All right.

Nice job.

There it is.

Let the betting begin.

And person sports gambling is now legal in Kentucky.

But not everyone likes this kind of fun.

I think it's an inadequate explanation.

Kentucky's junior senator doesn't agree with a doctor.

His findings about the senior senator's health.

I think we didn't realize what was really important sitting in our own backyard.

See a community's efforts to restore and showcase the historic home, but an important political figure dating back to the Civil War.

Plus, a site that has some Kentuckians crying foul.

Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the KET Endowment for Kentucky Productions, the Leonard Press Endowment for Public Affairs, and the KET Millennium Fund.

Good evening and welcome to Kentucky Edition on this Thursday, September 7th.

We're almost through the weekend.

I'm Renee Shaw.

Thank you for winding down your Thursday with us.

A new era begins in Kentucky with the beginning today of legal sized in-person sports betting.

It's a move supporters say will mean jobs while keeping money from leaving the state.

But critics say it will cause an increase in gambling addiction.

Governor Andy Beshear was on hand today at Churchill Downs in Louisville to place a bet himself.

This was made possible when the Kentucky General Assembly passed House Bill 551 earlier this year.

Starting today, Kentuckians can legally bet on NFL games.

The NBA Major League Baseball and NCAA sports at any of the 12 authorized sports betting locations.

Economic drivers in different areas.

In Kentucky, you may end up changing hearts and minds about what we should allow to sell us like.

So it's really exciting to see this growth.

It does mean more jobs.

Each of these facilities have more jobs and it's more opportunity for Kentucky families.

But today is a really fun day.

It's a day that Kentuckians deserve.

Everybody out there do responses like go out, make your first bath and enjoy.

As for critics of this move, the governor says Kentuckians are already betting on sports.

He says at least now it's regulated and it will be easier to help gamblers who need help.

We've already have gambling in Kentucky and we have for a long time by bringing this type of betting in to a legal system that helps us properly regulate it, look out for folks that we can provide some help to that otherwise wouldn't get that help.

And listen, this is the world.

It goes on in every state around us.

We're keeping our revenue right here.

I'm glad that we can do this and do it responsibly.

And it's being done in places that have already been regulated and for purposes of gaming for a long time.

And this is just phase one.

Kentucky.

And can start placing online bets on September 28th.

And it wasn't just Governor Beshear.

Several members of the Republican dominated General Assembly gathered at Lexington's Red Mile Games to celebrate the passage of sports gambling.

Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer, a long proponent of sports gambling, made a bet on the Bengals.

They are said that he also planned to stop by Turf Way Park today to bet on the Cincinnati Reds.

Everybody ready, Price?

I'd like to bet $20 on the Cincinnati Bengals to win the Super Bowl.

All right.

This is the day that we finally get to see legal and safe sports betting in the commonwealth, something we've waited a long time and we could see dollars that are being contributed to this marketplace, not leaving our state any more to support Indiana and Ohio.

And Illinois and Tennessee.

But to support the programs here in our state, including the regulation of this industry problem gaming fund and supporting our pension systems here in the Commonwealth as well.

I live 20 minutes away in Georgetown, and this was an easy place for me to get to.

And I'm really supportive of the Red Mile and the efforts that they've put forth.

We didn't have the votes going in to day 30 to pass the bill.

We were too short.

We needed 23 votes here in the Constitution, required supermajority required in the short IOR session.

We were we were at 21 until I walked into President Stivers office, and he told me that he decided to support sports betting.

And then everything fell in line.

And by the end of the day, I think by 5:00 that afternoon, not only did we have the required number of votes, but we had two more than we needed, as more and more people came on line to support sports betting, $20 on the University of Kentucky Wildcats to win the NCAA heavyweight championship.

And we were hoping to have it on the ground by January 1st of next year.

But we beat all odds on that as well.

And it is truly, again, a great day in beating a lot of even a higher voting threshold we had to pass to make this happen during a very difficult legislative session.

In talking to my colleagues at the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, they told me that they they learned some best practices from about six other states.

And that's one of the reasons we were able to get up and running in Kentucky so quickly.

They talked to some of those states about what worked and what didn't work, and they were able to move pretty quickly here from all over the state.

People took tough votes in there.

These are folks who are not going to have retail sportsbooks in their backyard, but they recognize that this is something that the people wanted.

I think there are a lot of people in Kentucky that are already familiar with this product.

There are people we know that there's been about $2 billion bet the illegal marketplace over the last several years.

We know that there's hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in the legal marketplaces of our surrounding states every year.

So I think there's going to be a lot of people that are already familiar with the product.

They're just going to be able to do it right here closer to home.

Now, odds are not everyone is in favor of legalized sports betting.

That's evident.

