Support for a Louisiana.

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Every day I go to work for Entergy.

I know customers are counting on me.

So Entergy is investing millions of dollars to keep the lights on and installing new technology to prevent outages before they happen.

Together.

Together.

Together.

We power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred Bea and Ruth Ziegler Foundation and the Zeigler Art Museum, located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for southwest Louisiana and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

With support from viewers like you.

And, you know, I think it's pretty clear that Republicans are going to capture the U.S. House.

Voting day is almost here.

Is what I'm at.

Billions and billions of dollars of projects.

Look for a boom in construction.

The question is whether the Supreme Court will go all the way and just say no more affirmative action.

Or whether they will say affirmative action is okay in these cases.

More controversy facing the Supreme Court.

Stay away from sick people right now.

All right.

If you get.

The flu is packing a punch.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to this edition of S.W.A.T..

I'm Andre Moreau.

Cursing here is off tonight, but she will have reports later in this broadcast.

The port of south Louisiana is out hundreds of thousands of dollars after getting hit by multiple cyber attacks in 2021.

A public audit revealed that these attacks misappropriated about $425,000, about 250,000 has been recovered, though, through insurance.

It's not clear how the port was hacked and that information isn't coming out either, because out of caution, they aren't saying much.

Now, here's other news headlines from around the state.

The Gulf of Mexico's first offshore wind farms will be developed off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana, near Galveston and Lake Charles.

The Biden administration says they are projected to produce enough energy to power 3 million homes.

Of course, they won't be up and running for years.

But it's the first step for the U.S. to ramp up offshore wind energy.

A Baton Rouge man reported missing while hiking in the Ozark Mountains was found alive after a four day search.

Clinton Preston Smith, who is 67, was said to be in good spirits when he was found about noon Tuesday.

He had been reported missing since October 27th, when he failed to return home from a hike on a trail near the Buffalo National River in northern Arkansas.

Former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu is busy making the rounds, promoting President Biden's bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure plan.

Landrieu is coordinator of the plan and is making stops around the US with North Carolina and Arkansas.

The latest billionaire philanthropist Mackenzie Scott has given the Urban League of Louisiana a $5.7 million gift.

It's the largest donation in the agency's 84 year history.

It was founded in 1938, and the league hosts a variety of programs focusing on youth education, economic development and policy.

The president of the organization says Scott's gift will help them expand programs aimed at securing economic self-reliance and civil rights for the underserved.

The family, a legendary rock and roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis, says memorial services will take place this weekend in his hometown of Ferriday.

Lewis, known for such hits as Great Balls of Fire and many, many others, died last Friday.

Saturday's funeral services set for 11 a.m. with limited public availability, but it will be live streamed.

That information is found on Lewis's Facebook page.

Lewis was the last survivor of a generation of artists that rewrote music history, a group that included Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis was 87.

In a major rebuild of LSU's football fortunes, first year head coach Brian Kelly has the Tigers ranked 10th in the first college football playoff poll and facing number six, Alabama.

It's Saturday night in Tiger Stadium.

The winner has the inside track to win the West Division of the SCC and play for the SEC title.

The tide is heavily favored and early voting has ended ahead of the November eight elections.

But of course, in Louisiana, we don't know how many surprises there could possibly be after the elections are over.

L.A.

Politics editor and publisher Jeremy Alfred is here to talk to me.

And you actually can go ahead and write your headline as you, I think, have said that you're going to do ahead of the election.

Yeah.

And I think there are two kind of what's next stories, one being what happens with the leadership change from the current delegation and how do how does the current election influence the next election next year, the statewide elections and starting with the congressional delegation?

You know, I think it's pretty clear that Republicans are going to capture the U.S. House.

And that is a big, big deal for Louisiana.

And that means that Steve Scalise of Jefferson Parish will go from the minority whip position to probably the majority leader.

Louisiana has not seen a congressman from here in that business decision since Hale Boggs held that job.

So that's the number two spot in the house, part of the red wave.

That's right.

And then you got Mike Johnson from Shreveport, who is recently was reelected as vice chair of the House Republican Caucus.

That's an important position, especially if you're in the majority.

Garrett Graves from Baton Rouge could be in line for a chairmanship of transportation.

