Entergy is proud to support programing on LPB and greener practices that preserve Louisiana.

The goal of our environmental and sustainability initiatives really is to ensure that our kids and future generations can be left with a cleaner planet.

Additional support provided by the Fred B. and Ruth B. Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler 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.

To have access to our adaptive therapy, those patients are going to get huge benefit from it.

Game changing cancer treatment in Louisiana and have a hotel, the motel for blacks.

So we have to go live.

And there are people housed.

Tonight, we turn the first page in the green book.

They are coming together to bring the city back together.

The making of a music festival unlike any other.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Kara St. Cyr.

And I'm Andre Malraux.

Right now on SWG, a change of plans for state workers who are not vaccinated.

Governor John Bel Edwards is scrapping a plan to test unvaccinated workers on a regular basis.

It turns out it was just too difficult to enforce.

The push for vaccines and booster shots, though, remains as strong as ever.

State health officials say the flu shot is also a top priority as we enter flu season.

And Wednesday's press briefing, Governor Edwards rolled up his sleeves to get both the flu shot and his booster.

Health leaders say the flu shot will help prevent further overload on a health care system already overwhelmed by Covid.

And now let's take a look at other news making headlines around the state.

A small number of employees at Ochsner Health are suing to block a requirement to get the Covid vaccine to keep their jobs.

The lawsuit challenges Ochsner vaccine mandate.

Ochsner CEO Chuck Deagle says it firmly stands behind the science of the decision.

A pay raise and bonus is coming for teachers in Lafayette Parish.

Their school board voted this week to give a 750 dollar salary increase and 6500 dollar bonus check.

The extra income will go out sometime this month.

The school system says the raise is not much, but still a great incentive to recruit more teachers.

Senator Bill Cassidy blasted President Biden on the Senate floor this week for allowing rate hikes on flood insurance.

He says Congress never passed a bill to require FEMA to implement this.

And Biden could have stopped it, but didn't.

It impacts Louisiana and the whole country in a big way.

The governor says the state has joined the International Race to 08 campaign, a climate change initiative.

It seeks to reduce net carbon emissions around the world to zero by the year 2050.

Governor Edwards says no state in our country is more adversely impacted by climate change than Louisiana.

Legalized sports betting on the state started this week at Paragon Casino Resort in Marksville, Louisiana, is making a move for its biggest gambling expansion in decades.

Opioid related deaths have been on the rise in Louisiana since around 2016.

But numbers have surged even higher during this pandemic last year.

Nine hundred and forty nine people overdose on opioids, which is the sixty nine percent jump from 2019 to numbers.

The CDC predicts that the number of deaths and overdoses will continue to rise through the end of this year.

Nell Wilson with the Louisiana Department of Health says the state's battle with addiction is unprecedented.

The opioid problem in Baton Rouge is getting worse every year.

Hillar more, the East Baton Rouge Parish district attorney says that the number of overdoses in 2021 is set to surpass 2020 by at least 60 cases.

It's a significant problem.

It's substantial.

If we compare this to murders, where everyone gets a new stories is about homicides and people dying from gun violence.

And right now, we're at one hundred and six or seven, which is a I know it's not an outrageous number, but when you compare that to the opioid overdose deaths, it doubles and it pales in comparison in his district.

Moore says that his office recorded 240 opioid deaths in 2020.

This year, the parish is creeping dangerously close to last year's numbers.

So far, Moore's recorded 172 opioid deaths and 67 probable cases combined.

That's only one case short of 20s total number.

A lot of these are linked directly to one of two things the pandemic or the overreactive hurricane season.

During quarantine, addiction, treatment services were closed.

And for some people, that was the only thing keeping them sober.

Other people were driven to drugs just by the isolation, and the hurricanes added even more pressure.

But the bulk of Baton Rouge is opioid problem was intensified by fentanyl distribution.

The fentanyl, as he described it, is literally 50 to 100 times more potent.

So if I'm an opiate or an opioid user and I can spend the same amount of money for a bag of heroin or a bag of fentanyl, I'm going to get the Sentinel every time I'm going to take the risk, because my perceived reward of that outweighs the risk.

