The University of New Orleans is now LSU New Orleans, as the school officially moves to the LSU system today. Jeff Palermo has the story.
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Louisiana Tech is officially a Sun Belt Conference member. Kace Kieschnick has more.
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Now that the State Supreme Court has upheld a lower court’s decision to throw out the first-degree murder conviction against a West Monroe man in connection with the death of his girlfriend’s daughter, where does the case go from here? Andrew Greenstein reports.
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The University of New Orleans is no more. The school rejoins the LSU system today; and thus, it is now known as LSU New Orleans. University officials believe the LSU brand can help return the school to being a research and workforce engine. It starts with boosting enrollment, and interim chancellor Jeanette Weiland says tuition rates that are affordable will help it attract more students.
Before Hurricane Katrina, the school had an enrollment of 17-thousand. It’s now down to five-thousand, and they are pushing for an enrollment of six-thousand this fall. Weiland says their recruiting efforts are not just in Louisiana; they’re looking to attract out-of-state students, and they believe the campus has a lot to offer.
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Weiland says the quality of the education is legit.
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Weiland says they’re also making internships in local industry a high priority, because they want LSU New Orleans graduates to remain in the metro area after graduation to help boost the region’s population.
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Louisiana Department of Insurance officials are in Avoyelles Parish, answering questions from concerned residents who are putting their lives back together from the flooding caused by last month’s historic rainfall from Tropical Storm Arthur. Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple says unfortunately the vast majority of Avoyelles Parish residents do not have flood insurance.
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Those without flood policies will either need to pay for the damage out of their own pockets, or they can hope for federal assistance. Temple says they can do their part by documenting their damage on a special website set up – disaster.la.gov.
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Some properties also sustained wind damage – and because this was caused by Tropical Storm Arthur, the named storm deductible applies. Temple points out that should those people suffer losses from another named storm before the end of the year, they might not be subject to a deductible.
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Officials will be answering questions today and tomorrow from nine until four at the LSU AgCenter in Mansura.
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Louisiana Tech is now a member of the Sun Belt Conference. The move became official today. Tech Athletic Director Ryan Ivey expects to compete for conference championships right away and welcomes the pressure of a new conference.
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The Sun Belt sent a school to the College Football Playoff last year and had back-to-back College World Series appearances.
The Bulldogs join in-state rivals ULM and UL-Lafayette in the conference. Both schools advocated for Tech to join the conference due to decreased travel costs and the renewal of historic rivalries. Ivey says they’re already seeing the impacts.
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No longer part of the weekday C-USA schedule, the Bulldogs will host six home Saturday football games for the first time since 2017.
Louisiana Tech agreed to an over eight-million-dollar exit fee with Conference USA after back-and-forth negotiations and a lawsuit the UL system filed in March. Ivey says the athletics department may be strapped for cash in the short term, but the investment will pay off quickly.
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Now that the State Supreme Court has upheld a lower court’s decision to throw out the first-degree murder conviction against a former death row inmate, where does the case go from here? Ann Ferebee is one of the lawyers representing Jimmie Duncan, who spent 27 years on death row for the death of his ex-girlfriend’s 23-month-old daughter. She says despite the conviction being thrown out, Duncan is not out of the woods just yet.
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Ferebee says whatever prosecutors decide, the clock is ticking.
Ferebee says the West Monroe man’s story from the December 1993 incident has remained consistent – Duncan says he was giving Haley Oliveaux a bath; and as he stepped away briefly to wash some dishes, he heard a splash in the bathtub and found the little girl unconscious. While new evidence suggests Haley likely died from a seizure while in the tub, prosecutors used now-discredited evidence to claim that Duncan sexually assaulted her. Ferebee says it will be up to the prosecution to decide how to proceed.
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Ferebee says if prosecutors seek to try him for negligent homicide, they’d be wasting their time, since Duncan has already served three times the maximum prison sentence for that charge.
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