Support for Louisiana, the state we're in is provided by.

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.

Silicon Valley had so many uninsured depositors compared to insured depositors.

Well, the Silicon Valley bank failure affect us in Louisiana.

They were going to attempt to do a recall of the mayor.

The mayoral recall petition in New Orleans explained.

I don't think is out of the possibility in the next 24 months that this service could start.

A train ride from Baton Rouge to New Orleans is closer to becoming reality.

So with the Higher Resource Limited, allow more people to be eligible during that time period.

Louisiana families coping with reduced SNAP benefits.

Hi, everyone.

As the move toward legalizing marijuana and hemp products sweeps the nation, Louisiana is trying to step back and ring a bell that opened the door for the sale of such THC products.

Yeah.

This week, a judge block enforcement of an attempted crack down on illegal THC.

Two months ago, ATC agents began slamming the brakes on sales, igniting lawsuits and pushback from thousands of state retailers.

Yeah, it's expected to be a hot topic when the legislature opens April 10th.

You can bet that.

And now here are some other headlines from around the state.

A new business startup accelerator program funded by Techstars and State Economic Development will give entrepreneurs across the state the opportunity to apply for venture capital funding and business development resources.

Techstars is a global investment business that provides access to Capital One on one mentorship and programing for those just starting out.

Longtime state Insurance Commissioner Jim Donlin won't seek reelection in October.

He made the announcement this week.

Donlin is busy working to move the state past the ongoing property insurance crisis.

The devastating hurricanes of 2020 and 21 fueled the crisis and insurance companies dropped policies or simply went under.

Donlin has been commissioner for 17 years, and he spent a total of 50 years in service to the public.

Shell Oil will invest $10 million with New Orleans based Gulf wind technology for the project to develop wind power generation products designed to operate in the Gulf.

The first turbine for the project is expected to be ready for demonstration as early as next year.

1969 Man first went to the moon and a passenger train last rolled between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

There have been attempts to revive it, but it hasn't so far.

So why is this week seeming like chances are better than ever to make that happen?

The top person to talk about that is John Spain, executive VP of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation.

Also on the Southern Rail Commission.

And why is this week so important?

With this news, I'm so glad you asked.

Because as we sit here earlier today, the Surface Transportation Board approved the sale of Kansas City southern to Canadian Pacific.

And what your viewers need to know is that is the track that we're going to use to run the service between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

Kansas City, Southern, the current owner really didn't want us to do it.

Canadian Pacific.

The new owner is Amtrak's number one passenger partner.

So it's significant that we've got a freight operator who will own the tracks and say we are in favor of running Baton Rouge, you know.

Baton Rouge Area Foundation has this is something that you guys have studied and it's overwhelming the support for it.

It's part of Amtrak's vision for the years ahead.

They included this.

And so things seem to be aligning.

What are we talking about in terms of actuality?

And there are things that need to happen.

There are things that need to happen.

But, you know, people ask me that all the time.

And the answer is I don't really know.

But I would tell you, I don't think it's out of the possibility in the next 24 months that this service could start really sooner.

You know, but we don't know.

But the critical piece is that Amtrak says they're going to do it.

It's on their map.

Right.

Okay.

Canadian Pacific, the new owner has said in a press conference in New Orleans, we want to do this.

The federal Railroad Administration that provides funding for these projects has been in those meetings.

And the administrator in that same press conference in New Orleans said we will provide funding.

And of course, Governor Edwards has been an advocate for this for many years.

So all the parties are together.

We just have to kind of get some of these few details put together.

And I think we're getting close.

And one of the things that's not a problem that typically would be a problem, at least not the biggest problem is the money, because there's big federal support and the state wants it to at every stop along the way is also interested in this.

All the parishes involved.

The vice president, who's now the president, Joe Biden, was in New Orleans back in 2017, met with a number of us.

People may not know this, but he's called Amtrak Joe.

Okay.

