Author: manshipxgr

Published: April 23, 2020

By: Allison Kadlubar, LSU Manship School News Service

LAKE CHARLES — Lake Charles attracts visitors to its restaurants, events and outdoor adventures, but its luxury casino resorts dominate the city’s hospitality and tourism industry.

The novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, has shuttered these money-making machines for seven weeks, leaving the booming Lake Charles economically filled with uncertainties.

Tye Robinson, a bellhop at Golden Nugget Lake Charles, collected his last tips from Golden Nugget guests over a month ago.

“I would get a lot of tips, so I would use my cash on my bills and daily necessities,” he said.

(Photo credit: Augustus Stark/LSU Reveille)

Published: March 18, 2020

By: Katherine Manuel, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE — Circulation of misinformation about the coronavirus and other fake news is a threat to social-media consumers worldwide, but one LSU professor is leading a team of students to educate the public through a website.

Leonard Apcar, a professor at LSU’s Manship School of Mass Communication, founded detectfakenews.com, a site designed to inform audiences about the dangers of fake news and offer tools to identify it, including misinformation surrounding COVID-19.

LSU Professor Len Apcar has been studying fake news for several years. According to the website, identifying fake news involves checking the quotes, images, attribution, sources, bias and a website’s URL address. Apcar says media consumers should look for independent and corroborated reporting.

The site posts articles that identify fake items, and Apcar and his students update followers via a Twitter account, @detectfakenews.

One of the stories, by a French news agency, describes how social media accounts linked to Russia have launched a coordinated campaign to spread panic about the coronavirus through fake news. The article says that the Russian accounts are spreading conspiracies that the United States was behind the COVID-19 outbreak.

Some posts say that the virus was manufactured by the CIA to disrupt China’s economy, while others falsely blame the charitable foundation led by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates for spreading it.

The LSU site also includes an article from the Washington Post, in which a State Department official blames Russia for spreading the misinformation, and an article from the New York Times about Britain’s efforts to combat coronavirus disinformation.

“The best way to guard against this is, first of all, to read the story,” Apcar said. “Too many people read headlines and just pass along stories, both true and false.”

                                                                                    Photo Credit: Houma Today

Published: April 28, 2020

By: Maria Marsh and Hailey Auglair, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE—A Houma lawmaker criticized Gov. John Bel Edwards today for extending his statewide stay-at-home order through May 15 instead of opening parts of the state sooner.

Rep. Tanner Magee, who as speaker pro temp is the second ranking Republican in the state House, said Edwards’ decision not to let many businesses reopen more quickly will have consequences on the GOP-led Legislature’s willingness to work with him in a bipartisan way when lawmakers reconvene after a nearly two-month recess.

“There were windows of bipartisanship, and I think they probably closed yesterday,” Magee said in an interview. “We’re moving toward a very anti-bipartisan mood.”

The governor’s decision to extend the shutdown longer than many legislators wanted “was really hurtful,” Magee said. “Not intentionally, but in having new members come in that had never been through the process before, and they’re very much itching to do something to lead with this crisis. They feel helpless back in their districts because they can’t do anything, and that has caused a situation where people are kind of spiraling out to the wings.”

Edwards and Republican leaders have worked together reasonably well so far through the COVID-19 pandemic, which has sickened more than 27,000 state residents and killed more than 1,750.

Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, who is running for reelection, accompanied Edwards at his briefing Friday and agreed the state should only begin to reopen once data about the spread of the virus meets guidelines created by the Trump Administration.

But business groups and some Republican state lawmakers had been urging Edwards to let areas that have not had significant numbers of cases open next weekend, and Magee’s comments signal rising tensions over the timetable.

The tensions come as legislators and the governor need to work together to pass a new budget even as the state’s finances are being decimated by the cost of fighting the virus and the collapse in tax revenue from major industries like gambling, oil and gas and tourism.

Read more at Houma Today.

Photo Credit: 4WWL.com

Published: April 28, 2020

By: Kathleen Peppo, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE, La. — Along with the expected tolls that Gov. John Bel Edwards’s stay-at-home order has taken on citizens across Louisiana, the new normal has had a positive side effect: Crime rates have fallen substantially in cities and towns that are following it.

With the options to roam the streets and hang out in groups ruled out, towns whose citizens are taking the order seriously have seen significantly lower rates of crime and relatively few arrests. On the other hand, crime rates in areas that are continuing life without as much focus on the stay-at-home order are virtually the same as before it was put in place, police say.

A spot check suggests that crime has dropped in the biggest cities—New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Shreveport and Lafayette–and in many smaller spots around the state. Except for a shooting that wounded two juveniles last week, Eunice has seen less crime along with less traffic and less activity all around. Randy Fontenot, Eunice’s chief of police, said the town has been “extremely quiet.”

Fontenot said that the Eunice Police Department made only several arrests during each of the last two weekends, an unusually low number.

“We’re making some, but our daily logs are usually about two or three pages long, and, lately, some have been only half a page,” he said.