That's part of the illness of addiction.

So that's that's how it kind of began.

The problem now is that people who aren't traditional fentanyl users are getting it unknowingly.

Dealers are lacing their products with it.

So if someone is doing cocaine, heroin or any other type of opioid, there's a chance it was enhanced by synthetic ones, which can be extremely dangerous.

But this problem is hardly just a Baton Rouge issue.

Since the pandemic began, the entire state's drug usage has increased.

Unfortunately, with everything else that we've had to deal with in the last two years, with the pandemic and with two active hurricane seasons, we also saw in 2020 a an increase in drug involved deaths.

Opioid involved deaths, synthetic opioid involved deaths, and even emergency department visits.

That was an astronomical increase to what we've seen before.

At the end of 2020, about 1200 people were admitted to the emergency room for drug related issues.

About 9500 of them died.

And of that number, 949, where opioid related deaths, which is a 69 percent increase from 2019, the people using synthetic opioids signed a 17 percent increase from 2015 to 2019.

We had a 49 percent increase over that Five-Year period.

So then in 2020, for just drug overdoses of all drug types or mixed drug types.

We are almost equal to the total of the five year period prior to the state is trying to fight back against the abuse.

Louisiana is expected to receive eight million dollars annually for 18 years as part of an opioid abuse settlement between 42 states.

Three major drug distribution companies and Johnson and Johnson.

Louisiana's attorney general, Jeff Landry, says that 100 percent of the funds will go toward addiction, treatment response and recovery services.

Currently, there is no legal way to test drugs for fentanyl, Hillar Moore says your best option is to seek treatment.

Let's talk political climate now.

In history, there may have been times when there was more discord, but no time, certainly when it's played out in real time.

Coming at us from everywhere, TV, social media, all of the media sources that exist.

Political pollster and scrutinize her.

That's a good thing to call you.

John Cuvier from JAMESI Analytics is here.

Let's talk climate first.

Absolutely.

Where are we?

So what's happened is right now we are nearly a year into the first year, the Bush administration.

You have his approval ratings that have actually fallen to where he's underwater in his approval.

In other words, his disapproval rating is higher than his approval rating.

The other thing, too, that is happening, in addition to his declining approval rating, is that in midterms, almost always the party in power suffers losses in the first midterm election, in this case, the Democrats, because they have unified control of the House and the Senate.

And in addition to having the presidency, they are the party in power.

So those two things combined give me an initial assessment of the midterms as not being favorable to the Democrats.

And we're watching stuff playing out in Washington right now.

That is, again, this shows the divide greater, especially with the infrastructure bill and the other larger social bill.

Not supposed to be tied together, but they certainly seem to be in some camps.

And so that also breeds mistrust.

It does.

And the problem, too, when you're talking about bills like this that are taking as long as they are to get passed without even a solid agreement as to what is going to be in the final bill, I think those kinds of things tend to create some cynicism among voters, especially if it's not clear to them what the benefit would be here in Louisiana.

So now the infrastructure bill, though, is supposed to be fantastic for Louisiana.

You look on Bill Cassidy site, he's got it very specifically listed out what it means for Louisiana.

And it's all over the place from coastal to highways to bridges to you name it.

It's a great thing to flood control, but it doesn't seem people are getting that message.

And the Louisiana delegation, they're not at all in favor of this as a whole.

Right.

And therein lies the problem is that given that you don't have this delineation of its benefits being trumpeted from the corner to different corners of the state , people don't really know what's in it and as such, or just seeing it as this kind of three point three plus trillion dollar morass.

And so that's the challenge that those in power have right now, is they need to talk about the specific benefits to Louisiana in the ultimate bill that will be passed, just like the benefits that were seen during the 2009 stimulus, which actually provided money to widening interstates 10 and 12.

Now, the infrastructure is one point to the other.

Larger social bill is about 2.0 point I guess, two point one, one point nine.

But again, the messaging doesn't seem to be there.

And so maybe we see the vote delays, et cetera.

And one side saying something, the other side saying that's not going to happen.

It's a problem.

What does it mean going forward, though?

