York was William Clark's personal slave and accompanied the Lewis and Clark 'Voyage of Discovery' as a fully participating member of the expedition.(Shutterstock / Shutterstock) We Americans are marking the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding with diverging accounts — sometimes offered from irreconcilably different perspectives — of what has gone down in this country since 1776. This week on Eastern Standard we present two views that in many ways defy what we have been taught about Americ...
Jan 22, 2026•53 min
We continue our new series, “Artificial Intelligence: Promise and Peril.” Host, Dr. Arthur Shechet, goes “under the hood” of AI with University of Kentucky Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning research professor Brent Harrison. How does AI do what it does? What about concerns that AI will surpass human intelligence? These questions and many more are raised in this segment. Five members of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council have announced that they will not run for reelection. Man...
Jan 15, 2026•53 min
AI in the Modern Age. (Shutterstock / Shutterstock) 15 with UK AI and machine learning researcher, Dr. Brent Harrison taking us under the hood to better understand how the technology works. From there, we’ll explore its rapidly expanding presence in our lives. A state legislative task force was recommending a list of ten AI safeguards. President Trump, however, has signed an executive order blocking states from enforcing their own AI regulations. With the 2026 legislative session getting underwa...
Jan 08, 2026•53 min
Native American Voting Rights Demonstration in Washington, D.C.(Shutterstock / Shutterstock) Part One From strict voter ID laws that don’t recognize tribal IDs, to limits on allowing others to deliver their ballots, many Native Americans face voter suppression. Our guest is Jean Schroedel, author of Voting in Indian Country: The View from the Trenches . Part Two You may be aware of the Federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, but did you know that some states have Voting Rights Acts of their own? Seve...
Jan 01, 2026•53 min
Kentucky has fallen behind on investing in Pre-Kindergarten programs.(Shutterstock / Shutterstock) At one time, an admired national leader in education, Kentucky has fallen behind. There are many consequences, but one that has a far-reaching impact is in quality childcare — Pre-Kindergarten that prepares our youngest learners for school. Sam Flynn aims to change that. He details how in this conversation with ES education contributor, Brigitte Blom. With the holidays upon us we have dipped into a...
Dec 18, 2025•53 min
Can required civic education help heal a divided nation?(shutterstock) Part One Guest: Carly Muetterties, chair of the Kentucky Civic Education Coalition, promoting civic education in public schools. She is a former high school social studies teacher, an expert in civic education, and co-founder of “Common Good Ed,” an organization that provides educational resources to diverse communities. Part Two Guest: Evan Weissman. Evan is the founder of “Warm Cookies of the Revolution,” which he refers to...
Dec 11, 2025•53 min
Not only did it happen, but there were thousands of spectators and often a carnival atmosphere as lynchings were carried out in Kentucky well into the 20th century. Sonya Lea’s “American Bloodlines” is a reckoning with one such case, documenting the 1936 public hanging spectacle of a young Black man, Rainey Bethea, in Owensboro, Kentucky. The gender gap in math widened during the pandemic. Schools are trying to make up lost ground. Education contributor Brigitte Blom gets details from Associated...
Dec 04, 2025•53 min
(Shutterstock / Shutterstock) Part One: Ben Sheehan, host, writer, and producer of “Civics Made Easy,” a series on PBS that empowers viewers with the knowledge necessary to participate in democracy. He also writes a Substack titled “Politics Made Easy.” He is the author of the best-selling book, “What Does the Constitution Actually Say?: A Non-Boring Guide to How Our Democracy is Supposed to Work.” Part Two: Dan Wu is the first Asian American to serve as Vice Mayor of Lexington. He served on num...
Nov 20, 2025•53 min
Agroforestry is intensive land-use management combining trees and/or shrubs with crops and/or livestock.(Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet) In a time when federal environmental programs and funding are being scaled back or cut altogether, what are the future prospects for students aspiring to careers in environmental fields? The Tracy Farmer Institute for Sustainability in the Environment is sponsoring a “Careers in the Environment” Career Fair on November 18. We raise that question and ge...
Nov 13, 2025•53 min
States With 2021 Redistricting Rules For Ending ‘Prison Gerrymandering’(Daniel Wood/NPR) “Eschatology” is the part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul, and of humankind. And it’s at the heart of “The Gospel Beyond the Grave: Toward a Black Theology of Hope”, the new book from Dr. Lewis Brogdon, Executive Director of the Institute for Black Church Studies at Kentucky Theological Seminary in Louisville. The book raises some important, very penetrating, pro...
