New LEAP test results – showing a decline in literacy – have one state lawmaker saying “I told you so,” after his literacy & retention bill failed to pass this year. Mandeville Republican Representative Richard Nelson’s bill to hold 3rd graders back a year if they continuously failed reading assignments failed to win passage. He says, despite objections from colleagues, the same law worked well for our neighbor to the east…:
Cut 10 (11) “…out of the water.”
The LEAP results show that 41 percent of 4th-grade students read below their grade level.

Federal officials say nationally, traffic deaths from January through March of this year were the highest since 2002. State Department of Transportation spokesman Rodney Mallet says Louisiana numbers are slightly down from last year. But 194 traffic deaths in Louisiana through the first quarter of this year is still very high
Cut 7 (:11) “…driving distracted”

The Apple TV series Five Days at Memorial is based on actual events during Hurricane Katrina. Brooke Thorington has more from the book’s author.
Cut 1 (32) “…I’m Brooke Thorington.”