With so many public places closed or operating with very little human contact, crime is hardly an option in some areas. People cannot sit inside restaurants, peruse stores freely or roam the streets. There is little to no group activity, and crime is becoming less and less convenient.

Sgt. Wayne Griffin said that the Lafayette Police Department has “seen a real decrease in crime with the stay-at-home order in effect. We’ve seen less stores open, less people on the roads, less people at work, so we’ve had less incidents for sure.”

“Our citizens have been really great about adhering to the orders,” he said. “We’ve been fortunate that people are kind of just staying at home, doing their things, doing some honey dos.”

Read more at 4WWL.com.

       Photo Credit: News Radio 710 KEEL

Published: April 28, 2020

By: Catherine Hunt, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE —The biggest auto insurance companies, including State Farm, Allstate and GEICO, have announced temporary cost cuts and rebates of 15% to 25% for customers in Louisiana since the coronavirus has kept drivers off the roads.

The savings are a welcome relief for the state’s roughly 3 million insured drivers, who together pay the second-highest costs in the country, following only Michigan residents. And Republicans in the state Legislature say they are looking for solutions that could permanently reduce car insurance rates through “tort reform,” changes that could reduce the number of lawsuits filed over accidents and the size of some of the damage awards.

“I know that insurance companies have given rebates because less people are driving, but we’re still the second highest in the country, and that’s not going to change,” said Sen. Kirk Talbot, R-River Ridge. “There is more of a need for this kind legislation now than before because of the coronavirus.”

The legislative session convened March 9, the same day that Gov. John Bel Edwards announced the state’s first confirmed case of COVID-19. The session was suspended a week later, and lawmakers hope to return to the Capitol in May to pass a new budget. They also would like to consider economic relief measures, either then or in a special session later this year, and that could include tort reform.

Republicans have long pushed for such changes. Talbot, who now chairs the Senate Insurance Committee, sponsored a bill last year that passed the Republican-controlled House. But it failed in a Senate committee amid questions by Democrats and other critics about whether the changes really would lower costs and be fair to people injured in car wrecks.

Louisiana’s rate of car cashes is on par with the rest of the country, but the rate of bodily injury claims is nearly double the national average. Talbot blames the state’s legal climate, contending that “there are things in our tort system that make us very unique to the rest of the country.”

“The data proves that those things are creating an environment where these bodily injury claims are double the national average and causing premiums to go up and insurance companies to leave,” he said.

Read more at the Daily Comet.

                         Photo Credit: Shreveport Times

Published: April 25, 2020

By: Evan Saacks, Myles Kuss and Eric Brasher, LSU Manship School News Service

Graham Jordan, a 21-year-old LSU student, did not wake up one morning after partying at a bar in the Tigerland area near campus in 2017. The autopsy showed that Xanax had been in his system, but a deeper observation showed something much worse — traces of fentanyl, a dangerous compound that street dealers mix into other drugs to increase the high.

Fentanyl is an opioid that doctors use to treat severe pain. But it is so powerful, and it is becoming so common as an added ingredient in street drugs, that it is responsible for more than half of all opioid overdose deaths in some parishes.

The Centers for Disease Control say fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine and should only be used when pain is so severe that morphine will not be enough.

Jordan, the LSU student, died after taking Xanax laced with a lethal amount of fentanyl. Mary Ellen Jordan knows fentanyl was not a drug her son sought out.

“I had never even heard of it before we got his autopsy report,” she said. “I don’t really think most people take that on purpose.”

Two of the state’s largest parishes, East Baton Rouge and Jefferson, have seen fentanyl use rise even as overall opioid use has leveled off.

In 2018, 102 people died from opioids in East Baton Rouge Parish, with 32 of them involving fentanyl. 2019 saw a total of 127 opioid overdoses. The number of those deaths involving fentanyl is unclear, but East Baton Coroner Beau Clark said illicit manufacturing of the drug has risen substantially.

Published: April 22, 2020 

By: Matthew H. Schmitt, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE–House and Senate committees on Wednesday approved an emergency plan that delays the state’s presidential primary until July 11 and limits efforts to expand the use of absentee ballots because of the coronavirus.

The plan, prepared by Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, reduces the list of reasons that he had proposed last week for voters to qualifyto vote by mail.

Ardoin shortened the list after the Republicans on the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee rejected his earlier proposal in a party-line vote.

Under the new plan, voters can still seek absentee ballots if they are at higher risk from the virus because of serious medical conditions or are subject to a medical quarantine order. People with symptoms of COVID-19 or caring for someone subject to a quarantine order also may seek absentee ballots.

The rules also would apply to state and local elections on August 15. The plan must still be approved by the full House and Senate and by Gov. John Bel Edwards.

No changes have been considered for the presidential and congressional elections in November.

Ardoin’s original proposal also would have extended the early-voting period from seven to 13 days to allow for less concentrated groups of people gathering to cast their votes. It would have lowered an age threshold for requesting absentee ballots to 60 and older from 65 and older and allowed anyone who was worried about health risks to vote absentee.

