Governor Edwards and Colonel Lamar Davis officially broke ground on the site of the new State Police Crime Lab this morning. Brooke Thorington has more.
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A revised US drought monitor shows 88-percent of the state is under extreme or exception drought. Jeff Palermo has the story…
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Governor John Bel Edwards and Colonel Lamar Davis officially broke ground on the site of the new State Police Crime Lab this morning. The new state-of-the-art facility will replace the existing lab that’s four decades old. Davis says it’s more challenging to solve crimes in an old facility…
And while it’s called the State Police Crime Lab, Governor Edwards says 200 agencies in Louisiana routinely submit evidence in addition to LSP investigations.
In the past year alone, the lab has taken on more than 16-thousand new cases and it’s often the data processed that will decide one’s guilt or innocence. In addition to solving crimes, Edwards says the facility plays another vital role…
The new facility will be constructed on the grounds of State Police Headquarters in Baton Rouge. It’s expected to cost up to $100 million and be completed in three years.
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It’s National Adoption Month and the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services and First Lady Donna Edwards honored 465 families who have adopted 619 children from foster care this year. DCFS Secretary Terri Ricks says the ultimate goal is to find safe and permanent homes and families for children through adoption.
Of the 465 families adopting, 133 are single parents who adopted 175 of the 619 children. During Governor John Bel Edwards’s administration, there have been nearly six thousand adoptions.
This year’s Adoption Award winners include two Adoptive Families of the Year, two Community Partners of the Year, Advocate of the Year, Adoption Worker of the Year, and Adoption Region of the Year. Ricks encourages Louisianans to become a nurturing family for a child in need of a safe home.
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DOTD is expecting it will take another two weeks to repair portions of Interstate 55 damaged by the 168-vehicle pileup that killed seven people in St. John the Baptist Parish. I-55 South is currently open but spokesperson Rodney Mallet says they’ll need to shut it down for a six-hour period this weekend where traffic is currently reduced to one lane.
Crews will switch lane closures near the crash site. Mallet says traffic will taper down to the right lane near the crash site as crews begin to repair the left lane. Mallet says traffic will taper down to the right lane near the crash site as crews begin to repair the left lane.
I-55 northbound remains closed. Mallet says partial deck replacement is needed. He say contractors will start next week and repairs could take up to two weeks to complete.
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Today’s updated U-S drought monitor shows Louisiana remains the epicenter for drought in the United States. State Climatologist Barry Keim says 99-percent of Louisiana is in some stage of drought…
Keim says since August 1st, on average only five inches of rain has fallen across the state.
The weather forecast for the next week does not call for any significant chance of rain. Keim says an El Nino climate pattern is expected to continue into the winter and he says that should result about normal precipitation