justice Lawrence Van Meter has ordered flags at court buildings to have staff through Monday.

It is confirmed the body found two days ago in Laurel County is 32 year old Joseph Couch.

The man wanted after an interstate 75 mass shooting on Saturday, September 7th.

The mass shooting led to a 12 day manhunt before state police and two civilians found the body Wednesday.

A soft tissue DNA test was inconclusive, but a test on DNA taken from a bone proved it is couch his body.

And the chief medical examiner says county's cause of death was a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Kentucky is getting another regional police academy, future police officers in the western part of the state will be able to train in Madisonville even before construction of a new $50 million facility.

Governor Beshear talked about it yesterday.

Mayor Cotton, it's been instrumental in helping us get set up in the Madisonville Police Department facility.

What that means is that we can start providing training sooner.

Instead of waiting the 1 to 2 years it'll take to construct a new facility.

Their work, the work of the folks behind me, especially Mayor Cotton, means that this February 24, new law enforcement recruits will begin their basic academy training, not in Richmond, but in Madisonville, For the first time ever, recruits that live in the western region of our state won't have to drive to Richmond, but will instead have access to a 20 week training academy that is so much closer to home.

This means they'll have more time with their families and more time to focus on their critical training.

This historic expansion also offers a nonresidential academy option, which means you don't have to stay on campus full time.

Right now, there's a five month waiting list to enter a training academy.

But a state law enforcement official says by next year, that waitlist will be gone.

Maybe one of the problems was we weren't looking at it from the administrative side of the chiefs and the sheriffs and understanding the frustration of that five or seven month wait period.

Having been there, I understand that.

And I think we need to make a promise to those chiefs and those sheriffs that that's where we're going to be a year from now.

Louisville, Lexington and Bowling Green all have their own police academies and all other cities send their recruits to the Academy on Acu's campus.

Youth and criminal justice advocates say too many Kentucky parents are serving time behind bars.

Other states have pushed their judges to consider if an offender is taking care of a child during the sentencing process.

A mother and son told Kentucky lawmakers that not every crime should break up a family.

And one state representative shared her firsthand experience.

More in tonight's legislative update.

Having a parent.

Incarcerated meant our lives were constantly shifting to fill the void that she left behind.

My routine changed completely, and different people came into and out of my life.

Our family dynamic was completely disrupted and I was left trying to navigate an unfamiliar world with very little guidance.

Often feel a mix of anger and sadness, but there is always this deep sense of longing, hoping for something to bring her back into my life, for things to get better and for her to escape the situation she was in.

This experience has left a lasting impact on me.

It's shaped how I view the justice system.

I have a deep mistrust of it and a mistrust that only grew stronger after I saw how hard it was to build her life.

To be judged for her past every time she was told no because of her convictions, every negative comment said about her.

I felt that too.

I got a phone call from a family member and I ended up taking a cousin's two children, two boys, and one was a freshman in high school and one was in fifth grade.

And they came with me with one trash bag full of clothes.

And so for four years, literally the day that I was like, I've finished graduate school, I've done it, that I ended up caring for two family members.

And so this issue was very near and dear to my heart.

And I do think that given the things that we have seen in our Commonwealth and what we know that is happening across the nation, that we do need to find some solutions to put some relief on those children, on those families.

12% of Kentucky kids have a parent that's served jail time, according to 2022 data from the Child and Adolescent Health Measure Initiative.

That is higher than the national average.

Time now for our weekly segment Inside Kentucky Politics.

And today, we're diving into the presidential contest with Dr. Stephen Voss, who is a political science professor at University of Kentucky and an election specialist.

And we will begin with we've now had two attempts on former President Donald Trump's life, these acts of political violence.

Do you believe that they have any effect on the dynamics of this presidential contest?

We don't have a lot of experience with assassination attempts on presidential candidates, and they really can cut two ways.

On the one hand, voters have a sort of rally around the flag effect when someone is attacked.

They want to defend them.

On the other hand, though, when when drama, when chaos surrounds a candidate, voters can shy away.

It can be, can, can so bothered by the candidate seeing the drama is wrapped up with them.

So an assassination attempt may not be helping Donald Trump the way his campaign would hope.

It did certainly seem the first time when he did have that injury to the ear.

It did seem it garnered a little more sympathy, if you will, from the American people.

Would you agree with that?

And his image is one of toughness and the fact he could rise up with blood on his ear with the fist pump, I mean, that totally played into Donald Trump's image in a good way.