And he's a strong advocate of rail because early in his life, being a member of Congress, his first wife and one of his children were killed in an automobile accident.

And he pledged to the remaining kids that he'd be home every night.

And he literally rode an Amtrak train back to Delaware from Washington and got the nickname of Amtrak Joe.

All right.

And when we were meeting back in 2017, he said, you know, President Obama and I really, really pleased that we're going to give the state $300 million to start this train.

And we were all delighted.

And of course, the previous governor turned that Mike.

Right.

And so we've been working ever since.

And the good news is that President Biden has put together a package in the infrastructure bill of about $30 billion specifically used for rail.

It can't be used for bridges, It can be used for highways.

It's just rail that's good for this.

It is good for this.

So the money that is generally the reason why these things don't happen is available.

The state has to apply.

And the good news is Governor Edwards and the Department of Transportation have applied for the money to do some of the improvements on the track.

So all the pieces seem to be in place to make this happen.

There's reconstruction that needs to happen for a stretch along the Bonny Cary Spillway.

And there's also a stretch along I-20 in north Louisiana from Alabama to Texas.

That's also green light.

And I should say, I guess.

And does that compete with this or just melons in harmony with?

No.

In fact, it's complimentary because it means that lawmakers in our legislature from all over the state now are talking about the need to have alternative ways of moving people and freight commerce.

And what's exciting about the north Louisiana train is that Amtrak runs a daily service from New Orleans to Atlanta to Washington.

And that train runs through Meridian, Mississippi.

And they're simply going to split that train at Meridian.

Part of it will go to Dallas.

Part of it will continue going to New Orleans.

So while we have some more work to do, that one is pretty simple.

And Amtrak has publicly said they're going to do that.

Well, for every reason, we seem to be encouraged with this news.

Right.

We are very, very excited.

There's a little more work to do.

But I think that light we see is, in fact, a train this time.

All right.

Agree like they.

Great.

Exactly.

Well, it's exciting, John.

I'm so glad to talk about this.

One thing I haven't asked you and I will.

Quickly, what kind of train are we talking about?

It won't be like a speed euro train.

No, this train will run about 90 miles an hour.

Okay.

Okay.

But remember, it's only about 90 miles.

Yeah.

Train Baton Rouge and all.

And so it'll take a little over an hour.

What we talk about is it's predictable.

When you get on the train will tell you how long it's going to take to get from here to there.

That's not true on I-10.

We all think we can go down there and we'll get there in a little over an hour.

But then something happens that is a big need for this.

It is.

And the thing that also remind people is these are evacuation trains.

Yeah.

When we look back to Katrina, we put people in the dome.

Unfortunately, we lost people in that.

Right.

Major storms.

We have a few days notice.

We can put these trains in New Orleans.

We can bring people out of hospitals, out of nursing homes, get them out of harm's way for every reason.

That seems to make sense, doesn't it?

Used to be here.

Yeah.

You saying we're just as you started out, we're going back to what we had and hopefully it's better and I hope people will use it.

And from all the polling and conversations and work we've done, we think there's overwhelming support for it.

Well, I'm fired up.

John, thank you so much for being here.

Well, will you ride the train with me?

I absolutely will.

And I'll see you on the train.

Thank you.

Very good.

Thank you.

One of America's top 20 banks failed last weekend, plummeting the rest of the country into what feels like chaos.

Silicon Valley Bank in the Bay Area is no more, but questions are swarming around what might happen next and if this could affect the local banks here in Louisiana.

A finance professor at Tulane University says don't panic.

And Friday marks the end of a rough week for the banking industry.

Last weekend, the Silicon Valley Bank entered crisis mode.

Increasing fallout following the historic collapse of Silicon Valley.

Bank.

Concerns growing over the stability of what was a tech focused lender in the valley.

It's the 16th largest bank in the U.S. and publications around words like bank collapse, big failure and loss, words we haven't heard much of since the recession in 2008.

But what do these words really mean?

What actually happened?

