Wednesday, August 12, 2026
Showing mention at 4:40 — highlighted below
Transcript
22 segmentsFrom LPM, Louisville Public Media. If you run a business, you know what it takes to keep your company moving forward. Managing teams. Planning ahead. Cutting costs, but never corners. That's why LG&E and KU offer energy efficiency programs designed to make savings simple. With a whole suite of programs that help streamline your company's energy use, you'll be able to start saving energy and money in no time, no matter the size of your business. It's just one way LG&E and KU help you save more. Find out how you can start saving at LGE-KU.com slash E-E business. McDonald's is putting value back on the menu. Whether you're craving a Big Mac, McNuggets, or sausage egg and cheese McGrittles, make it a meal and save. Your favorite is now your wallet's favorite, too. Extra value meals are back. Grab an epic meal for easy money. Ten-piece McNuggets or filial fish served with medium fries and a medium cope, all for just $8. Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing. Bar-da-pa-papa-pa. It's Wednesday, August 12th. I'm Bill Burton. Here's the latest from LPM News. The University of Kentucky and Murray State University will offer bachelor's degrees and artificial intelligence this fall. Lily Burris has details. UK and Murray State have launched the degrees in response to the changing workforce and student interest, officials say. UK professor Brent Harrison says the degree covers AI foundations, older and modern versions, and industry ethics. One of the things that I hear sometimes is, is this just a degree on how to use chat GPT? It's like, no, this is really understanding the ins and outs of AI from both a foundational perspective as well as an application perspective. UK has 33 students enrolled in the program for the fall. It's very similar to computer science, so students should be able to easily transfer between the programs. Harrison says graduates will be able to get similar jobs to those available to computer science majors. I'm Lily Burris in Lexington. Indiana's middle schoolers are struggling with math and English, but the state's youngest readers are continuing to make gains. Caroline Beck reports on the latest scores for the state's I learn and I read test.
Tuesday's results showed that I-read scores have improved for the fifth year in a row. For the state's assessment on grades 3 through 8 on math and English, it is harder to tell how students are doing. That's because this year's scores set the new benchmark for I-Learn after the test went through changes and new state academic standards were established. Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner says now they're working towards improvement. And our goal will be to take that baseline where we see it today and we will work to improve across the board just like you've seen us do with reading. New A to F letter grades are also expected to be given out to schools later this year after being on a five-year hiatus. I'm Caroline Beck in Indianapolis. Louisville's time slip theater is known for its horror theme stage plays. As LPM's Giselle Rodin reports, the group is launching its 2026-27 season this month. A dinner party, a passing comment, and a whole lot of secrets set the stage for Timeslip Theater's production of coherence. It's based on a 2013 sci-fi thriller film under the same name. An artistic director, Remy Sisk, says it's the perfect show to kick off their new season. That show really helped us identify who Time Slip is. Twilight Zone, the eerie stuff, that feel really almost came from how much we loved and gravitated toward coherence. Time Slip will perform at its permanent home. home at a 200-year-old church in Old Louisville. Cisks says they've updated the building with performance spaces that they'll use throughout the season. Coherence will run Friday, August 14th through Sunday the 23rd. I'm Gisle Rodin in Louisville. The Red Cross has declared its second-ever national blood supply crisis after donations hit a four-year summer low. I spoke with John Davis, the district manager for the Regional Red Cross Blood Services Group, about the effects of the shortage. a national blood supply crisis, just how low is the supply? Yeah, so we do our best to maintain a certain benchmark across all of our distribution depots. And at this point in time, we've really diminished that supply to about a half-day supply of the more transfusable blood types, like O positive for that matter. And how much do you generally like to have on hand? We're much happier to be around 6x that number, friend. About a three-day supply is traditionally where we are. So a shortage to this degree is, as you've cited already, pretty unconventional. So tell us about the effects of having a blood supply that low. It's challenging, right? So both life-saving and particularly the more life-altering procedures, those that are... that are a little bit more optional, let's say, are placed on pause and folks who really do rely on blood to improve the quality of their lives are in a position to simply wait until we can get to a better position. What's causing this shortage? What a great question, Bill. So I would say we're in a spot where some of it is conventional, right? So the summer happens and folks step away from habit.
They're traveling, they're vacationing. They're in positions where rather than rolling up a sleeve to help out at work or otherwise, they're spending quality time with their families. So that certainly is real, but... But for reasons that we can't quite figure out just yet, we've seen an additional decline in donorship on top of what's conventional to summer months. So not something that we've fully been able to gauge, but something that's very much real. June, for example, about 25% fewer donations than what is normal. And the things in June are certainly relevant to us in the month of August as well. How do you go about trying to get people to roll up their sleeves and donate again? It's really what we're doing right now. So much of it is education, so much of it is awareness, awareness spreading, really highlighting that things are bad. I would say especially bad for that matter. You know, people truly do care about other people. So really, it's opportunities like what we're working our way through right here right now. And in addition to that, I would say... the return to normalcy, folks making their way back from time spent elsewhere with friends and family, students in particular in high schools are really going to be central characters to that particular conversation and initiative. You said this is low even for summer when summer is usually a bit more depressed. What about fall, winter, spring? Have you seen declines there or is that holding steady? That's a great question. So our team is really well positioned to navigate the fall and winter at current and lots of reason to feel optimistic that things are going to look much shinier as we move through those months. That's John Davis. He's the district manager for the Regional Red Cross Services Group. John, thanks for the information. Thank you so much, Bill. You can read more news at LPM.org. I'm Bill Burton. Thanks for listening.