But also Donald Trump's associated with this drama.

Right.

And voters have indicated they don't much like the chaos that surrounds Donald Trump.

So it really could go either way.

The polling does indicate this is a very tight race, essentially in a dead heat in those seven battleground states that we hear so much about.

What are your thoughts on what you're seeing from the candidates as far as their messaging in those states, their visits, rallies, perhaps, or campaign advertising?

Most analysts have figure that the road to the White House this year goes through Pennsylvania.

And what we're seeing is the Democrats and especially the Republicans dumping the lion's share of their resources in that one state.

And, you know, the people who sit and play with the Electoral College maps to figure out who's ahead where the over and over, you know, what they conclude is whichever candidate wins, Pennsylvania is probably winning the presidency.

Which Pennsylvania does have.

The Democratic governor, Josh SHAPIRO, who was vetted to be the vice presidential candidate.

I mean, do you think that he he will help Kamala Harris in that state?

I think having the political elites in the state on your side certainly helps.

But, you know, as James Carville described Pennsylvania, it's Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between, there's a lot of territory favorable to Republicans like Donald Trump.

There, which is why Pennsylvania was seen as the swing state.

But it is interesting when you look at the map that the so-called swing states, battleground states, and you see them really all over the country in the far west, in the southeast and then Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Let's talk more about that.

I mean, it's almost seems gives this perception of just these few states decide the winner of the presidency for the entire country.

Yeah.

On the one hand, we have this this hyper Democratic idea that every vote should count exactly the same.

And having some states be the focal point, the battleground is is somehow unfair.

But if you think about it more broadly, what this means is that in most of the states, they know which way they tilt.

They know which kind of president they want.

There's this handful of states that look more like America as a whole that are close, closer to evenly divided.

And the campaigns are able to focus their messages there so that the voters there get a lot of information and make a more informed choice than they otherwise would make.

It's not clear we're worse off having a few battlegrounds decide things than if this campaign, this presidential race, had to be decided voter by voter everywhere across the entire nation.

We have seen in the year 2020 16 and we could see it in the next six and a half weeks where the popular vote does not decide the presidency as far as maybe the winner doesn't get the popular vote, but does win the Electoral College.

And it does beg the question, is this still the best way to elect the president of the United States and a democratic government and you have people that feel very strongly both ways.

What are some of the pros and cons of having that kind of system in place to decide?

The leader of our country?

For sure.

One of the reasons why the Electoral College made sense has gone, which was technology and transportation, were nowhere near where they were today.

And the idea of deciding the election vote by vote just would have been a lot more difficult.

You know, without the tech we have today, so tech wise, we can get up to a pure popular vote decision.

But what the Electoral College does is encourage candidates to have broad appeal, to have appeal, and more of the regions, more of the places it punishes a candidate who's come up with a package that's overwhelmingly popular and just a small number of places while alienating much of the rest of the country.

So the plus side is that it rewards candidates who come up with very broad appeals in lots of different regions.

Do you ever find in your work because you are an expert in voting voters behavior and at elections that it disenfranchizes voters, though maybe in states, maybe a left leaning voter in a very conservative state or a conservative voter in a more in a in a blue state that they decide, oh, I'm not even going to go to the polls, my vote doesn't matter anyway.

So in any one election.

That's true, right?

There's some states that are just pretty clearly lopsided going into that election.

But if you look at the sweep of even modern history, the bias of the Electoral College, Republican versus Democrat, has shifted back and forth.

Which states are the focal point has changed over time.

It's not as though it's a system that's ossified, locked, so that the same sets of people are always deciding.

In 2000, it was Florida.

In 2004 it was Ohio.

This year, maybe it's Pennsylvania.

What the states that usually have that pivotal influence have had in common is they tend to be large, they tend to be diverse.

They tend to be a pretty good microcosm of the voters elsewhere as well.

So, you know, we disenfranchize in any one state.

Yeah, maybe we figure since I can't vote for the top of the ticket, why bother?

But over time, we're not especially disenfranchizing some people over the others.

And one other thing to think about, about that disenfranchisement argument.

If we were voting because we wanted to sway elections, nobody would vote in a presidential election.

Nobody really thinks they're going to swing a presidential election.

We vote for other reasons.

If deciding elections were the reason, it's the local offices, the state legislative, the city council offices that would be pulling us in to the polls.

And that's not the ones that draw people in.

