As the city of Shreveport continues to struggle with a crumbling water system from last week’s winter storm state lawmakers send a care package. Brooke Thorington has more.
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The number of students that are homeschooled in Louisiana increased by 4-percent in the last year. Brooke Thorington talks to a homeschool advocate about the growing trend.
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An Oil City lawmaker proposes legislation that would do away with the need to have a concealed carry permit to carry a concealed handgun. Matt Doyle has the story.
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To assist the citizens of Shreveport as the city enters a second week with a collapsed water system Speaker of the House Clay Schexnayder along with other lawmakers helped collect 150-thousand bottles of water.
Two powerful winter storms paralyzed the city’s water system leaving 200-thousand citizens stranded. Schexnayder says the need allowed members of the legislature to lend a helping hand.
Mayor of Shreveport Adrian Perkins stated the aging infrastructure of the water system, like others in the state, wasn’t able to match Mother Nature last week. Schexnayder says this an issue the legislature will need to address to avoid similar situations in the future.
Shreveport is expected to lift its boil advisory on Friday.
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The trend of homeschooling continues to grow across the nation and increased by 4-percent in Louisiana in the last year. President of Homeschool Louisiana Christopher Chin says he believes the pandemic and more awareness about homeschooling are responsible.
Chin says the rate of homeschooling has risen in the last five years by 23% and currently more than 35-thousand students are homeschooled in Louisiana.
While Chin anticipates some of those new to homeschooling will return to the classroom post-pandemic, he also feels some will choose to stay.
Louisiana has two forms of homeschooling, both of which require families to sign up with the state Department of Education and renew annually. One is called the BESE-approved Home Study program, the other is the registered nonpublic school track not seeking state approval.
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Oil City Representative Danny McCormick introduces legislation that would allow Louisianans to carry a concealed handgun on their person without needing a concealed carry permit.
Currently to concealed carry in Louisiana, you need to take a nine-hour course and pay a 125 dollar fee for a five-year license. McCormick says that mandate infringes on constitutional rights.
A 500 dollar lifetime license option is also available.
Proponents of the license argue it provides gun owners with vital gun-safety training. McCormick says training is good, but the mandate is not.
If signed into law Louisiana would become the 19th state with a “constitutional carry” law. McCormick says he’s been told the bill has a lot of early support.
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The Public Service Commission meets today at 9 AM and first up on the agenda will be the two winter storm events that knocked out power to tens of thousands of Louisianans.
Entergy, Cleco, SWEPCO, and a handful of co-ops will be in attendance to report on what happened. Commissioner Foster Campbell says the objective is accountability.
MISO, the super-regional power authority that ordered the statewide rolling blackouts last week, will also be on hand to report to the PSC.
Many customers remain frustrated with the outages in the midst of such a historic freeze. Campbell says all that happened as providers were pulling in big profits.
Campbell says they should look into whether infrastructure needs to be better maintained to avoid situations like this in the future.
The PSC is expected to propose an investigation into the winter storm outages and allegations that natural gas providers took advantage of the situation to jack up prices.
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It didn’t take for LSU right fielder Dylan Crews to win his first SEC Freshman of the Week honor. The Florida native had an outstanding debut in his first three games to win the honor as he went 7 for 12 at the plate with two homers, 3 RBI, and two runs scored. Coach Paul Mainieri says they knew Crews could hit
Tonight the Tigers are at U-L Lafayette. Mainieri says Cajuns will be ready…
Mainieri says for now freshman Jordan Thompson will start at third base as he replaces Will Hellmers who struggled in the field.
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The Pelicans are back in action tonight at home against the Pistons coming off the high of their miraculous come from behind win over Boston Sunday.
The New Orleans came back from down 24 against the Celtics and coach Stan Van Gundy says the game was a great reminder that modern NBA games can change quickly…
Detroit has a pretty terrible team his year but still managed to whop New Orleans 123 to 112 earlier this month.
Zion Williamson has reportedly been named a Western Conference All-Star reserve, but forward Brandon Ingram did not make the cut after getting the nod last season. Van Gundy says they both deserved it…
Arena capacity for the game tonight has also been expanded to 2,700. Tipoff is set for 7 PM.