A tornado touched down Sunday morning in the Sabine Parish community of Peason; doing extensive damage and injuring at least six people. Sabine sheriff’s deputies say, however, no one is reported dead. The National Weather Service says the twister was an EF-2 in magnitude, with a base a half-mile wide in places. At least 30 homes, businesses and farm structures were badly damaged.

Louisiana colleges and universities are making sweeping changes to their sexual misconduct policies after new state laws were passed last year. Higher Education Commissioner Kim Hunter Reed says one big change is that virtually ALL staff and faculty are now mandatory reporters, should they be aware of sexual harassment or assault…:

CUT 11(06)      “…grounds for termination”

The 2021 legislature took action last year when LSU was found to have failed in addressing widespread sexual abuse complaints. Dr. Reed says since that time, there has been extensive training of employees on hearing such complaints and acting accordingly

A 5-year-old boy was pronounced dead Sunday, after he was found unresponsive in a swimming pool at a Lake Charles home. Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s deputies say foul play is not suspected and categorize the death as a tragic accident.

The Louisiana National Guard is continuing to support COVID missions around the state in 2022, at the direction of Governor John Bel Edwards. Cindy Haygood is the Task Force COVID commander with the Guard. She says the Omicron surge has led to a huge increase in test site demand throughout the state…:

CUT 04(11)      “…out there.”

Haygood says Guardsmen have administered more than 542,000 COVID tests, 206,300 vaccines since the start of the pandemic