Lafayette’s own local celebrity, 23-year-old MacKenzie Bourg, will find out tonight if he’ll advance to the Top 3 on the final season of American Idol. Michelle Southern reports…:
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The Senate Labor Committee has approved the bill to increase the state’s minimum wage to $8.00 an hour in 2017 and then to $8.50 in 2018. Halen Doughty has more…
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A bill to allow hunters to wear blaze pink in addition to hunter’s orange passes out of the House. Author of the legislation Bogalusa Rep. Malinda White says all this does is give another option that has been proven to be safer. She says Wisconsin has already passed this law and other states are looking into doing the same…
White says the blaze pink attire would be simple and without embellishment to meet the 400 square inches of color requirement. She says pink will stand out in the woods.
White says men can wear blazing pink too.
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Lafayette’s own local celebrity, 23-year-old MacKenzie Bourg, will find out tonight if he’ll advance to the Top 3 on the final season of American Idol. The Fox signing competition show resumes at 7pm where the voting results from last week will be announced, at the contestant with the lowest total will be eliminated. MacKenzie’s dad, Rudy Bourg, says his son is an inspiration…:
If MacKenzie makes it through tonight, fans can vote for him by texting “7″ to 21523, call 1-866-IDOLS-07 or online at american-idol-dot-com-slash-vote. Lots of folks from Acadiana will be on tonight’s show from footage taken at MacKenzie’s homecoming parade last Saturday in Lafayette. Thousands of fans gathered for the celebration and Mr. Bourg says it was absolutely surreal…:
Mackenzie made local headlines when he made it onto “The Voice” during season 3, but was eliminated in the live rounds. Mr. Bourg says it’s incredible that five years ago his son was fighting for his life due to a sudden illness, and now he’s where he’s at today…:
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The bill to increase the state’s minimum wage to $8.00 an hour beginning next year, and then to $8.50 in 2018 passed out of the Senate Labor Committee with a 4-3 vote. Governor John Bel Edwards testified in support of increasing the minimum wage today. Edwards says Louisiana households are unable to afford their basic necessities. He says it’s not just high school and college students who are working for minimum wage.
The bill now heads to the Senate floor. Edwards says this is an investment in Louisiana families, which is an investment in our state as a whole. He says this slight increase in minimum wage would help solve the problem of childhood poverty in the state.
Baton Rouge business owner Mark Johnson opposes the increase because he says it would impact small businesses production costs.
Johnson says this would leave business owners with difficult decisions about absorbing the new costs.
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Even though Republican US Senator David Vitter is leaving office at the end of this year, he’s still holding town hall meetings across the state getting feedback from voters. Vitter held a town hall meeting in Ascension parish this morning, and he will have another one today in Rapides parish. Vitter says he’s hearing primarily about jobs and highway improvements.
Vitter says during his final year in office he will be focusing on chemical safety reform and improving infrastructure access. He says he still plans on getting out of politics once his term ends in January.
There are eight well-known candidates that are running for the open seat. Vitter doesn’t plan on making any endorsements for the US Senate race until after the primaries.
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