Nov 06, 2025•53 min
Boo! In this Halloween edition, Marie Mitchell and Mason Smith discuss their book “Paranormal Kentucky: An Uncommon Wealth of Close Encounters with Aliens, Ghosts and Cryptids.”(Shutterstock / Shutterstock) Carolyn Dupont hosts a conversation providing thoughtful perspectives from right and left concerning the national mood. Her guests: Henry Olsen, researcher at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and Shadi Hamid, formerly with the Brookings Institution, now on the faculty at Fuller Theologica...
Oct 30, 2025•53 min
(Shutterstock / Shutterstock) Part One - Guest: Denise Lieberman Disputes over redistricting have gone into overdrive as some states have engaged in what we call mid-decade redistricting or re-redistricting. These states drew the lines for congressional seats back in 2021, which are supposed to last for the entire decade. But, spurred by President Trump, Texas redrew its map to turn five seats that were more favorable to Democrats into ones more winnable for Republicans. In response, California ...
Oct 23, 2025•53 min
Exploring the puzzles of autism.(Shutterstock / Shutterstock) This week on Eastern Standard: Autism Spectrum Disorder is a developmental condition that can affect social skills, communication, and behavior. Because it’s a spectrum, experiences vary widely — some people are nonverbal and need daily support, while others have advanced conversational skills and live independently. There is no conclusive science-based evidence of a link with taking Tylenol during pregnancy. Our guest: Lexington beha...
Oct 16, 2025•53 min
How climate change is affecting seasons.(Shutterstock / Shutterstock) On this week’s edition of Eastern Standard: What the polls indicate about voter attitudes concerning political violence is explored by ES contributor Carolyn Dupont in a conversation with Elliot Morris, former data/polling analyst for The Economist and FiveThirtyEight. Morris publishes the newsletter Strength in Numbers on Substack. Silas House has published a new murder mystery. The prolific Kentucky novelist and a former sta...
Oct 09, 2025•53 min
“A Way With Words” co-hosts Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett will be in Lexington for the 2025 Kentucky Book Festival. Barnette, a UK graduate, fills us in on the origins of the highly popular call-in public radio show about language. It’s heard across the country and around the world by broadcast and podcast. Barnette fields questions provided by the EKU English faculty as well as friends on Facebook. Nothing less than our way of knowing things is in for an update and an overhaul at EKU and ma...
Oct 02, 2025•53 min
Hardwood forests cover half of Kentucky land(Shutterstock / Shutterstock) This week on Eastern Standard: Weather forecasting. Meteorology. Why it’s critical to our well-being, and what has been happening to weather forecasting on the national level. John Bobel takes up these questions with Joe Sullivan, until his recent retirement in the wave of cutbacks to the National Weather Service, the “Warning Coordination Meteorologist” at the national weather service station in Louisville. Hardwood fores...
Sep 25, 2025•53 min
The Social Security Trust Fund is projected to become insolvent in 2032. Mike Murphy, Senior Vice President and Chief of Staff at the non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget breaks down the consequences for Kentucky beneficiaries. Hazard bookstore owner Mandi Fugate Sheffel is now out with her own book, The Nature of Pain: Roots, Recovery and Redemption Amid the Opioid Crisis. Recalling Barbara Kingsolver’s fictional Demon Copperhead, Sheffel provides a riveting account of her ow...
Sep 18, 2025•53 min
(Shutterstock / Shutterstock) Part One: People hear the phrase “civics education,” and they often think of K-12 classes in government. States have enacted laws that require high school students to pass the same citizenship test that new citizens must take. What can we do to ensure civics is not just something we discuss briefly in school but instead is a lifelong endeavor? Our first guest, Donna Cohen, is a former educator and librarian in Oregon. She runs a program called “Civics for Adults,” w...
Sep 11, 2025•53 min
A secluded bend, just before sunset, on the Dix River in Garrard County, Kentucky.(Keith Halladay) This Week on Eastern Standard Lisa McKinney of the non-partisan, non-profit Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence raises concerns about the Trump administration clawback of federal education funding and its proposal to make further cuts in the coming year. What’s in the water? That’s what Tiffany Messer, Associate Professor of Biosystems Engineering at the University of Kentucky, set out to di...
Sep 04, 2025•53 min
Everyone Has A Story(Shutterstock / Shutterstock) This week on Eastern Standard: Happenings in the Kentucky literary scene. We’re joined by Jennifer Mattox, executive director of the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning, discussing the immediate impacts of the Trump administration’s cuts in funding of the National Endowment for the Arts. Sharing the concerns raised by Mattox is novelist and educator Sherry Robinson, retired Vice Provost and Professor of English at Eastern Kentucky Universit...
