The 104th annual Louisiana Farm Bureau Convention kicked off in New Orleans today. Kace Kieschick reports.
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Areas of Southeast Louisiana, including the greater New Orleans area, were among the hardest hit from the storms. Joe Gallinaro reports.
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The Louisiana Farm Bureau convention kicked off today, with a record 16-hundred farmers and their families expected to attend. The four-day event will host Labor, Environmental, Farm-to-Table and Commodity Conferences. Bureau Communications Director Avery Davidson says the convention is always the most important event of the year.
U.S. Senate candidates Julia Letlow, John Fleming, Jamie Davis and Gary Crockett will all be in attendance. Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser, Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Mike Strain and Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple are all scheduled to speak as well. Davidson says any time this big a group of engaged voters gets together, it’s bound to attract lawmakers.
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It won’t be all business, though. Davidson says the convention is a family-friendly event. He says that’s what makes the Louisiana Farm Bureau different from others across the country; just like the rest of the state, they like to have a good time.
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While Tropical Storm Arthur did not pack any damaging winds, it did dump large amounts of rain throughout South Louisiana – enough to overwhelm drainage pumps. National Weather Service Meteorologist Phil Grigsby says areas south of New Orleans were among those especially hit hard.
Grigsby says the same is also true for areas further north.
Of course, the heavy rains weren’t limited to the New Orleans area. Grigsby says as you go further north and west, the rainfall totals in some areas were even greater.
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Terrebonne Parish was among the parishes that sustained the heaviest damage from the storm. Earl Eues (“youzz”), the director of the Terrebonne Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, says the damage was not only from flood waters, but also from tornadoes.
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Eues says the rain came down so hard and so fast that it overwhelmed the parish’s flood control system.
Eues says while those waters ended up inside some homes, no mandatory evacuations were needed. He says the weather should allow crews to focus on recovery today.
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The Protect College Sports Act passed through the Senate Commerce Committee and now heads to the U.S. Senate floor. The bipartisan bill provides antitrust exemptions to the NCAA to enforce nationwide regulations on revenue sharing, N-I-L deals and the college transfer portal. Tiger Rag Editor Glenn Guilbeau says it can restore some order in the legal jungle college athletics has become.
Most recently, a Lubbock County judge filed an injunction against the NCAA after it ruled Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby permanently ineligible for placing over nine thousand bets, including at least 40 on his own team. The injunction would have allowed Sorsby to play this season before he declared for the NFL Supplemental Draft.
Despite advocating for congressional support, the SEC and Big Ten have firmly opposed the bill. It allows for the pooling of certain media rights to support revenue for women’s and Olympic sports and smaller schools. Guilbeau says the owners of the most valuable media asset in college sports don’t want to give that up.
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Texas Republican Ted Cruz, who authored the bill along with Washington Democrat Maria Cantwell, said his goal was to get the bill to the Senate floor in July and signed into law before this school year. Guilbeau says this is the furthest any college sports-related bill has made it, and he thinks it has a good chance of making it to the House.