Very interesting point made there.

Are you concerned by the imagery that you're seeing?

I'm thinking especially on social media, I mean, so many things that are shared and we know there's a lot of disinformation, but then there's this idea this race is pitting good versus evil.

This candidate is good.

This ad literally seen pictures of one candidate sort all this angelic spiritual imagery and then the other with devil horns and a pitchfork.

I mean, that's that's so divisive.

Does that concern you when you see things like that out there?

American elections have become increasingly polarized.

The parties have become increasingly polarized.

It used to mostly be among the elites, but it's filtered down to the voters where they're very hostile.

They don't want people of the other party in their neighborhood.

They don't want them in their families.

They wouldn't marry or date somebody of the other party.

The extent to which political party has filtered down to structure our identities and our social lives is much worse than it used to be.

And the potential for violence, the potential for for conflict has gone up as a result.

Now, it's not just this election.

If you think about Joe Biden's acceptance speech four years ago, it was it was like out of a superhero movie.

You know, it's a battle of light and darkness and guess which side we are, where the light and the other side's the darkness.

This sort of superhero movie, or Lord of the Rings style rhetoric of good versus evil has been creeping into our political system since the turn of the century.

Very interesting.

We sure appreciate your perspective.

Dr. Ross, thank you so much for being here with this.

Certainly a very interesting and, of course, historic presidential contest.

Thanks for having.

In 2022, the Kentucky General Assembly established we lead computer science and Virtual Computer Science Career Academy, where students can get an early start training for careers in the tech industry.

It is the first program of its kind in the US.

It's a first of its kind in the nation Virtual Computer Science Career Academy that operates on a statewide basis and we are educating Kentucky high school students and eighth grade students, preparing them for high wage, high demand jobs in the tech sector.

So programing software development, data science, cybersecurity, everything for students is free.

We do have a MOOC with the districts, and it's $500 per year per student.

But we do have some students that are actually taking advantage of the program and doing both pathways, and so they're taking classes both in the network security and in the computer programing.

All the classes that we offer in those two pathways when you take dual credit, ends up counting in the technical core for any of the associate of CRT degrees at the KCTCS colleges.

The secret sauce for us and what the basis is we leverage, as is daily live virtual instruction with our teachers.

And so students have someone to interact with on a daily basis and learn from on a daily basis, someone monitoring their progress available to them to tutor them, then they can succeed in a virtual environment.

I've always liked computers.

I find them interesting.

I love to I would love to tinker some of them some time.

But you know, that's an expensive hobby to get into on time.

But yeah, I took the course for for it more for personal interest and hopefully go on to some sort.

Of course I'm not course I'm job with computers in the future but my teachers teaching me now I feel ready you know I feel like I can.

Go into a college.

Course and maybe know a few things and it's really helpful.

Last year there were about 3400 jobs a month advertised on Monster.

Indeed in the tech sector at any given time.

And those were across all regions of the state and the average salary was just upwards of $74,000 a year for those jobs.

So the job opportunities are there.

The challenge that employers have is filling those jobs and finding qualified talent to fill them.

And because so many of those jobs, every mode and they can be done anywhere from Louisiana to Paducah and all points in between.

Kentuckians are also competing with people outside of Kentucky for those jobs because a lot of them don't require people to move from wherever they are.

It's a real game changer.

It opens your life to a lot of opportunities that are the earlier you take the course, you know, the programing industry is only getting bigger and bigger as the year goes on.

So if you take the course early now, there's a chance you have a job you really love in the future.

We lead.

Computer Science is set to announce plans for the 2025 26 school year at the Capitol next week.

Physical activity is healthy for everyone, but it has an even greater impact for seniors.

Studies show daily physical movement for people over 60 can improve mobility, balance and overall well-being, but it can also greatly decrease the risk of physical and cognitive ailments like dementia.

As part of our next Chapter initiative, Kelsey Starks takes us to Owensboro to show us how seniors are aging gracefully and living longer through dance.

Go.

You go.

We do.

At Joey Johnson's dance studio in Owensboro.

Dance class is for people of all ages.

We're going to get in here.

More than a decade ago, the Parkinson's dance therapy program began here, focused on helping those diagnosed with the disease improve mobility.

But now it's for everyone.

As it grew, we started getting other people that had had strokes or chronic health conditions and mobility conditions, people with pulmonary issues, heart issues.

And it just continued to grow into what it is now, which is a dance for health program for anyone with mobility issues at all.