Aug 28, 2025•53 min
Amphitheater in Lexington's new Gatton Park on Town Branch(Gatton Park) Eastern Standard Education Contributor Brigitte Blom and guest, RofL professor Roman Yompolskiy, on what to anticipate as AI becomes ever more present in the educational experiences of Kentucky’s youth. What does it mean to be a traditional Conservative in modern-day America? Yuval Levin of the American Enterprise Institute is a guest of Eastern Standard Contributor Carolyn Dupont. Developing Lexington as a hub of innovation...
Aug 21, 2025•53 min
The EPA is moving to relax anti-pollution controls...(Shutterstock / Shutterstock) This week on Eastern Standard: Under the Trump administration, the EPA is moving to relax anti-pollution controls and is dismantling its scientific research arm. We invited Kentucky Resources Council executive director Ashley Wilmes, an environmental attorney, to help us distill these actions down to local consequences. The increased frequency of intense rainstorms is driving the cost of homeowners' insurance up a...
Aug 14, 2025•53 min
Tori Votaw developed an interest in helping people overcome opioid addiction. She had seen it happen to too many friends and fellow students while in high school in Georgetown, Ky. Now a PhD addiction psychologist at Harvard, her work focuses on personalizing treatments for substance use and addiction. She tells us how that work is now imperiled by President Trump’s proposed FY ’26 federal budget. Education series host Brigitte Blom recently visited the Anaheim California school district and hea...
Aug 07, 2025•53 min
Can Republicans and Democrats will engage in civil, respectful conversations about the issues?(Shutterstock / Shutterstock) This week on Eastern Standard: Episode 21 of our series, Democracy Optimist, with constitutional, election law, and voting rights scholar Joshua Douglas. Our guests: Jennifer Mercieca, a historian of American political rhetoric and a Professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at Texas A&M University. She writes about American political discourse, especi...
Jul 31, 2025•53 min
As the Trump administration expands ICE arrests, detainments, and deportations, fears spread among Kentucky immigrant communities.(AP / AP) This week on Eastern Standard: As ICE continues to sign support agreements with Kentucky law enforcement agencies we get an update on the atmosphere among international communities across the Commonwealth from Nima Kulkarni, state representative, immigration employment attorney and founder of the New Americans Initiative. Javier Hernandez came to the states ...
Jul 17, 2025•53 min
Staffing is down, abuse and neglect are up at many child care centers across Kentucky(Shutterstock / Shutterstock) This week on Eastern Standard: Substantiated incidents of abuse and neglect in Kentucky child care centers are up 73% from 2022. Herald-Leader Government Accountability reporter John Cheves documents this and other troubling statistics in a three-part series on a vital service stretched thin by staff shortages. What do Nicholasville, the Kentucky Constitution, and Thomas Jefferson h...
Jul 10, 2025•53 min
(Shutterstock / Shutterstock) “Are we really just going to decide that we are going to be a divided country, and there’s going to be half of the population that we choose not to associate with?” This in-the-moment question is raised in this week’s Independence Day edition by Karissa Raskin, CEO of the Listen First Project. She is one of two guests interviewed for this episode by Eastern Standard contributor Carolyn Dupont. Also joining us is Dana Goldthwaite Young, who suggests that in reality, ...
Jul 03, 2025•53 min
A Lake Herrington sunset.( Mike Holdren) Celebrating a century: Herrington Lake, a source of hydroelectric power and a central Kentucky destination for recreation and relaxation. Tom Martin interviews Mike Holdren, author of a new book about the creation and history of the lake. Cliff Drouet is on a mission to restore forests destroyed by surface mining across Appalachia. The US Forester discusses ARRI, the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative Kathleen Driskell begins her two-year appoi...
Jun 26, 2025•43 min
(Shutterstock / Shutterstock) Are we living through a major era of change in America? For perspective, we turn to renowned professor of History Heather Cox Richardson. And we ask Mediba Dennie, Deputy Editor and Senior Contributor at the critical legal commentary outlet Balls and Strikes, what drives the Supreme Court to embrace Originalism in the Court's interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. These questions are the focus of Episode 20 of the Eastern Standard series, “Democracy Optimist,” hos...
Jun 19, 2025•53 min
A 1960s game-changer: the IBM Selectric typewriter on display at the Lexington History Museum(Lexington History Museum / Lexington History Museum) When it comes to reporting on the workings of city government, there are so many immediate issues demanding attention that it can be very easy to lose a broader perspective — what local ordinances, for example, the city council is considering, and how the council itself has gone through important changes in recent years. Eastern Standard contributor G...
Jun 12, 2025•53 min
