Support for a 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 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.

Over 43 million birds were lost due to avian influenza.

Egg sticker shock.

To the extent that the ban term is used, it really is inaccurate because we're simply blocking access to that particular site.

Tick tock.

Officially banned in Louisiana.

This also has the potential to normalize massive invasions of privacy.

Can law enforcement trust facial recognition technology.

Alone to make it was it was a one shot deal.

What sunk an epic cruise.

A political shocker kicking off the new year.

Senator John Kennedy, thought to be a frontrunner in the race for governor, announcing this week he won't run.

It leaves Attorney General Jeff Landry as the only major candidate.

But it opens a world of possibilities.

It's likely Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser and State Treasurer John Schroeder will soon announce.

Now, Landry got an early endorsement from the state GOP and has raised $3 million.

At last check, Nungesser had almost two and a half million.

Here are some other top headlines from around the state.

Louisiana's float in the Tournament of Roses Parade January 2nd won the Showmanship Award for the most outstanding display of showmanship and entertainment.

The float celebration riverfront was a highlight in the 134th parade in Pasadena, California, and it featured 21 Fair and Festival queens and country singer Lainey Wilson performing.

LSU and Tulane join the Rose Parade float in the winner's circle January 2nd.

LSU found itself missing a number of starters as players opted out of the Citrus Bowl game versus Purdue.

Purdue was missing many key players also.

But the difference was the Tigers superiority.

LSU ran up a 63 to 7, whipping up Purdue, the biggest rout in college bowl history.

The LSU game was never in doubt.

While in the Cotton Bowl, Tulane never doubted itself.

Refusing to lose and rallying to a shocker over Southern Cal.

The Green Wave scored two touchdowns and a safety in the final 4 minutes to overcome a 15 point deficit.

Blue Green Water Technologies says the world's 10th worst toxic algae bloom in 2022 was found in the University Lakes in Baton Rouge.

The chain of six lakes near the LSU campus broke out into shallow pits of green slime over the summer with rotting algae and other exposed plant life baking in the sun.

A major restoration and dredging project is in the works, with the state providing millions in funding for a cleanup plan.

Constant car break ends during New Orleans Saints and Pelicans games have the NFL and NBA on notice and the teams calling for action.

They've reached out to city leaders.

And NOPD interim superintendent Michelle Woodfox says she'll double down on officers and all special events.

But her message to players that they have nothing to worry about, it's hardly reassuring and why did the price of eggs skyrocket in 2020 to up 49% in the past year?

That's more than any other grocery category, according to the Consumer Price Index.

Economists say bird flu is the primary reason.

Millions of egg laying hens died in 2022 as a result of the deadliest outbreak of avian flu in U.S. history.

The US Department of Agriculture says avian flu is highly contagious and lethal.

The CDC says it can kill 90 to 100% of chickens, often within 48 hours, and farmers generally must kill the remaining birds.

Because of federal rules meant to prevent spread.

In November, the cost of a dozen large grade-A eggs more than doubled from the year before, going from 172 to $3.59.

Food economists say shoppers are feeling the price of high egg prices more than other groceries because they're a known value item, like a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread.

The price of almost everything and the cost to do anything is up from airfare to electricity, from the price of gas to the price of new cars.

Among the things that are down in price, new smartphones and new televisions, it's the price of eggs.

For me, and I think for most people, but really the shocker at the grocery store, we really noticed it even more over the holidays.

Commissioner of Agriculture Mike Strange.

How are.

You?

Good to see you for coming in here.

Happy New Year to you.

This is a big, important topic as food and everything else went up over the past couple of years.

The past year.

Eggs being the most expensive increase.

Percentage wise.

Yes.

If you look at the price of eggs, you know, the average wholesale price of eggs today in Louisiana is about $5.20.

In California, it's over $7.50.

Across America today, it's around $5 plus.

So what's happened?

One, we had a second round of avian influenza.

If you look just in the past year, 14% of our egg laying hens were lost.

Over 43 million birds were lost due to avian influenza.

And so to repopulate that, to bring that supply back up, you're looking at 6 to 8 months.

So we get.

Minimum when you have bird flu, you have to wipe out.

Right?

You depart.

That's right.

That long of a time, those birds.

Well, you got to understand, right?

You got to have a hen.

We want a microwave bird.

It that work that way.

And then you have to raise you know, you have to raise those birds.

And they don't start laying until the five or six months old, you know, at best.

And so there is a cycle that it takes.

It it's not quick.

And so the other thing that's happening is that now with inflationary pressures, the cost of production has increased markedly corn, beans, electricity, gas, you know, tractor parts all added into this equation.

So we've had very high growth and food costs now going into almost year three, but eggs has been at the top of that.

And if you look at the price of eggs, it's risen over 200% in 12 months.

So if you look where we were a year ago, it was around a dollar, $22.50.