Clay Higgins was angling for chairmanship of Homeland Security, but he kind of had a bumpy patch here.

He had some tweets that were very controversial that a lot of folks weren't happy about.

So his his prospects for leadership in the House may not be as bright as they were just a couple of weeks ago.

But overall, you know, that's the big story for Louisiana Republicans.

Capture the House.

We got our own members in line for a very, very important leadership.

Jobs course there constitutional amendments that are on the ballot and the race with Kennedy and those trailing him.

But he's a runaway favorite and don't expect a runoff.

But would you be shocked if there was one?

You know, there are so many people in that race.

I think it's funny that the narrative is, you know, will Kennedy make a runoff or will he win the prominent there are more than a dozen people in the race.

He very weak will be in the runoff, but I don't think he'll have much competition.

He is shattered all fundraising records in Louisiana.

And it's just it's difficult to imagine.

I mean he may close in on $40 million raised for this race.

Wow.

Incredible.

A lot of people, you know, this is happening in Louisiana.

There are bigger races really in other states all over America, less so here.

But the governor's race will be happening a year from now.

And we've got the same governor for a long, long time.

But that's going to change with term limits.

Yes, the first open race for governor we've seen in in two terms of state government.

And, you know, there are a lot of folks looking at our congressional delegation wondering who might run for governor, people like Garret Graves, who's on the ballot this fall.

Bill Cassidy not on the ballot this fall, but he's leaning towards maybe making a run for governor.

So there's a lot of intrigue about this election cycle and how it influences next year.

And there are some definite ends already.

There are two.

There are two.

Hunter Lundy, he's an independent from Lake Charles.

He's a personal injury attorney.

He's been raising some money inside the state and outside the state from the trial, from different trial boards.

And of course, you can miss Attorney General Jeff Landry's the £800 gorilla in this race is trying to get an early endorsement of the Republican Party.

He's already got endorsements.

He's really the the only big name who has announced in this race.

Is that unusual, that he would be doing that at this point, or is he in a better position to do that than if he was working in Washington?

It's incredibly unusual that we don't have a bigger field, you know, eight years ago we had most of the candidates already announced by now.

Right now, we're really only have two and one big name.

So that's unusual.

But, you know, we are seeing now the benefits to announce an early Jeff Landry can kind of like a bull in a China cabinet is running around trying to get these endorsements trying to get the Republican Party to back him all because he's the only candidate right.

Doesn't it seem, though, odd that that's what we're talking about?

I know that there's some really important things really on the ballot, but that's what has people's attention, I think.

I think, you know, it's a governor's race in Louisiana.

It's a storied, legendary, fabled thing.

And I think we all kind of look forward to it.

And it's a form of entertainment.

So for someone like me who writes about politics every single day, it is not unusual at all to be talking about a governor's race, though.

Well, right, exactly.

But almost over, I'm thinking there's like overlooking which.

Absolutely wearable.

For me to say that.

We're looking at.

Look, there are state legislative races on this list.

There's a Plaquemines Parish presidents race on the ballot.

There are constitutional limits up in Shreveport, Alexandria, big, big mayors, races.

There's a lot going on.

Yeah, there's a lot going on.

Right.

It's just it's not an overall we're not going to be voting.

So if you live in New Orleans or Baton Rouge from Shreveport there.

Right.

Right.

But that kind of thing.

But I think I think folks are interested in this.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So we'll see how it shakes out.

Look forward to your headlines this weekend.

Also next.

Thank you.

Jimmy Hoffa.

Thank you.

Always.

Supreme Court is facing more difficult political questions this week with the resurfacing debate about affirmative action.

Monday, the high court heard cases from both North Carolina and Harvard University about the necessity of race based college admissions.

Here to talk about affirmative action and its role in Louisiana is political analyst Jim Inkster.

Thank you so much for joining us again here.

So let's start with the basics.

Can you explain what a firm affirmative action is and how long have Americans been acquainted with this concept?

It's been part of the fabric of American life now for more than six decades.

We're going back to President Kennedy, who was the 35th president.

Now we're on number 46.

So we've got a lot of people who've been around and on the Supreme Court and in the White House.

And affirmative action has been part of the rule of the land.