Politically, what it means going forward is when you have muddle muddled messaging of the type that you describe, whether we're talking about the infrastructure bill or whether we're talking about the government's response to the coronavirus pandemic, that type of thing tends to give rise to demagogs, who can all of a sudden start picking apart pieces of it and making it look worse than it really is.

It, of course, talking about the messaging, the plan of action and so forth.

And in Louisiana, we just need help with the hurricanes, help with Covid, help across the board and a football team maybe that's winning more.

Yes.

John, thanks so much for being here.

I appreciate it.

A pleasure.

It's grabbing headlines from everywhere, the huge announcement from Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center in Baton Rouge.

Beginning next year, it will become only one of six places in the entire US to offer breakthrough adaptive MRI guided radiation therapy.

The price tag for this is more than 10 million dollars.

What will it mean?

I talked with the radiation oncologist who will head up the program and also with the center's CEO.

Well, I think Mary Bird Perkins has always really led the region in terms of technology, innovation.

We have a history of this, you know, with development of of IMRT, which has technology for delivering radiation, again, in a more accurate way.

That's now kind of standard, our gamma knife program, which allows us to be very accurate, treating brain tumors and cancer that spread to the brain.

Our collaborations with the LSU medical physics program has been instrumental in all of this.

The adaptive MRI guided radiation therapy program is just kind of the next iteration of this.

But it's exciting because it's a game changer.

It's going to allow true personalization of cancer care, not just at the beginning of patients radiation treatment, but with every single radiation treatment they receive.

And that's the big benefit.

So standard radiation treatment is noninvasive and it's done with one treatment plan that's kind of made at the beginning of the patient's course.

With the new technology that we have, which is MRI based.

We're not only able to see the tumor better, but we're able to see organs that are nearby better.

So, for example, if we're treating something in the abdomen, we can see the bowel, the stomach and how that changes every day, because all those things change every day, as well as potentially the tumor itself.

So we are actually making a new plan B for each of those 10 treatments.

This allows us to increase the dose potentially, because we can safely do it without hurting organs or we can decrease the dose to the organs, minimizing side effects.

What those two things in turn can actually allow us for us to actually do the treatment potentially in less treatments, making it more convenient for patients as well.

So it really kind of hits on all the main points that we need to hit on in terms of improving radiation oncology care for any of your science buffs out there or are applied science physics buffs, the fact that there is an MRI, which a big magnet on a linear accelerator and they can even coexist and work together, is it's unbelievable science patients that had really have really rare tumors that are difficult to target with traditional radiation therapy.

There's targets inside of the body that they move around too much, they're too amorphous for traditional radiotherapy to to be applicable.

This technology will open the door to the physicians and their medical treatment team to provide radiation therapy as a solution to help fight that cancer.

So it's going to help people that previously we had to say, no, we don't have a radiation technique that can help you.

Cancer care has evolved so rapidly because physicians have been able to harness all of these techniques at the same time, 30, 20 years ago, you just would get one or maybe two of those disciplines.

Today, they're using surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy and immunotherapy, all in combination.

So when we open the doors to difficult to treat tumors that were previously shut out from radiation therapy to have access to our adaptive therapy, those patients are going to get huge benefit from it.

And they don't have to go else and they don't have to go elsewhere.

Mary Burt and our lady of the lake are no longer partners.

Mary Perkins has joined forces with one oncology out of Nashville.

The lake, however, announced plans this week to build a new 100 million dollar freestanding cancer institute of its own near its campus right there on Essene Lane.

Imagine you can't travel inside your hometown safely for fear of losing your life and crossing state lines to visit family is a gamble.

Victor Greene live this reality, and he created a book to guide African-Americans to the United States safely.

It was called The Green Book, and it was a lifeline for black travelers.

Tonight, we're sharing with you the first ever episode of Safe Haven, where we explore eight green book locations in Louisiana.

It's hard to believe if I were to travel just 70 years ago, this little guide could potentially save my life.

I'm Kara St. Cyr and this is Safe Haven.

Louisiana's Green Book 1939 was the second year that the Green book was published for a small rural town.