Ardoin, a Republican, dropped those provisions after legislators complained last week that anyone could claim they had health concerns and qualify for an absentee ballot, potentially increasing the risk of some fraud.

“It seems like we are opening ourselves to more risk and fraud than ever,” Sen. Barry Milligan, R-Shreveport, said then.

His comments echoed concerns expressed by President Trump, who claimed recently that “mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country, because they’re cheaters.”

Read more at the Lafourche Gazette.

Published: March 11, 2020

By: Maria Marsh and Hailey Auglair, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE—Gov. John Bel Edwards said the number of presumed cases of COVID-19 in Louisiana increased to 13 on Wednesday from six a day earlier, with people testing positive in Orleans, Jefferson, St. Tammany, Iberia, Lafourche and Caddo parishes.

Edwards declared a statewide public health emergency, adding that “it is worrisome” to see the coronavirus spread across the state.

Three of the positive tests were linked to the Lambeth House, a retirement home in New Orleans, the governor said.

All told, 10 of the cases are in the metro New Orleans area, state officials said. One person is either is from or hospitalized in each of Iberia, Lafourche and Caddo parishes.

The cases are considered presumptive until they are confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control.

Limited information about the 13 people who tested positive has been released due to privacy laws. But New Orleans officials have said that the first case there came from the virus spreading within the community rather than from foreign travel by the person who was infected.

Separately, Loyola University canceled classes scheduled for this Thursday and Friday and said it would hold classes only online starting next Monday. Tulane University said it is canceling all classes till March 23, when will resume with all classes online.

LSU officials said earlier Wednesday that they are watching developments closely and weighing the possibility of closing the school after spring break, which occurs during the week of March 22.

Edwards advised higher-education leaders to consider going online, but he said he trusted them to make the decisions.

Edwards said the state would prohibit its employees from traveling risky areas overseas.

The earliest a vaccine could be made for the coronavirus would be in about 12 to 18 months, according to the Health Department.

Read more at The Reveille.

Published: March 10, 2020

By: Hailey Auglair, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE–Louisiana has two more presumptive positive cases of the coronavirus in the New Orleans area, bringing the total to three, Gov. John Bel Edwards announced Tuesday.

The cases are presumptive until they are confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control.

The patients are at University Medical Center, Touro and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in New Orleans, according to The Advocate.

“It is important that the public take measures to protect their health and reduce the spread of illness, including avoiding going out in public when you are sick, washing your hands, social distancing and disinfecting commonly used surfaces,” Edwards said.

The governor will hold a meeting of the Unified Command Group Wednesday afternoon to discuss the situation. He will hold a news conference after that.

Edwards said he expects to see more presumptive positives in the coming days and weeks as the state expands testing for COVID-19.

“I am asking all Louisianans to remain vigilant as we work to contain the spread of this and other illnesses,” he said

As of Tuesday afternoon, at least 955 people in 36 states and Washington, D.C. have tested positive for coronavirus, according to a New York Times database, and at least 29 patients with the virus have died.

Read more at The Reveille.

Published: March 11, 2020

By: Maria Marsh, Catherine Hunt and Paige Daniel, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE–Gov. John Bel Edwards on Monday disclosed the first case of coronavirus in Louisiana, a Jefferson Parish resident who was hospitalized in Orleans Parish.

While the case of covid-19 has yet to be confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control, the state is treating it as a “presumptive positive,” he said.
“Now together we all—as a government, as health care systems and providers, as schools, businesses and as neighbors—must take action and be vigilant to prevent the spread of this virus in our great state,” Edwards said.
Edwards made the announcement as he addressed the Louisiana Legislature to begin this spring’s session.

Edwards told returning legislators, as well as 45 freshman representatives and 20 freshman senators, that the state can move forward only through bipartisanship, especially in areas where it does worse than other states, including education and the cost of auto-insurance.

Edwards, the only Democratic governor in the Deep South, won re-election last fall. Republicans gained more seats in the Legislature and now have a supermajority, or two-thirds of the seats, in the Senate. They are now only two seats away from holding a supermajority in the House.

One of the biggest issues that the Legislature will face this session is how to lower insurance premiums.

Louisiana residents pay the second highest auto-insurance rates in the country, behind only Michigan. Little has been done in the past four years on this front, and lowering rates ranks high on the agendas of both Edwards and Republican lawmakers.

“Auto insurance costs too much in Louisiana, period,” Edwards said.

Edwards would like to shift from auto-insurance rates being based on an individual’s sex, profession and other personal aspects. He proposes having flat basic rates that fluctuates with an individual’s driving record.

He said, for instance, that some insurers now charge higher rates to widows, people with poor credit scores and even deployed servicemen.

“We have 130 guardsmen currently mobilized, and we are about to have nearly 2,000 more deployed at the end of the year,” Edwards said. “And we should do everything in our power to make sure they are not penalized when they return.”

Republicans lawmakers have said they will continue to try to reduce premiums by changing the state’s litigious climate. Edwards said he was willing to seek compromises with the Republicans in that area, known as tort reform.

Read more at the Bossier-Press Tribune.