News for Wednesday 100213

By Dave Graichen

 

The  partial  federal government shutdown has thousands of Louisiana residents at home  and  missing  out  on  a paycheck.  There's an estimated 20-thousand federal employees in Louisiana. Fort  Polk  in Vernon  Parish  has about three-thousand government workers and base spokesperson Scott  Stearns  says  80-percent  of their workers have been furloughed. This is the first federal government shutdown in 17 years.

 

The National Hurricane Center is  watching  an  area of low pressure that  shows  some  signs of organization in the western  Caribbean. Richard  Pasch,  with  the  National  Hurricane  Center,  says  this disturbance is expected  to  move  into  the southern Gulf of Mexico later this week. He says they give it a medium  chance of developing into a named storm.

 

Opening day glitches were apparent Tuesday as the online insurance marketplaces at the heart of the national health-care overhaul opened. A spokesman for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana,   one of four companies providing insurance through the exchange in Louisiana, said no one among about a dozen testers of the system was able to complete a transaction early Tuesday.

Company spokesman John Maginnis said BCBS is advising people to take a deep breath, relax and check back. The exchanges are going to be open for quite a long time. The enrollment period lasts six months. Louisiana is among the states that refused to run its own marketplace, leaving that to the federal government under a decision made by Gov. Bobby Jindal.

 

State Superintendent of Education John White reiterated his support Tuesday for tougher academic standards and blasted what he labeled as a static public school establishment. In a speech in Washington, D.C., White noted that students in Louisiana have long ranked between 45th and 49th. White and other backers say the standards will improve student achievement and allow state-to-state comparisons on how students fare in the classroom. Critics contend the new guidelines will pave the way for a federal curriculum.

 

From the WHAT? Department.. A  federal  judge orders the immediate release of an Angola prisoner

who has spent  four  decades  in  solitary  confinement. Judge Brian Jackson says Angola 3 member Herman Wallace should  be  free  to go, because  there  were  no women on the jury that convicted him in the stabbing death of an Angola prison guard in 1972. Wallace, who is in the late stages of liver cancer,  was released late last night and transported to a new Orleans hospital.

 

Just before the federal government shutdown, Louisiana received word  from the US Department of Veterans affairs that they'll provide funding  for a veterans cemetery in Rayville. David LaCerte, deputy secretary of  the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs, says this newest cemetery

provides for the needs of about 35-thousand Veterans and their families.  The cemetery will be located near I-20 on property donated by the  Franklin family. It will span about 50 acres. The hope is to have a new veterans cemetery completed in early 2015.

 

 The Louisiana Hospitals Association, along with state and local partners  launch a six month initiative to help make a healthier Louisiana. LHA  Board Chairman Stephen Wright says the "Geaux Lite" challenge has an  eye toward a slimmer Louisiana. Geaux Lite seeks to challenge Louisianans to lose a combined 200 tons  of weight. That's 400-thousand pounds. Department of Health & Hospitals  Secretary Kathy Kliebert (KLEE-bear) says 34.7% of Louisianans are  overweight.

 

The Iberia Parish Sheriff's office placed a deputy on leave who  allegedly beat a man in handcuffs with a baton at the Sugar Cane  Festival. Reverend Raymond Brown with Action Now says it started

Saturday when several people were arrested on rioting charges. He says  the police doubled up forces for Sunday and things got out of control. Brown says one of the people at the festival asked a deputy why they  were being so mean, and that's when that man was cuffed and then  clubbed with a baton. He says a video of the incident has gone viral.

 

Two  teenage  girls  from  Baker have been arrested and charged with cyber stalking after using Twitter  to threaten to kill another girl. Chantel Williams and Jasmine Montgomery,  both  17,  were apparently making  the  threats because one of their boyfriends was  expressing interest in the victim.

 

A 23-year-old Franklin man is facing first-degree murder charges  in the fatal shooting of a man whose body was found in the roadway near Jeanerette  early  Monday  morning. St. Mary Parish Sheriff's office spokesperson, Tracy Landry,  says 23-year-old Jazmine Jackson is now behind bars..

 

One of the five men suspected in a triple homicide and home invasion case in Ascension Parish has pleaded guilty before the trial was set to begin. Michael Aikens is accused of taking part in the murders of Irwin and  Shirley  Marchand  and  their son Doug Dooley in order to steal  coins from their house. Aikens  agreed  to  plead  guilty  in exchange for three life sentences without the possibility of parole.

 

Jefferson Parish Sheriff's  deputies have retrieved a body from Lake Pontchartrain. It's believed to be the remains of the man whose truck drove  off  the  Causeway  bridge   yesterday,   though  a  positive identification has not yet been made. An autopsy  of  the  male body has been ordered.

 

Loyola University in New Orleans has been awarded a NASA grant for a new  invention  that uses body heat  to  recharge  smartphones.  The invention refines  the science of thermoelectricity; converting heat into electric current.  A physics professor at Loyola leads the team who are developing the device.

 

State Police rescued a child that was reported  missing from Florida Tuesday .  Troopers say they were on the lookout for  a  blue  Chrysler minvan traveling  west  on  I-10.  They  spotted  the  vehicle  near Henderson and pulled it over. The child was inside and recovered  by troopers.  The  driver,  38-year-old  Gloria  Reyes, of Orlando, was arrested for warrants in Florida. Her relationship to the 5-year-old is yet unknown.