Opelousas had a surprisingly vibrant African-American commercial district.

They called it the Hill.

For some reason, the businesses in the Hill never made it into the green book, with one exception Tourisms.

Hey, how are you doing?

How are you doing now?

My name is Character and little Jerome Sub.

Sub-Zero remembers one of these homes very well when they had big bands came through this town.

Duke Ellington called Beebs and Henry James, Sam Cooke, B.B.

King, all these named people came to this club in Appleton.

In the club Sub is referring to is Bradford's White Eagle, a famous venue on the chitlin circuit, which is for black musicians.

And back in those days, they didn't have any hotels or motel for blacks.

So they had to go on living.

There are people houses, you know.

And my grandmother took a bunch of them in.

We see that house on the corner ahead.

Left, right here.

Yeah, I can see it.

That's the big house.

SOB's grandmother Bula Jerone ran a tourist home and they called it the big house because it was the big house.

People all the time, 24/7.

Yeah, teachers live there, students, the construction workers.

You would never go in that house.

It wasn't anything cooked on the stove.

This is the big house on the corner of South Lombard Street.

We're meeting sub's cousin, Donald Jerone.

He grew up in the brick house right behind it.

Hey, how are you doing?

My name is Cara.

I'm working.

Luckily, the current tenant, Mrs. Betty, welcomed us inside.

Well, everything's the same outside and you change the the inside and renovated their six six bedroom living room and a kitchen and one bathroom.

All these people with you in one bathroom.

And right here in this room over here, she had a piano in there.

No, man.

Noone used to playing the piano.

Yeah, they were.

They were dancing.

Yeah.

They will come here.

Why your grandmother was here?

Yes, it was.

She rented rooms out, even if she didn't know then.

They back and then the people running like a rainbow.

Well, blacks couldn't stay in hotel there any, you know.

Yeah.

Oh, you mean Tianna?

Where do you flip in your car?

Just want no place for these houses that you could come to these houses and, you know, rent a room.

Surprisingly, this safe haven wasn't even in an all black neighborhood, but all this across the street was like white people.

OK. And over here with like, OK. And across the cross the street with white people, too.

So we were like I told her that I live in a neighborhood.

We were the only black family in the block.

Really?

Wow.

I thought I was tinu little fun.

One black Opelousas had one of the only all black high schools in the area which drew teachers from all over the state.

People would bring your kids here.

So I'm coming.

Lagan The Jerone House remained in the Green Book for 27 years until its last publication in 1966.

You know, when I moved here, they say a lot of teachers believe me, if I really didn't know the history, the real history about it, and I'm now I'm getting this opportunity to even tell witnesses.

Yeah.

Today, most people don't even know this neighborhood was called the Hill.

Almost all of the black owned businesses here are closed after integration and things seem to fall apart.

I'm beginning to learn this story is not uncommon.

ExxonMobil, Baton Rouge is proud to support Safe Haven.

Louisiana's Green Book For more than 100 years, ExxonMobil has made a commitment to workforce diversity and the belief that reflecting on historic race relations is key to shaping a better future.

You know, what amazes me is that I'm learning about this for the first time, which is hard to believe.

So I can thank you for that great report.

Yeah, we're definitely excited to show the rest of these episodes.

So we'll be showing three more episodes of Safe Haven on the state we're in.

But if you want to find all eight, you'll have to check out our YouTube page.

You can find that link right there on the screen.

It's raining so hard.

Look like it's going to rain all night.

And this is a time.

I love to behold and your time for that.

That is Grammy winner Irma Thomas.

It's raining so hard.

It is the first song I remember hearing her sing.

I wasn't even five years old at the time.

My siblings played it all the time.

And so that's why it's such a thrill for me to talk to you right now.

Miss Irma Thomas and also producer Syd Greenbaum about this big festival.

First of its kind in New Orleans that is actually underway now.

It is NOLA by NOLA and Irma.

Tell us what that is exactly.

I'll let Mr. Greenberg tell you.

Okay.

All right.

We'll talk in a second.

Good.

Because you to trust me with the rest of it.

Yeah.

