Former Louisiana House Speaker Joe Salter has died at the age of 82. Salter was an educator from Sabine Parish and spent 22 years in the House. He served as House Speaker from 2004 to 2008 when Kathleen Blanco was governor. Political analyst Bernie Pinsonat remembers Salter as a friendly man.
Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser hopes that the new Mardi Gras service between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama, leads to an expansion of passenger rail service throughout Louisiana. He said he’d like to see service from Baton Rouge to New Orleans and then Baton Rouge to Shreveport and a line that crosses north Louisiana along I-20.
Drivers headed to Texas on I-10 early Saturday morning found themselves having to dodge unexpected obstacles up above. Cables dangling from a construction crane caused four crashes, in which two people suffered minor injuries. State Trooper Henry Perez says 37-year-old Matthew Vincent of Vinton decided to hop into the idle crane in the median near Highway 108, about eight miles from the Texas state line, and moved the cables over the westbound lanes.
Cut 7 (12) “…on an Interstate.”
Perez says investigators were led to Vincent after finding the key fob to his disabled pickup truck inside the crane.