What happened was Silicon Valley and Silicon Valley Valley took deposits from a large group of depositors in, as you may have guessed, Silicon Valley.

And during the pandemic, these these startups and these businesses had a lot of cash, as you may have imagined.

Now, as the money started drying up, these businesses needed to draw down on this cash.

They needed to draw down on these deposits that were being held at the bank.

A typical bank will take deposits and pay the depositor an interest rate and use that money to loan out.

The Silicon Valley Bank did that.

But they also took deposit money and bought long dated treasuries, which is a fancy phrase that basically means the bank loan money to the federal government for a certain amount of time.

They also bought mortgage backed securities.

Treasury securities, very, very safe.

This is a very low credit risk product.

So there was there's not a lot of risk of the Treasury defaulting.

However, with inflationary price pressures, the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates and this has an opposing effect on bond prices.

So the price of the Treasury started of these Treasury securities started going down.

The bank then started to sell those securities at a loss.

A $1.8 billion loss.

And that's where things start to go downhill.

Some venture capital companies got wind of the securities sales and advises clients to pull their money out of the bank, triggering what's called a bank run.

The bank was actually shut down to prevent this run from getting even worse than it already was on Friday during business hours.

So how does this affect us in Louisiana?

In short, it doesn't.

Not really.

Let me explain.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insures deposits up to $250,000.

Now, which means that your money is safe.

If a bank goes under as long as your bank holdings don't exceed that $250,000 figure.

Most local banks in Louisiana don't service depositors with holdings above that number.

So a bank run would be unlikely and also very unnecessary.

The FDIC would give you your money back.

The fact that Silicon Valley had so many uninsured depositors compared to insured depositors is something that was very unique to this bank.

For perspective, more than 80% of Sbi's depositors were uninsured.

Most were tech startups and giants in the industry.

So it makes sense.

But the national average for that type of depositor is about 40%.

It's likely the rest of the country is safe, too.

Some are afraid that this bank run could trigger another recession like what we saw in 2008 when the Washington Mutual Bank failed.

But that's not likely either.

That recession revolved around the housing market crash, which is not the case with Sbv.

Banking system is safe.

Your deposits will be there when you need them.

Small businesses across the country.

The deposit accounts at these banks can breathe easier, knowing they'll be able to pay their workers and pay their bills.

In a press conference Monday, President Joe Biden said, Number one, all depositors in the bank will have access to their money immediately without the burden being placed on taxpayers.

Number two, FDIC sees the bank.

The managers of the bank were all fired.

Number three, investors in the bank won't be reimbursed.

Number four, his administration will look into the root cause.

And lastly, that he'd also look into reducing the risk of this ever happening again.

As for the Silicon Valley Bank, it was put up for auction.

The whole process has to it has to resolve within 90 days.

And the way a typical bank failure works is that there is an auction and there is an auction.

There is a winner of this auction.

And that that auction winner acquires the failed bank.

And to the average person.

This shift usually goes unnoticed.

So long story short, SVB did fail, but Louisiana depositors shouldn't worry.

Your money is safe.

We are now halfway through the first month in almost three years where extra SNAP benefits have ended.

These are benefits that began with the pandemic.

An extension for most states ended March 1st.

Monica Brown is the deputy assistant secretary of Children and Family Services, is here with us now.

And I'm wondering, Monica, have you noticed calls from people who are having difficulty with the change and the extra benefits?

There have been some calls, but it hasn't been to the extreme we expected.

And I think it has a lot to do with it.

We did a lot of things to prepare for this.

And some some of the things that we did were we've been communicating with them from the beginning almost since we started getting the extension.

The extra benefits beginning, right.

We started giving them notice that we were getting the extension because we had to apply for the extension every month.

So one of the things we have is an opt in where you opt in for texting.

So we were telling the people who had the opt in method that, hey, we are got the extension this month.

So they knew this.

This was a monthly thing that we were giving.

So it wasn't something that was, you know, not known that it was temporary.

So there was an awareness.

