I think it's primarily education. Public education is a big issue in eastern Kentucky in part because it's a big employer and in part because our grandparents pushed it as a way to escape the mines. In contrast with most of the rest of the South churches in eastern Kentucky, especially the Old Regular Baptists, have a strong history of supporting public education. The elementary school I went to was donated by my grandparent's congregation. Both of the Republican governors elected in my lifetime had their political careers ended by attacking education and educators.

I also think pandemic politics was at best a wash in this election. Our older and middle aged voters remember or grew up being told about family members that were severely affected or killed by diseases we vaccinate against now. Eastern Kentucky still has serious issues accessing medical care and takes childhood vaccination seriously. Vaccine denial didn't land here like it did elsewhere. On top of that Kentucky did much better under Beshear than the surrounding states that had more conservative governors and more conservative pandemic policies. The pandemic policies and his Team Kentucky updates are what originally made Beshear one of the most popular governors in the US. He went into the election with an in-state approval rating of about 60%.

Beshear won a collection of Appalachian counties and 2 of the 3 counties in the Cincinnati metro. The eastern counties were the difference between the Governor's race and the rest of the races on the ballot. Here's the election page from a local TV station with a really nice interface. Tap the individual counties for county level vote totals.

https://www.wlwt.com/article/ohio-election-results-november-2023-issue-one/45688445

Trump's trials need to, to the extent possible, follow the normal rules and procedures of the courts in which they are held. These are not political prosecutions, there is sufficient evidence to support all of the indictments that Trump has been charged with, but he is still a former President. Even if the prosecution decisions are not political there is an unavoidable political element to these trials, especially in terms of media coverage and public perception, which must be zealously guarded against. I do think that the prohibition on pictures and video recording should be changed but that change should go through the normal process and apply to all proceedings going forward. To make exceptions to the usual order is to invite greater politicization and distrust of the institution.

Except for Dalmer. They found his 14yo victim naked with a hole drilled into his head wondering outside of Dalmer's apartment and didn't even find it suspicious enough to keep them from helping Dalmer get the kid back into his apartment despite Dalmer having been convicted of sexually abusing the victim's 13yo brother and being in parole for that crime.

Extra policing was part of the problem that led to the gangs. Extra policing targeted at an outgroup means every issue big or small is met with violence and imprisonment. The paternalistic overuse of the criminal justice system leads to the people losing trust in police and in the system. They still need someone to provide community structure, to settle disputes, and to offer some degree of protection and gangs are the homegrown solution to fulfilling that need. Extra social workers and community organizers that are from that community would do a lot better than extra police.

McCarthy allowing the CR to be voted on was at the end of a long attempt to do everything he could to go back on the deal he made with Democrats to pass the bill to raise the debt ceiling and didn't fulfill his side of the bargain. There's no both sidesing this mess. The Republicans have decided that they would rather be held hostage by an extremist minority in their party than negotiate in good faith with Democrats so McCarthy was running between the extremists and Democrats making and breaking deals with both trying to string them both along so that he could remain in power. If he had kept his debt ceiling deal and/or made a real attempt to build a bipartisan coalition he might have gotten some support from Democrats.

I don't hate some older religious music.

Any Senator that thinks this deserves any attention at all prior to passing budget and avoiding or more likely ending a shutdown is unfit for their office. Worrying over what your coworkers are wearing instead of dealing with an eminent crisis demonstrates poor judgement and an inability to properly prioritize your duties. If something like this does reach a vote before a budget is in place for the next fiscal year I would hope a majority of Senators would vote present in protest of the body's failure to act in the best interests of the nation.

To avoid price collapse and still sell it they could create a generic label to bottle it under and export it. They could probably sell it near the original price in the US with a good marketing campaign.

Fevers are your body fighting the infection so unless it gets too high you should just let it do it's thing. Keeping the fever will shorten the duration of a mild or moderate illness. If your fever gets up to 102-103f or ~39c take medicine to reduce it, if it hits 105f or 40c then you are in danger of cooking you brain and should go to the ER. Stay well hydrated, getting some electrolytes is a good idea if you are sweating more than usual or vomiting. Eat regularly, your body is using extra calories to fight the infection so even if you activity level is lower you need the same or a little more calories than normal. The more balanced your diet the better. Have something to do. Don't just focus on the illness and lay around getting bored, do some light housework, engage is a light hobby, catch up on some TV or movies, replay an old favorite video game. Anything to keep your mind engaged and to make the time pass faster.

I'd go with something safe for the gift like a non food gift or, because nearly all religious food restrictions are related to animal products, a vegan safe gift. Then I would ask them to a dinner/game night. When you invite them you can say that you were a little nervous about asking because you don't know much about halal and set up a day where you can cook together. Gives you a chance to learn a little more about them and build the friendship.

Can we define a small town? The ones in his video have populations of around 150k which I would argue isn't a small town. That's a little over the combined population of seven counties were I live or about 165% of the combined population of all 11 "major cities" in the Eastern Kentucky Coalfields. I say anything much over 10k in population doesn't qualify as a small town.