But there are some who say it's outworn, its welcome.

And now we have these cases before the High Court to determine whether it's necessary in higher education to have a diverse student body.

And many believe it is.

In Louisiana, for example, our colleges and universities are not reflective of the one third African-American population that is present and affirmative action is a consideration for enrollment.

But the Supreme Court is highly conservative now, and it appears they're on the brink of changing this.

The question is how much?

So how exactly does affirmative action work on college campuses?

I mean, you hear that it's supposed to help bring in minority students, but how does it actually do that?

There's more than a grade point average as as we know, in test scores.

And so already on campuses, we let people in who are great athletes who may not have the highest scores as other people.

And in affirmative action, we might enroll a person of color, a Hispanic person, an Asian person, a black person to get some kind of racial diversity on campus who might have a slightly lower score than somebody from the majority race.

And that's been the rule of the land for many years.

In 2003, the Supreme Court said that's what should be done.

But now, with six conservative justices appointed by Presidents Bush and Trump and the first Bush with Clarence Thomas, then it's a case in which the numerical numbers, the numerical majority, would indicate that that it's likely to change and the Supreme Court could split the baby and have some kind of compromise ruling on this.

But it appears that affirmative action, as we know it is on the way out.

So in Louisiana specifically, I mean, what's our relationship with this concept?

Well, Louisiana, back in 1961, when President Kennedy had the first executive order on affirmative action, we had a handful of black students at the universities in the state other than the historically black colleges and universities.

So much has changed since then.

We know that.

But nonetheless, with one third population African-American in our state, there are not one third African-Americans on campus.

And the question is, where do you draw the line?

Because some believe that we should have one third.

Others believe that we should have at least half that.

And sometimes in order to achieve those goals, we have to take other factors into consideration other than grade point average is in test scores.

All right.

So really, it's just a numbers game at this point.

It's a numbers game.

But the Supreme Court doesn't like this numbers game.

They would like a colorblind society, and I think everybody would.

But the reality is we are aware that we're not in a colorblind society, that race does matter in all facets of human life and certainly on college campuses.

And some consideration as to enrolling a person of color is something that's been around.

There's several precedents for it for six decades.

But the question is now whether this will apply in the Supreme Court, for example, has a dilemma about service academies.

We want a diverse military, but suddenly, if affirmative action is not available for West Point in the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy, then we're going to have a more white military.

And that's something that I think most people would say is not good.

But the Supreme Court, in its wisdom, is going to make a change, it would seem, almost inevitably.

And we'll see how far they go.

Right.

And I believe that that is where we were left last week.

Is that just waiting?

It's just a waiting game at this point to see what will happen.

It's a waiting game, but the numbers are there with six Supreme Court justices out of nine who are conservatives, including the chief justice, John Roberts, who is moderate on other issues like Obamacare, which he voted to uphold, it seems almost a certainty that something will change.

And the question is whether the Supreme Court will go all the way and just say no more affirmative action, or whether they will say affirmative action is okay in these cases, we're going to find out.

All right.

Well, thank you so much for joining us again this week.

Thank you, Carol.

And news of Louisiana seeing a construction boom over the next 5 to 6 years.

It could seem a little out of step with interest rates going up and also the fact that we could be moving into recession.

However, not the case.

Dr. Lawrence Scott, economics czar, is here with us to explain what's happening.

What's driving this?

Well, the key thing that's driving it is something started happening about the early part of the mid 2010, 2010 and 2012.

And that is that there was a big gap that started to exist between the price of natural gas here and the presidential gas in Europe.

Europe has decided to outlaw fracking and try to get away from fossil fuels.

Well, as a result, there's a shortage of the fuel over there.

So their price is really going up.

And so what happens is chemical companies who make things out of natural gas have started to look at where the cheapest molecule was in the United States.

And so if you look at the area from Baton Rouge to the mouth, Mississippi River, if you look at the corkscrew ship channel over in Lake Charles down to the Gulf from the Gulf of Mexico, that's where they're coming because there's lots of pipelines bringing natural gas.

There's a deepwater access to the Gulf of Mexico, then to the world market for their products.

So they're coming here like crazy.

We're talking about billions and billions of dollars in projects.

