Today, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear
will visit Mayfield in Western Kentucky
to get a first hand look at the city's
flood damages from over the weekend.
The city received an estimated foot of
rain due to heavy rainfall on Tuesday.
It's been more than a year and a half since
that same area was devastated by tornadoes.
Governor Beshear is set to
meet with Mayfield's mayor at
the city's elementary school,
where he'll speak on that flood
at 2:30 this afternoon.
Kentucky State auditor is launching
a special investigation into two
natural disaster relief funds.
It'll review the management of the
Western Kentucky tornado and Eastern
Kentucky flooding disaster funds.
Combined,
the two have raised more than $65 million.
Several lawmakers wrote a letter to the
auditor suggesting an investigation.
In his most recent Team Kentucky update,
however,
Governor Beshear made it clear
the process of the disaster funds
has been fully transparent.
We'll provide the documents
to anybody. Absolutely anyone.
Every transaction, every decision,
every place a check was mailed,
every place that received it.
That's what is available not just
to the legislature or or an auditor,
but to each and every Kentuckian.
The auditor will issue a report of
any management weaknesses he finds,
but there is no deadline for
when that will be complete. I've
got you
under my skin.
Today, the world's at a
loss without Tony Bennett.
The legendary singer died today after
a career that spanned 7 decades,
from making teenagers scream
in the 1950s to his recent tour
with Lady Gaga Back in 2014,
Bennett died in his New York
home at the age of 96.
Today he was the last of the
great saloon singers devoted
to classic American songs, Fly
Me to the Moon. Tony Bennett was a singer,
singer for more than 60 years.
He played his voice like a beautiful
instrument and with a passion
that led Frank Sinatra to call
him the best in the business.
Well, you know, Sinatra
was my best friend.
They gave me the best advice.
He was 10 years my elder
and he was my master.
You know what he said?
Stay away from bad songs, He said.
Just do great songs.
And he did. Singing classics
from what he called the
Great American Songbook.
One song stood out above all others.
I left my heart,
San Francisco.
It became his signature and won him the
first of more than a dozen Grammys.
Ironically, Bennett was born in New York,
the son of a grocer and a seamstress.
He was performing by the
age of 10 and painting too.
He became a very accomplished painter. I've
always had to sing and I had to
paint the two things that I love.
There were tough times in the mid 60s.
There wasn't much demand for Bennett
style of music, so he tried acting
anyhow. I know Frankie.
He won't be back.
The movie flopped, as did his two marriages.
But in the 1980s, with his son's help,
Bennett resurrected his career and
found a new audience in the MTV generation.
He's saying duets with
Elton John, Amy Winehouse
and Lady Gaga.
Bennett was even featured
on The Simpsons. Hey, good
to see you. As he celebrated
his 80th birthday,
happy birthday again, thank you very much.
Bennett was hip again and having the
time of his life. But at age 90,
a devastating Alzheimer's diagnosis,
his family saying the disease
progressed rapidly with the weight of
isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Still, he continued singing When
there are clouds in the sky,
his wife, Susan, opening up to AARP magazine.
I just chopped it up to, you know,
old age. And so I said, well,
we'll put the names of the
musicians on the piano for you so
you can just kind of look over.
And it was Tony that said, yeah,
I'd like to go see the doctor.
The secret, Bennett has said,
is loving what you do.
Will shine for me,
Reena Roy, ABC News, New York,
and Tony Bennett,
survived by his wife, Susan Benedetto,
his four kids and 9 grandchildren.
Tonight at 5:00, we'll have a fun look
back at Bennett's visit to Churchill
Downs during the Kentucky Derby years ago.
It's a fun one.
Former President Donald Trump will
now stand trial in May on charges
he mishandled classified material.
A judge just scheduled
that trial for May 20th,
the compromise date later than
prosecutors had sought but sooner than
the indefinite delay requested by Trump.
He pleaded not guilty in June to 37
criminal accounts related to his
handling of classified documents,
which included US nuclear secrets,
to the nation's defense capabilities.
He had denied all charges and denounced
the probe is a political witch hunt.
Over in Bowling Green right now,
fire crews are at a fire to
historic building also home to
Senator Rand Paul's capital office.
The fire department says crews were called
to that building around 1:45 this morning,
finding large flames and heavy smoke.
No one was injured in the cause of
that fire is under investigation.
We'll keep you posted.
A Charles Town man is facing
child *********** charges.
Indiana State Police arrested 62 year
old Kevin Lee Devine just yesterday.
They said he was sharing pornographic
images of kids with an undercover detective.
After a month long investigation,
police got a search warrant for his home
where they said they found marijuana,
weapons and illicit photos of child
sex abuse on an electronic device.
Devine is also facing drug and
gun charges as a felon.
He's currently in the Clark County Jail.
A four year old boy's recovering
after a car hit him in Pekin IN.
Police say it happened Wednesday night
around 9:15 on South Horner's Chapel Rd.
We're told the boy was hit by a
car in the driveway of a home.
Witnesses say he had run toward
that car while it was being driven
by a juvenile family member.
The boy slipped and fell under the rear tire.
He was taken to Norton Children's Hospital.
The incident remains under investigation.
There's more uncertainty this
afternoon when it comes to the
future of the controvers.
National Castleman statue It took
center stage Thursday before the
Historic Landmark Commission.
A judge recently ruled the city
does not need to put that statue
back in Cherokee triangle,
allowing the Commission to
decide what to put there instead.
During that meeting,
the city's General council addressed
reasons the original statue
cannot be reinstalled,
saying it would likely get vandalized
again and cost more upkeep.
As you know, the statue was
graffitied several times.
It was cleaned once at
significant cost to the taxpayers,
and every time that the statue is cleaned,
it it also the cleaning itself causes
potential damage and degradation
of the structural integrity.
In another meeting Thursday,
the Planning Commission also
discussed the future of that statue.
Steve Weiser from Friends of Public Art,
which is that group fighting its removal,
was at that meeting.
He told us he's pleased the
Planning Commission took itself
out of the decision making.
But he also said with the city still
determined not to put Castleman back,
legal action will continue.
We at this moment to be named the
permanent chief of LMPD is just it's
just so humbling, it's rewarding.
It it just took me back to the days
when I first started in policing
that this journey has now led here.
LMPD, as you know, has a new and
permanent chief in Jacqueline Gwyn,
Billy Royale. As soon as we got
the word on levels new Chief,
we went to community activists in
our city to get their reaction.
And one of them, Pastor Tim Finley Junior.
He's the CEO of Elder Serve
who also ran for mayor.
Finley shook her hand shortly
after that announcement yesterday.
He said the new chief can help serve the
city by being available and transparent
with community members and by making
true connections when she meets people.
We've been promised transparency
and I think today is a.
Is a day of cautious optimism.
You know, we have someone
who has been in the job,
someone that we want to see succeed,
but there are there are a
lot of unanswered questions
now. One lingering question we did have
was if LMPD would meet its sixty day
deadline to release body camera video of
the incidents mentioned in the DOJ report.
Chief Billy Real said she's going through
all 62 cases mentioned in that report to see
if any further officer disciplines needed.
Mayor Greenberg said they will release all
of the videos within the next two weeks,
but will likely miss next Tuesday's deadline.
The chief is one of the
highest paid Metro employees.
Right now, her salary is $238,000 a year.
That's the same as her former chief,
Erica Shields. As interim chief,
she made 216,000 a year.