Janice Foster's husband, Mike, joined the class to help with his Parkinson's disease, and she started tagging along.

I'm totally convinced that it's lengthened his life.

I mean, he had a better quality of life, and as long as he was exercising and moving in this class, he was just always so happy.

I guess the biggest witness to that is when Kobe came.

We didn't have class for a while and he couldn't get in, couldn't get here, and he had home therapy.

But that's when he started going downhill.

I mean, and I could see the difference.

You know, even with the home therapy, they're great.

But it just was not the same as this class.

Although her husband passed more than a year ago, Janice is still going to the dance for health class at Johnson's dance studio every week now for her own health.

I would recommend.

It to anybody, I said.

People, you know, no matter what your diseases are, we all need to exercise and it just lengthens your life.

So it just makes you feel better.

And I know when I don't come, I miss it.

Now, the reason why.

So it keeps your body moving.

So in terms of even keeping your joints immobile.

Right.

And to move even just a little bit, you don't have to be able to kick or kick over your head.

You can touch your toe to the front.

And that brings a whole world of movement to your hips, to your knees, to your ankles.

By your feet or your knees, wherever you might have ended up today.

So it's little movements like that, and then they translate into what you do during the day.

So if you reach over your head with just your arm, you go home and you're reaching for something in your kitchen.

It translates into that.

So moving it, moving your body in even the smallest ways keeps your body alive.

Dance for Help is a national initiative training, dance teachers, proper movements to increase mobility and balance.

But with it comes camaraderie, socialization, and overall happiness, too.

We have fun.

We laugh a lot, and it's just go For Kentucky Edition.

I'm Kelsey Starks.

The Dance for Health program is free to participants and funded through state and local grants.

It's just one of several outreach programs from the Owensboro Dance Theater that directly impact more than 13,000 people each year.

And you can see more stories on the rewards and challenges of aging as part of Katie's next Chapter initiative.

By going to eat dot org slash next chapter.

Summer ends and Fall begins this weekend.

Our Toby Gibbs has some ideas on how to enjoy yourself and this look at what's happening around the Commonwealth.

Bourbon and beyond is already underway in Louisville.

Don't miss performances from Zach Bryan, Tyler Childers, the Beach Boys, and many more still yet to hit the stage.

This is the world's largest music, food and bourbon festival.

Be sure to make it out.

Grayson County is buzzing with activity today.

The Clarkson Honey Fest is here.

Come out to Kentucky's official Honey festival to enjoy the festivities and to explore the sweet decorations all over town.

I believe you will have a great time.

World famous storytellers are in Lagrange this weekend for the Corn Island Storytelling Festival.

From ghost stories to puppeteering, all types of stories are being celebrated at this unique festival.

Learn more about the art form and hear some legendary stories this weekend at the Oldham County History Center.

Aviation aficionados assemble The Lake Cumberland Air Show is tomorrow in Somerset.

Vintage Military aircraft World War Two Warbirds and aerobatic performers will be taking to the skies.

If you're looking to go airborne, there will be helicopter and plane rides available as well.

Searching for the perfect fall floral to decorate your home.

Mom Fest in Hanson is the perfect event for you.

More than 20 varieties of moms will be available, plus food trucks and other vendors to shop from mom's.

Not the word when it comes to this event.

October fest in Madisonville is tomorrow.

Spend your Saturday with live music, local brews and lots of fun activities for the whole family.

From bratwurst to beer, this festival has everything you need to have a great time.

German style.

If you've ever wanted to make sorghum, your window of opportunity is open in Pine Mountain this weekend.

Pine Mountain Fair Day and sorghum start off is tomorrow.

And the whole community is coming together to enjoy live music, shop from local vendors and stir some sorghum.

So come on out.

Legate to Liberty next week for the 50th Casey County Apple Festival.

This historic festival features concerts, pageants, flea markets and more apples than you can shake a stick at.

If you're looking for a fun fall event, this festival is sure to be appealing to you.

And that's what's happening around the Commonwealth.

I'm Toby Gibbs.

Very well written and well said and welcome fall.

We hope that you will join us again Monday night at 630 Eastern, 530 Central for Kentucky Edition, where we inform, Connect and Inspire.

Subscribe to our Kentucky edition email newsletters and watch full episodes and clips at Ket dawg.

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Thank you for so much.

Thank you for joining us on this Friday evening.

Have a nice weekend.

We'll see you back here Monday.