And there have been billions of dollars of projects already spent, especially in the Lake Charles area, but different places, too.

And then some projects that were proposed that have not.

Pulled the trigger yet.

Yeah, they did what we call an FDA final investment decision.

So we have if you look, for example, on Louisiana economic forecasts, the latest one.

But if you go there, you'll see these list of projects.

So there's a list of projects that are underway.

And what are billions of dollars like here in the Baton Rouge area where we're sitting today, probably in the neighborhood of $12 billion in projects underway down in New Orleans and probably around $17 billion Lake Charles, not quite as many, but five or $6 billion.

But then you have another set up here.

Is there anything in north Louisiana?

There is.

There's not really that much in the reason for that.

What is happening in north Louisiana this is helpful is that's the source of the natural gas for these.

Right.

So you have the Haynesville shale up there and so you've seen the rig count go from 20 already to 45.

So it's going up.

It's more than doubled.

All right.

And it's going to keep going up.

And we know that because if you look, they're also building pipelines from the northern part of the state down to the southern part of state to bring their natural gas down here to feed not only the chemical plants but also the LNG export facilities, which is another kind of key thing that's going on in the background there, because Europe does not have enough natural gas.

So they want to bring natural gas to the United States, from the United States to us through LNG exports.

So that's another big source.

Money is a very big one going in down in Plaquemines Parish right now.

Right.

And of course, LNG, Louisiana is essentially and it's really Calcasieu Parish and Cameron.

And the three.

Yeah.

What's happening?

Yeah.

Cameron a calculator there.

They have about three LNG facilities there.

You have another one being built now in Plaquemines Parish and that one that has a sister, one that they haven't issued that idea on.

They have another one in Lake Charles, at least two or three in Lake Charles that are waiting out there to pull the trigger.

So we'll kind of see how this next few months goes on that.

So let me ask you this with with everything moving as it can toward a less of a carbon footprint and a greener planet, if we can get there, how does that affect this building boom?

Well, I mean, the in the background, but what I just described is the biggest part of the boom.

Now, there's a smaller part of that or much smaller part of that.

That's going to happen as a result of the inflation reduction, karmically knowing that.

But anyway, the Inflation Reduction Act.

Okay.

Because in that there's all this all these subsidies for firms to capture the carbon that they're missing immediately and sequester it in salt domes or some other way below the earth something.

Right.

Right.

Right.

So you're going to see a lot of construction activity associated with building those carbon capture units and then putting together the stuff to sequester it in the ground.

And we've covered.

That in the past couple of weeks.

Talked to a guy who is doing this in water in any body of water.

It started out as something else.

They're finding it is a great place to put it.

And.

Won't have it sink.

Look at this.

That could be a huge answer coming.

I talked to him last week.

He's out of Israel.

Well, that is something that again.

But again, if you look at the total construction activity, I would say it's probably 15, ten, 15% of the rest of it.

The rest of it happened.

You know, this buildup happened way before that act was passed.

So for Louisiana overall, this is a good thing.

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, this is especially if you live around the southern part of the state.

Right.

If you look at the central part in the northern part of the state, for the most part, they haven't been growing very well.

Although now Shreveport, there's some things starting to happen.

The Hazel Shale is starting to explode.

There's some things get ready to happen at the base up there at Barksdale.

There's a lot of good stuff going on at the port up there.

So they're doing particularly well right now.

And then there's a major carbon capture project there at the engineering stage on there in Alexandria called the Diamond Vault Project that Calico has.

Thank you for explaining what's happening and what's driving this.

This.

Glad to be here.

All right, stop being out.

Economic ignorance is my life.

Like you, Lawrence.

Thank you.

Health care providers nationwide are sounding the alarm about the flu virus in some parts of the country.

Cases are nearing a 13 year high here in Louisiana.

Cases haven't spiked yet, but experts are warning people to stay alert.

Dr. John Jones gives some tips on beating the flu.

So we're right in the middle of flu season right now.

Can you first explain what's the difference between the flu and COVID 19?

So they're very similar actually in the disease process as far as the symptoms that you're having.

And then you get my allergies, body aches, fevers, cough, cold congestion, very similar.

The viruses are different and some of the complications that you get from the viruses are different.