And the fact that legislation to make it legal failed in recent years.

And nearly four dozen lawmakers voted against it this year.

The Family Foundation opposes what it calls state sponsored predatory gambling.

Their words, the group's director, David Wall, says he's most concerned about the next phase of sports betting in Kentucky when it becomes legal to place bets online.

Reality is, with sports betting becoming legal here in Kentucky today, it really just creates a lose lose situation for Kentucky and for Kentuckians.

I just continue to be concerned about the harms, particularly for kids, because let's not forget, I know today is the start of kind of in-person, but the the online side of it, it's going to be starting later this month.

And there's just been a ton of research and discussion about this.

But when you take something that's highly addictive, like gambling and we're talking about making every Internet connected device, every phone, essentially a mini digital casino, you're putting an addiction on top of addiction.

And we know that those are going to end up in the hands of children.

Sports betting is expected to bring in more than $20 million to the state each year.

The money not spent on oversight will be dedicated to the Kentucky Permanent Pension Fund, and two and a half percent of the revenue will go to support a problem Gambling associations.

We'll hear from the Kentucky Council on Problem Gambling tomorrow right here on Kentucky Edition.

Now, moving on to other news, a Louisville metro police officer is in critical but stable condition.

At last check, after someone shot him during a traffic stop overnight, police say the officer stopped a driver on Kentucky Avenue around 230 in the morning.

During that traffic stop, someone fired shots from a nearby house hitting the officer in the upper torso.

There was another officer on the scene.

He wasn't hurt.

Police chief Jacqueline Gwen Burrell.

Well, talked about the shooting this morning.

LAPD officers will continue to do our job and protect the public despite what happened this morning to my officers.

I'm proud of you.

You are strong and resilient.

I'm expecting for us to continue to keep this community safe as we are doing it the right way.

Negotiators and the SWAT team went to the home.

A standoff there continued until Thursday afternoon.

The officer shot has been with the department about a year and a half.

Police say there is body camera video and it will be released to the public within ten business days.

Now, what's next for the Blue Grass Army Depot and Madison County?

As we reported, the chemical agent stored there has now been destroyed.

An Army feasibility study looks at 14 options, including new defense manufacturing.

In a statement, Congressman Andy Barr, the sixth District, wrote, quote, This feasibility study underscores the depot's potential to not only bolster our national defense, but also drive economic growth in the heart of the Commonwealth.

Our collaboration can transform this historic site into a linchpin of innovation, job creation and American resilience.

Senator Mitch McConnell emphasized the need to explore the expansion of the depot's facilities.

Senator McConnell is also pushing for a continued U.S. support for Ukraine a year and a half after the Russian invasion.

Here's Senator McConnell yesterday on the Senate floor.

Let's just be absolutely clear about a few times.

Helping Ukraine retake its territory means weakening and weakening one of America's biggest strategic adversaries without firing a shot and determining another one in the process.

It means investing directly in American strength, both military and economic.

And our colleagues will have the opportunity to do all of these when we pass the supplemental appropriation before the month is out.

On Tuesday, Senator McConnell's office released a letter from Dr. Brian Monahan, the Capitol's attending physician, about two recent medical incidents involving McConnell.

You'll recall McConnell froze while talking in Washington, D.C. in late July, then again in Covington, Kentucky, last week.

Dr. Monahan's letter said McConnell did not have a stroke or seizures.

McConnell's Kentucky colleague, though, Senator Rand Paul, told the political website The Hill is not satisfied with the doctors conclusions or the idea that Senator McConnell was simply dehydrated.

All right.

I'm sorry.

You all had a great explanation to say this is dehydration.

Well, I practiced medicine for 25 years and it doesn't look like dehydration to me.

It looks like a fungal neurologic event.

That doesn't mean it's incapacitating, doesn't mean he can't serve, but it means that somebody ought to wake up and say, wow, this looks like a seizure.

Again, Dr. Monahan's letter specifically said it was not a seizure.

When asked yesterday, Senator McConnell wouldn't say what caused the to medical incident.

He said he has no plans to resign from the U.S. Senate and Paul did not ask for him to resign.

We have a correction tonight to a story we brought you Tuesday evening.

We told you that Operation Unite and the University of Chicago conducted a study about drug overdose mortality rates.

To clarify, it's the University of Kentucky Center of Excellence in Roll Health and the National Opinion Research Watch Center for Rural Health at the University of Chicago that did that analysis.

That study found that of the 20 counties with the greatest decline in overdose death rates from 2009 to 20 1714 were in eastern Kentucky.

We apologize for the area error.

Well, this video is not from Florida.

It's from Cave Run Lake in Kentucky, south of Moorhead.

From September 4th, Labor Day.