It still has hit everybody hard.

So I would say one of the things that we had done as as an agency, as a department, is we looked at the things that would change.

So we had what is called broad based categorical eligibility, which allowed us to make more people eligible.

So it's based on the poverty level.

Okay.

So with more people being eligible on the poverty level and allowing us to have more people who have resources, we had a resource limit that was relatively low.

So with the Higher Resource Limited, allow more people to be eligible during that time period.

So that still stands.

So some of those things that we put in place are still there.

Okay.

Also, one of the things that we put in the places that our TANF, which is our cash assistance that grant went up.

So the grant amounts went up and almost doubled.

We had one of the lowest grant amounts.

You know, as far as nationwide.

And so we doubled the grant amount.

The grant amount previously was to 40 for a household of three is now for 84, 84, to be exact.

And the amount for kinship, which is when a grandparent or an auntie has the children instead of the parent, when they have kinship care they're getting now, instead of $222 per child, they're getting 450 per child.

We're a state with one of the highest hunger rates.

Yes.

One in seven people.

One in five children.

Which is alarming in the nation.

But so it was necessary to get those amounts up to a more fair level, I would think.

Right.

Right.

So these are things that we've been adding to.

And even now with this coming, we are looking at two other things that are coming up.

We have a standard medical deduction that's going to help in allow our state standard medical deduction is going to aid If a person shows that they have and they're disabled or senior and they have $35 in a penny, they'll get the whole standard deduction of 195, I believe it is.

And that's going to up with their actual amount of their state of their benefit amount will.

Be what are some of the things that people can do, though, right now if they're feeling the squeeze?

Okay.

Well, I think we need to make sure your amount is right because you weren't getting the full benefit amount for the last three years.

A lot of people have not told us that there may have been a household change.

Right.

So verify what you have in the household.

Right.

Let's talk to us.

Tell us what what's going on.

So it is important to give us a call and tell us, you know, how many people are in the household.

Let's make sure that if you had an increase, maybe your baby was born.

Sure.

Let's talk about if you have an increase in expenses.

So there's been more shelter expenses if you have court ordered child support and that you're paying out into your from your household.

Let's talk about that, because those are expenses that are counting.

Sure.

So when we budget, let's talk about what we're budgeting.

It sounds like you guys have communicated with with anyone receiving benefits from the beginning and you continue to.

But it's a two way street.

And if you need help, other assistance, go to that.

Also, whether it's a food bank, churches.

In call two one, one.

Two, one, one.

Right.

And you know, there's a big push right now because we're looking at grants to out there and the farmers markets are really good extensions of what we can do.

So they offer more matching benefits, some of them the different amounts.

But it's really good to get out there to a farmer's market.

It's a lot of information, but it's a lot when you're hungry and that it's something we all need to be aware of.

Monica, thank you so much.

I appreciate.

It.

All right, thanks.

The controversial mayoral recall petition in New Orleans continues as both sides argue over the legitimacy of the signatures.

Matt Sledge, a reporter who's been following the story, gives us a timeline.

So the Cantrell administration has been really scrutinized a lot since the pandemic.

And now there seems to be a recall petition that's coming out where people want to actually remove her from office.

How did New Orleans get here?

So it's a pretty interesting chain of events.

Cantrell was widely praised for her handling of the COVID pandemic.

She shut down businesses when a lot of business owners didn't want her to.

And then in 2021, she ran for reelection for her second term, was able to kind of clear the field.

No one with a lot of serious political backing ran against her, and she won a very convincing victory for her second term.

Almost immediately, the problem started coming out of the woodwork.

Crime was already high in New Orleans, post-pandemic, and it just kept going up in 2021 and 2022.

And the mayor, her critics would say, just couldn't seem to get a handle on the problem or her police department never came out with a very convincing plan for how they were going to respond to the rise in crime over the course of 2022.

In addition to crime, there were all sorts of other issues like roadwork, problems.

Everybody who's who's driven around New Orleans knows the streets are a mess.

