Twenty-five years after a newborn baby was found dead in Jeanerette, Iberia Parish Sheriff deputies arrested a 50-year-old woman in the death of Baby Jane Doe. Major Wendell Raborn says DNA from the infant matched a family member of Sonia Charles and follow up police work led to deputies getting a DNA sample from Charles
Charles was booked into the Iberia Jail for First Degree Murder.
Census Bureau numbers show Louisiana’s poverty rate dropped from 19.7 percent in 2017 to 18.6 percent last year. That’s dropped Louisiana from the 2nd most impoverished state in the nation to the 3rd. Louisiana Budget Project Executive Director Jan Moller says it’s a great improvement, but we have a long way to go.
Louisiana is one of seven states under a federally declared fishing disaster, which makes state anglers and businesses eligible to request assistance from a 165 million dollar Congressionally approved fund. LDWF Biologist Administrator Jason Froeba says the state was included due to the devastating impact of the Bonnet Carre’s prolonged opening resulting from record high Mississippi River levels.
Mississippi and Alabama were the only other southern states to receive the declaration.
The US drought monitor currently lists five percent of the state in severe drought and 13-percent in moderate drought. State Climatologist Barry Keim says hopefully a cold front will bring in more fall-like temps and some rain, but not too much at once.
Keim says there is very little rain in the forecast for the next week.