This is a flamingo, of course, a bird we don't commonly associate with Kentucky.

Andrew Patrick shot this video.

The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife says Hurricane Adelia is probably the reason the bird ended up so far north.

It's believed to be from Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

Kentucky is not alone.

There have also been flamingos, sightings far as north as Ohio.

The bird is doing fine.

The department says it'll probably hook up with some other flamingos, then head back down south.

Safe travels to education now.

And education advocates says Kentucky's teacher turnover rate is north of 20%.

Rhonda Caldwell, executive director of the Kentucky Association of School Administrators, is leading a coalition of educators focused on teacher retention and an upcoming episode of Connections this Sunday morning.

Caldwell talks about the challenges teachers are facing, efforts to keep them on the job, and how those who've left the classroom are being replaced.

It's tonight's Education Matters.

When I think about challenges that we're facing, obviously we've struggled with transportation across the state in terms of our bus driver shortage.

Different forms of illness have already hit us.

We have students who have been out the different diagnosis our everything from strep to virus to COVID.

You name it, it's typically in our school setting.

And so a little bit of absenteeism, as you would normally expect with school start up.

But I think probably one of the biggest challenges for us next to the bus driver shortage is going to be our ongoing teacher crisis in terms of having a shortage that started long before the pandemic.

And some people will say that this was just a phenomenon that resulted from the pandemic.

But you and others, you've been on various shows here at KCET, have told us that there were trends long before that, that something was going to happen.

And in fact, it is indeed caught up to us.

What does it look like and what do you hope can be done about it and the coalition you represent?

So the teacher shortage today in terms of how it looks in comparison to how it looked before the pandemic?

Before the pandemic, it showed up in the form of those difficult to fill positions in terms of math and science.

Also, special education and foreign languages.

We speak of 144 languages here in Kentucky.

So before the pandemic, 2019, I was part of a Casey County administrative professional learning event for a couple of days, second grade opening, a second grade opening, and there were no applicants for the position.

This was in July, at a time when many folks already had their employment secured for the year, but a second grade opening, that's the time that we love our teachers.

We love to be at school every single day and we can't miss even when we're sick.

We need and we want to go to school.

So before the pandemic 2019, we were starting to see P.E.

We are starting to see elementary positions become vacant and that there were zero one, maybe 3 to 5 applications.

So fast forward to 2023 and all openings are subject now to not having a sufficient number of candidates to choose from, especially if we're seeking high quality teachers for the classroom.

Yeah, so the I know alternative certification and emergency certification.

The General Assembly has addressed this by allowing more options and they literally are called option whatever name your number.

Is that helping?

It is helping for the short term.

Mm hmm.

The challenges with the emergency certifications, as they were before the pandemic and as they are today with the various options, you are basically bringing someone into the classroom who didn't go through their traditional teacher preparation program.

And what that teacher preparation program does, it prepares you to jump into a classroom with effective classroom management skills, with pedagogy, all of those things that I think on the surface we don't necessarily consider in terms of teaching and learning that those are skills that we need talented, highly skilled experts in our classrooms, taking care of our children today.

Right.

And being just a subject matter expert does not necessarily translate to being an effective educator in the classroom.

That's right, Renee.

It's going to take some time to get that individual who is there on an emergency certification.

Not only are they in some type of a preparation program finishing up that pedagogy, trying to figure out that effective classroom management from an education perspective, they're also in a classroom trying to hands on experience to bring those two things together.

That takes a lot of time and it also takes a lot of bandwidth from the school district.

So right now we have a 20.4% turnover in public education.

Wow.

In the classroom, you can see the full interview with Dr. Rhonda Caldwell Walsh to talk about teacher pay and others will join us to talk about school safety.

That's Sunday morning at 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, 1030 Central right here on KCET, Kentucky Students in kindergarten through 11th grade now have the option to attend a school.

That's all online.

Kentucky Virtual Academy is the first of its kind in the state with more than 800 students so far.

Clover reports School District and Breckinridge County sponsors the Academy, which began classes August the ninth.

We serve students who are who have medical issues, who have mental health issues, also, who just want some flexibility in their learning environment because sometimes a brick and mortar school does not provide that flexibility that they need or they want our school.

Kentucky Virtual Academy is a free public education entity.

Only differences is our our platform is online.

I think COVID 19 brought it more to the forefront, but prior to COVID schools, all over districts, all over the state as well as K 12 Stride K-12 have been offering me online and via meant what COVID 19 did.

It says, Hey, there is another option that parents hadn't thought about by having this flexibility of having this online platform.

Students can then choose to work.

They have medical appointments, they get a bed that they have medical appointments that they have.

They're not going to miss.

School is not going to be disrupted because they can make up that time later in the day.

