A Pittsburgh little league practice became a lifelong memory Monday night when ex-LSU star and Pirates ace Paul Skenes decided to drop in on his day off. Kace Kieschnick reports
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Louisiana’s youngest students made great strides in reading proficiency. Andrew Greenstein reports.
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A little league team in the north suburbs of Pittsburgh got a surprise visit from the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner Monday evening. Paul Skenes was driving by Ingomar Franklin Park when he saw the lights on for a little league practice and decided to check it out. Eddie Dubis, a coach in the league and father of two of the kids, says it only took a few minutes for the 6-6 superstar to be noticed.
Cut 3 (10) “…two hours.”
Skenes stayed to take pictures, sign autographs and play catch on his day off. Dubis says what started as a group of 30 or 40 kids quickly tripled and it’s an experience his 11 and 13-year-old sons will never forget.
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Dubis compared the drop-in to Micky Mantle or Willie Mayes playing ball with kids in the 60s and 70s but said it’s something you don’t see from modern athletes. He says Paul Skenes is baseball in Pittsburgh.
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Skenes followed the visit with a start at PNC Park against the Dodgers last night. He allowed just six hits and two runs in six innings and struck out seven in one of his best outings in nearly a month. The Pirates lost 12-3.
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The Department of Education says literacy screening results show that at the end of the school year, more than 66-percent of students from kindergarten through third grade were reading at or above grade level — an increase of more than 16 percentage points from the start of the school year. John Wyble, the CEO of the Center for Literacy and Learning, says this increase can be attributed to a return to the science of reading.
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The Center worked with many school districts to improve their students’ literacy; and each one had more than 71-percent of their K-through-3 students reading at or above grade level at the end of the year. Wyble says the progress can also be attributed to schools diligently staying on top of students’ progress in their reading abilities.
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Wyble says the Center for Literacy and Learning has been working with many of the school districts where students have shown great improvement in reading.
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Kindergartners showed the greatest progress, with 69-percent of students reading at or above grade level at the end of the school year, compared to just 29-percent at the start of the year.
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An 80-million-dollar Faith Technologies Incorporated manufacturing facility is coming to Monroe. Construction is already underway and expected to be completed spring 2027. Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Susan Bourgeois says the facility will produce electrical assemblies and energy solutions to ship to project sites along the I-20 corridor.
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The 500,000-square-foot facility will be the first Louisiana location for FTI. The company has navigated the engineering, construction, manufacturing and clean energy sectors since 1972. Bourgeois says welcoming them to the area is a big win for Monroe.
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Louisiana has already seen massive investments into data centers in Richland Parish, Rapides Parish and the Shreveport Bossier area. Bourgeois says these investments are the meeting point between the history and future of the Louisiana economy.
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For the second time in three days, a shooting rocks an East Baton Rouge Parish school. A student was shot while leaving Baker High School this morning. Preston Castille, the president and CEO of Helix Community Schools, the charter school network that Baker High School belongs to, says it happened while summer school was in session.
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That student is hospitalized in stable condition, and a suspect is in custody. Castille says while he cannot say for certain, the fact that this is the second shooting at the school in three days leads him to believe that the incidents are related, and that’s very troubling.
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Castille says as such, all activities and in-person instruction have been cancelled.
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No word as to when the Baker High School campus will reopen.