Early voting has wrapped up in Louisiana and nearly a million votes have been cast ahead of the November 3rd election. Matt Doyle has the story.
________________________________
An LSU-Health Sciences Center study shows more women in the state are receiving breast cancer diagnoses sooner due to Medicaid expansion. Brooke Thorington has more.
Cut 2 (30) “…I’m Brooke Thorington”
__________________________________________
48 hours ago forecasts projected Zeta would be at a category one when it made landfall. It made landfall near Cocodrie yesterday as a near cat 3. Matt Doyle asks a climatologist what happened…
_______________________________
Nearly one million early votes have been cast in Louisiana for the November 3rd Presidential Election.
JMC Analytics pollster John Couvillon says between early voting and mail-in ballots 964,000 votes have been cast, shattering 2016’s record of 531,000. He says there’s a number of reasons why…
146,000 of those early votes were by mail. Couvillon anticipates about another 40,000 mail-in ballots have yet to be counted which would put us above a million total early votes cast.
Couvillon says the early vote was marginally more Democratic than in past years, showing an increase in Democratic enthusiasm relative to Republicans, but not substantially so.
Early voting ended on Tuesday.
Couvillon estimates that we could see 73 percent total participation for the November 3rd election. He disagrees with analysts who say early voting isn’t indicative of total participation.
That would put early votes at 45 percent of the total vote.
_____________________________
An LSU-Health Sciences Center Study shows more women in Louisiana are receiving breast cancer diagnoses and treatment because of Medicaid expansion. Lead Author Dr. Quyen (Quinn) Chu says they compared breast cancer rates before and after ACA expansion in 2016 and it’s led to a 27-percent increase in early-stage diagnosis.
Chu says the data is additional evidence that Medicaid expansion works. Chu says the national average of uninsured is 8.9-percent, after ACA expansion in Louisiana the uninsured rate for the state is below the national average at 8-percent.
Cut 8 (11) “…is 17.7 percent.”
The study compared breast cancer data among women in Louisiana from 2012 to 2018. It showed after Medicaid expansion in 2016 more than 91-thousand women received breast cancer screenings for the first time and more than a thousand were diagnosed with breast cancer as a result.
Chu says they plan to compare data of other common medical conditions before and after Medicaid expansion.
________________________
Zeta’s rapid and unexpected strengthening caught a lot of people off guard, going from an expected weak category one at landfall on Tuesday forecasts to a near cat three by landfall Wednesday.
State Climatologist Barry Keim says the truth is forecasters just aren’t very good at predicting how powerful a system will become.
Keim says there was good reason to believe Zeta was going to remain a relatively tame system.
Keim says despite missing the call on how strong Zeta would be forecasters did nail the fact that it would make landfall in southeast Louisiana as far back as this weekend when it was in the Caribbean.
___________________
500-thousand are without power* in Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Zeta which made landfall just after 4 PM yesterday near Cocodrie.
Entergy spokesperson Brandon Scardigli warns there could be some prolonged outages.
Scardigli says they have 4,500 workers springing into action to bring the lights back on and hopefully those worst-case projections won’t be true for most.
Scardgili says the immediate post-storm period can be dangerous and if you see any compromised electrical equipment keep your distance.
_______________________
After ending UAB’s 21-game home winning streak last Friday, U-L Lafayette is back on the road this Saturday for a matchup with Texas State. The Cajuns are 4-and-1 on the season, but Coach Billy Napier says there is still room for improvement…
cut 16 (23) “ next opportunity”
Texas State comes into the game with a 1-and-6 record and their only win came against ULM. They play two quarterbacks, Tyler Vitt and Brady McBride. Napier says McBride started his college career at Memphis
_____________________________________________________
Now that Hurricane Zeta is out of here, the Saints will continue preparations today for Sunday’s game against the Chicago Bears. The Bears 5-and-2 and they’ve defended the pass well this season. Coach Sean Payton says Chicago has an excellent secondary…
cut 18 (16) ” and they are smart”
No precipitation is in the forecast for Sunday, but it’s expected to be very windy inside Soldier Field on Sunday.
______________________________________________
LSU will play the Auburn Tigers on the road Saturday and freshman T.J. Finley may lead the offense again. Coach Ed Orgeron says Myles Brennan’s injury continues to keep him on the sidelines.
Finley seems to have earned the trust of the team after his stellar performance against South Carolina, and Orgeron says what stood out the most was the poise that the young quarterback showed.