COVID, when it first came out, the initial variants obviously caused a significant respiratory illness.

And we put a lot of people in the hospital on ventilation and then the flu.

Historically has done some of the same things with respiratory illness, but not quite as bad, mostly because we have become and developed some immunity.

So usually not as bad unless you have co-morbid problems.

All right.

So and whenever you say co-morbid problems, you're talking about, again, people that have.

Underlying medical diseases, high blood pressure, diabetes, cancers, those types of things.

So for a while, you know, during this pandemic, it seems like we didn't have that many flu cases.

Most people were focused on COVID, and that's what people were catching.

Now, are we back to normal or are we still see more COVID then the flu?

Yeah, so we're seeing a bit of a normalization of the patterns that we have seen historically.

The reason I think that we didn't have a lot of flu during COVID was because we were all wearing masks.

And so people were protected.

And so you get the flu by contagion.

So, you know, when people spread it among themselves, then that's why we get these epidemics and flu.

We get see every year.

So and you know, also, if you go back a couple of years to about 2018, 2019, people were really worried about the flu because it seemed like cases were getting worse and the flu season was approaching quicker.

Is that the case this year?

So not so much.

It is.

It's approaching quicker.

I mean, we're actually probably about normal for this time of the year for flu.

And I think the severity of the illnesses are different this year because we're seeing mainly influenza A, which is the type of flu that's a little bit tougher.

It's it causes a little bit more severity of illness.

So in other parts of the country, they've been reporting higher cases of the flu.

And this has been, you know, the worst flu season in about 13 years or so.

All right.

Things that's happening in other parts of the country.

Why haven't we seen that big of a spike here?

Think it's timing?

It's coming.

We just haven't seen it yet.

If you know the truth.

That usually we're a little bit more delayed.

And then the northern part of the country.

Yeah.

It's when you have viruses that are contagious like that, when you're indoors more, it's more contagious and you spread it more.

So it's colder up north sooner than it is down here.

So we always are later in getting these things.

As far as tips go for, you know, preparing for flu season, making sure that we're safe and your family is healthy, which people need.

To know so that it's the same things that we talked about with COVID, right?

So you need to practice social distancing.

You need to wash your hands.

You need to avoid contact with those that are known sick as much as you can.

You know, when you're coughing, protect yourself and watch what your coughing out so that other people don't get it.

It's the same things that we talked about with COVID.

So right to the basics.

Wash your hands, cover your mouth and you know, don't stick around too close to people.

Yeah.

Stay.

Stay away from sick people, right?

Yeah.

If you get.

But thank you so much for taking the time.

Okay.

Thank you.

You know, Louisiana, like much of the country, is struggling through the worst teacher shortage, perhaps in history.

Next week on Louisiana Spotlight LP will highlight how we got to this point and explore solutions.

Here's a preview.

I've definitely had doubts about staying in the profession, especially with the situation that happened in the world.

It was a very triggering situation for me, just because I teach fourth grade and the tragedy happened in a fourth grade classroom.

And especially like working in education, I see that school for, you know, some kids don't like school.

But for the most part, most kids, they love coming to school because they see school as like a safe haven, like a safe place where they know that they're going to get fed, where they know that there's going to be at least one trusting adult in the building that's going to talk to them, ask them about their day and, you know, show them extra love.

Children should not be afraid to step foot into a school building.

That should be their safe haven.

That should be their safe place.

That should be a place of learning, not not other things.

You can watch Louisiana Spotlight Monday night at eight.

That's November 7th on LP B and in New Orleans, it'll air Wednesday night at eight.

That's November 9th.

And everyone.

That is our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LP any time, wherever you are with our Lpv PBS app, you can catch LP News and Public Affairs shows as well as other Louisiana programs that you've come to enjoy over the years.

And please, like us on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram.

For everyone here at Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

I'm Andre Moreau.

Until next time.

That's the state we're in.

I go to work for Entergy.

I know customers are counting on me.

So Entergy is investing millions of dollars to keep the lights on and installing new technology to prevent outages before they happen.

Together, together, together.

We power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred Bea and Ruth Ziegler Foundation and the Zeigler Art Museum, located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for southwest Louisiana and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

With support from viewers like you and.