They've been a mess for years at this point.

And then there was a series of personal issues, personal controversies involving the mayor that came out, the big the first big one was the first class flights she took to overseas destinations on taxpayer expense.

You know, the mayor was initially very reluctant to repay taxpayers for those flights.

So there was there was this, you know, kind of a suit brewing of of issues involving the city and involving the mayor personally.

And then on August 26 of last year, two people, one of them, Eileen Carter, a former staffer for the mayor, she was actually the mayor's social media manager.

And then one Belgian duty man, Baptiste, who's a kind of activist, shows up to a bunch of city council meetings, runs for a lot of political offices.

Together, they filed a formal notice that they were going to attempt to do a recall of the mayor.

That was on August 26th of last year.

There was a lot of uncertainty when their efforts started about how serious it was going to be, whether it was going to have legs.

And then almost immediately, they had a very large signature signing event in Lakeview that you're hundreds and hundreds of people and showed that at a bare minimum, there was some enthusiast ism for this effort.

So before we talk a little bit more about the recall that's going on right now, first let's look backpedal a little bit.

I mean, are recalls even common in Louisiana?

Yeah, it's really interesting.

Every state has its own rules for how recalls can go forward.

Many states don't have any kind of recall at all.

Louisiana used to set one of the highest bars for a recall in the nation.

You had to have a third of active voters sign your your petition.

A few years back, state representative on the North Shore decided that was too high of a bar.

So he authored legislation that reduced the trigger from a third to a fifth of of registered voters.

And that has made it a lot easier to at least attempt to do a recall.

That's not to say there have been many successful recall attempts since then.

It's still very hard to collect enough signatures to actually get on the ballot.

Talking to recall experts, once you do get on the ballot, once voters do have that yes or no question of whether to retain a politician, your odds, your chances of success increase dramatically.

So for this recall petition, I mean, what's the latest on that?

Is it is it likely that this one's going to be successful.

As you and I sit here today?

It's really hard to say the answer to that question.

The deadline for the recall organizers to turn in their signatures was February 22nd, Ash Wednesday.

They did that with a lot of pomp and circumstance.

They dropped off the boxes an hour before deadline.

They had a brass band playing.

They declared victory.

But all throughout this process, they have refused to give us a specific number of how many signatures they have collected.

So we don't even know their estimate of how many signatures they've collected, let alone how many The Orleans Parish Registrar of Voters, whose job it is to count these things will say our ballot.

So where do you go from here if nobody knows how many signatures you have?

We go ahead to March 22nd.

That's the registrar's deadline for verifying these things.

And presumably we will know on that date or soon after whether she thinks they have enough valid signatures.

Just given the way things have been going.

I wouldn't be surprised either way if she says yes, they made it or no, they didn't get there.

If there are more lawsuits, further litigation over all of this.

So suppose this recall is successful.

What does that mean for New Orleans?

Well, if if this thing goes to a ballot, then there's going to be an up or down vote on the mayor.

And if people vote to recall the mayor, we are probably in for months and months of uncertainty about what happens next.

One of the city council members will be placed in position as acting mayor, and then there will be another election to replace the mayor for the rest of the term.

That could potentially go into a runoff.

So we could keep having elections and uncertainty until April 2024.

And there's definitely a new precedent that will be set whenever it comes to recall and politicians as well.

I think so.

I think it's it's very possible we could see more recall campaigns in Louisiana as a result of this.

All right.

Well, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you.

Interesting to see how that all pans out.

Everyone, happy St Patrick's Day.

And March Madness is in full swing now.

And that is our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything else any time, wherever you are with our LPB TVs app.

You can catch LPB news and public affairs shows as well as other Louisiana programs you've come to enjoy over the years.

And please like us on Facebook, Twitter.

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I'm Andre.

Moreau and I'm Kara St. Cyr.

Here next time.

That's the state we're in.

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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 B. and Ruth Zigler Foundation and the Zigler 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.