After I speak for a couple of seconds, please speak to Irma, because, you know, it is I'm so honored to be sitting next to her.

Nawabi NOLA is a citywide celebration.

It's a coalition of thirty five music venues.

It's really an incredible movement.

And and really, you know, again, coalition of all the venues supporting each other.

And over the course of the 10 day period, we have over 300 shows.

And the idea behind NOLA by NOLA was really New Orleans helping New Orleans with the music venues and with musicians and also people who have New Orleans in their heart.

People, you know, you come to New Orleans.

It's in you all of a sudden and you really can't shake it and you just want to be part of it.

So Nola by NOLA is here to support the music industry, the venues, the musicians, people who work inside and around it.

And ultimately that helps our hotels and our restaurants and the whole experience you get when you come here.

And it's a festival, but it's not in one location.

It's in thirty five music venues.

So it is a Covid friendly type of safer environment because you won't have as bigger crowds all in one place, but all those Covid protocols are built in to the whole thing.

So right now you're coming to us from Tipitina's.

Irma, where are you going to be singing during this festival?

I am going to be all over the place.

Good.

You have to go to Nola dot com and as you said, go to the Nola dot x NOLA.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

And then you look at the venues and there's there's several occasions where I'm going to be going and sharing my time and my music with them, with the various bands that are playing at the various venues.

So I'm going to be all over the place.

It's so cool.

You Irma will be omnipresent.

She is omnipresent.

And just recently in February, celebrated your 80th birthday.

So I'm a February baby also.

So we're both Aquarians.

I think Sigge well know.

We both nuts.

Yeah, well, people who know us know that.

Yes.

So you created this, right?

So what was what led up to this?

Was it the attempted Jazz Fest coming back and then canceled?

Was it because of the situation going on in our world and was Covid?

Well, that's what it's about.

I'll tell you how how it came about.

Yeah, it's very interesting.

You know, as soon as, you know, Jazz Fest is cancelation was really a hard hit for the city because a lot of festivals in the fall, which was going to be action packed, were going away.

And, you know, the Tuesday after that, there was an article about the impact on music venues and restaurants.

I just felt there had to be a way that we could do this and we could do it safely and support each other and and have it so that, you know, everything didn't have to be a shutdown.

We've been through that.

We've got vaccines.

We don't need to be there anymore.

So how could we do it?

And, you know, threw out the idea to the venues.

The venues immediately gravitated towards the idea and were excited about it.

And then we spoke to New Orleans and Co. and Stephen Perry and Mark Romig.

And they saw this as a real opportunity and hopefully an opportunity that will live on for many years and only get larger and more impactful as we go forward.

Yeah, I mean, I think so.

I think it's such a cool, interesting idea that all these venues get involved in this.

So it is it's hugely widespread.

And you get to go to a place that you really want to go to many, many places.

As a matter of fact, this is one time when the club owners are coming together and helping each other out play at one club and mentioned the fact that I'm going to be at another club in a play at that club and mentioned the fact I'm going to be somewhere else.

And they don't get upset with you by doing it because they are coming together to bring the city back together and bring the people back together.

And this is going to be the therapy for all of them.

So this is a wonderful situation.

Well, it's it's terrific.

It's has begun on this on the 7th, goes through the 17th.

And for more information on this, you can simply go to New Orleans dot com.

If you want to plan a trip to New Orleans, to Urma, that's the place to go, right?

Yes.

Again, the thrill to to meet you, at least by camera.

And CIG, great creation, great creation.

Thanks very much again.

For more information, go to New Orleans dot com.

When you go there and NOLA by NOLA will pop up immediately, give you all the information about that festival.

It's something else.

Really terrific, everyone.

That's our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LP any time, wherever you are with our LPE app.

You can get Gelpi 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 and Instagram for everyone here at Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

I'm Andre Móre and I'm chorusing theer.

And so next time, that's the state we're in.

Entergy is proud to support programing on LP and greener practices that preserve Louisiana.

The goal of our environmental and sustainability initiatives really is to ensure that our kids and future generations can be left with a cleaner planet.

Additional support provided by the Fred B. and Ruth B. Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler 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.