So there are some students who struggle behaviorally in an in-person environment and they choose to come to a virtual environment because they don't have those external influences.

Some students come with ADHD or other kinds of medical issues or mental health issues that impact their ability to stay focused, to stay quiet, to stay, you know, to be more traditional in their ability to attend school.

So this online environment allows them to have more wiggles and not just drop other their learning, which may get them in trouble in a brick and mortar school here.

It's not so much if a student is being disruptive in class.

We have options.

Our teachers pretty much work a 7 to 8 hour workday just like any other teacher.

So the way it works is the state of Kentucky has very strict guidelines on attendance.

And so we have to follow those students have to meet the minimum requirement of minutes logged into the system.

And within that, they're going to also have classwork that they have to work on.

Like, you know, if you're a brick and mortar, kids have activities to do.

They just don't necessarily do those with the teacher watch you.

They will do those usually offline without the teacher present.

A student is going to average 4 hours a day, physically logging into their computer, logging into the courses, which are which is the curriculum, as well as logging into line connect classes.

I think the one other great advantage of a virtual school is honor interrupted instruction and that is something many of our families want.

You know, life is already hard.

We don't need one more stressor to come into play.

So having this option is great for families.

It calls him a couch potato.

Certainly it is.

The Kentucky Virtual Academy provides school supplies, including workbooks and writing materials, and it's working to provide students with some extracurricular activities.

Parents can sign students up by visiting the Academy's website.

Now to efforts in Breckinridge County to keep history alive.

A native son from the 1800s, Joseph Holt, served in the administrations of four U.S. presidents, including Abraham Lincoln.

The judge, Joseph Holt home is on the National Register of Historic Places and continues to be a popular gathering place today.

Our Laura Rogers shares her conversation with a woman committed to preserving its legacy.

On a roll, state highway in Breckinridge County rises a stunning property.

Sometimes history is there and you know about history elsewhere.

But you don't know about the history that's close to your heart in your own community.

Susan Dyer discovered the home in 1997 while on a Sunday drive, and it looked like a fortress surrounded with briers and trees.

And it was just sitting there.

In desperation, she would go on to research and author a book about the home and the historical figure who lived there collecting information from the library of Congress.

I decided this home had to be saved because of its history and the legacy of the man, Joseph Holt.

Joseph Holt served as Judge Advocate General for President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.

This is the only home of a t jag in the United States that has been saved, but it has not come quick or easy.

The restoration has been a quarter century of work, leading to the impressive home you see today.

It has been a labor of love by so many people.

And we have a team and the friends of the Holt home and the local county judges.

It is the people's home and it is a miracle that we have saved this home.

With grants and donations, the volunteer and community led efforts have preserved the home and legacy of the man who was also the prosecuting judge at the Lincoln Conspiracy trial following the president's assassination.

He held our nation together.

We could have had two nations then, but we have one nation under God and the symbol that is high and end is above Judge Roberts monument is the eagle, the symbol of America, of freedom.

Dyer hopes the example of their efforts among them raising $2 million in grants, will inspire other Kentucky communities who are home to historic properties.

If a rural community nestled by the Ohio River in a spot that looks like it did 170 years ago can save a national treasure.

It shows other communities that they can save their history.

The home opened to the public in 2009 during the Lincoln Bicentennial celebration.

The restoration then, in its early stages, what was once considered an impossible dream.

Today, a reality.

Judge Joseph Holt must surely be smiling down to know that his career and his life was worthwhile for Kentucky Edition.

I'm Laura Rogers.

Thank you, Laura.

The 15th annual Holt Home Community Day is coming up Saturday, September the 23rd.

The home is on Highway 144 in Hardin's burg.

Finally tonight, we've reported several times on the need for school bus drivers, both here in Kentucky and really across the nation.

And Louisville, a school bus driver didn't go back to work this week.

But wait until you hear why James Caan won $100,000 playing the Kentucky Lottery Powerball.

He had four of the five white numbers and the Powerball, which is worth 50,000.

He added the power Play feature.

So his prize doubled to 100 grand.

After taxes, though, he'll get about $71,000.

He called his boss Sunday and told him he wouldn't be returning to work.

Congress is still working to pass the farm bill, and part of that bill has special meaning for thousands of Kentuckians.

We'll tell you about the Emergency Food Assistance program and the vital role it plays in keeping Kentucky's food banks properly stocked.

That and more Inside Kentucky politics is coming up tomorrow night on Kentucky Edition at 630 Eastern, 530 Central, where we inform, Connect and Inspire.

Connect with us all the ways you see on your screen there, Facebook X, formerly known as Twitter and Instagram.

And send us a story idea at Public Affairs at KET.

dot org.

I'll see you on Monday.

Have a great weekend.

And take really good care.