And today in Louisiana to now and if you look at today's date and we're up over 300%.

Yeah, because we're now at five plus.

Well, that's the real shocker.

And of course, over the holidays, people bake.

That's right.

So there's the more.

You had a high increase in demand on a decreasing supply.

Right.

And so what happened is that beginning Thanksgiving to now, that's why you've seen this market increase and the price of eggs.

And it's not going to go down any time fast.

Yeah.

You know, a year ago, you know, there were probably 25, 30% of the stores were having sales on eggs.

Today, only 2% have sales on eggs.

And so, again, we've got to gear back up.

We've got to get some more hens in production, and that's going to take 5 to 6 months.

And we're also we're working very hard.

We're making great strides in dealing with avian influenza through biosecurity.

But there's been a shift in the virus.

Yeah, the virus before would come down when the wild ducks would move through the through the flyway.

Now we're finding it everywhere in the wild bird population.

So the viruses, rats, we've been very fortunate here in Louisiana.

It has not affected any of our poultry.

We have on any given day, 100 million birds on the ground.

We have two large egg laying facilities, you know, cow main foods in Jordan, eggs in Louisiana.

It has not affected us, but we are very cognizant that it could.

But we have very high degree of biosecurity and that is the key biosecurity at our farms.

Percentage wise, Louisiana egg farmers, how much do they supply to stores in the state or elsewhere?

Well, it's they supply, you know, probably a pretty good percent.

You know, if you look at overall of what they can we consume.

So we have two farms here.

I don't have the exact number that they do, but it's a large percentage of what comes here because we like, you know, people want to have it fresh and local.

And so a lot of the eggs you buy come from those two farms.

Another one of the big surprises for me was seeing white eggs, regular white eggs, more expensive than the free range brownie.

Because it's in immediate supply and demand.

And so you had a market increase in demand of those white eggs.

And you extra large and your large eggs are the same price.

Almost the same price on the wholesale price.

And because of supply and demand issues.

So as we look to the future, what can people what are people doing as they go to the grocery store?

This is really.

Shopping.

You're having a shop and look, you know, look for what is more affordable.

You may go instead of an extra large egg to the medium size egg.

A lot of people are raising chickens.

A lot of people this year are going to be raised, yeah, they'll have a dozen hens of their own and raising their own eggs.

But be cognizant of the fact that when you go to the store, you're going to have to shop.

A lot of things are changing in the stores.

You see more store.

Buying if you can even hold off.

To, you can even find.

So there's been a huge increase in store brands versus name brands, people looking for more economical way.

Right.

We are going to be in a tight spot.

Food wise, as far as cost and availability, especially going into the next year for many different reasons, economic and others.

And so we're going to be cooking more from scratch.

I think you're going to see I think you're going to see a shift towards store brands.

More people will be planning gardens and raising hens.

There we go.

Commissioner of Agriculture Mike Strange, so important to get this information from you.

Thank you for coming in.

Quite welcome.

Thank you.

And now the first of two reports from our Kara sites here in Louisiana.

Now joins at least 17 other states that have banned Tik Tok on state devices.

And dec commissioner of administration, Jay Darden, announced that state employees in Louisiana cannot use the app on government use devices.

He's here today to expand on the issue.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you.

So let's get started.

I mean, you're not the first state official to raise concerns about this.

Tik talk app.

I mean, first it was a secretary of state and now we have the Louisiana superintendent that's also concerned.

So can you explain what this TikTok ban actually is and is it really a ban?

Well, it really isn't a ban.

It's a blocking.

The devices are blocked when you're in one of the state buildings controlled by the executive branch of government, by the governor.

So it's not a complete ban.

You can still access TikTok on your phone if you're not in at work, if you're not in a building.

So to that extent, it's a blocking rather than a ban.

So it's really just about being on state Wi-Fi, things like that.

If you're on your your employer's Wi-Fi in a state building, you can't use it.

That's right.

If you're a state employee on your phone, primarily driven by cybersecurity concerns, this is what I think has gotten most of the attention nationwide and certainly was the issue that was raised to us when we started having this discussion after the Secretary of state made the ban.

We have a very sophisticated cybersecurity program in the state of Louisiana that's been very successful, and there are lots of threats out there.

And obviously, our interest is to make certain that we don't provide easy access for anyone to be able to create ransomware attacks and cyber challenges.

So that's the concern is ransomware attacks and things like that.

Yes, we've we've unfortunately experienced those in the past.

And so we're very conscious of that.

And we've done a put a lot of resources in making certain we can prevent as much as possible and deal with quickly any kind of attack that happens to a governmental entity.

I mean, this isn't the first time people have brought up concerns about tech talk.

I mean, this issue has been something that's been brought up nationally, I think, since 2020.

So why is it that now we're seeing those bans come into play?

I mean, this isn't the first state that this has happened in.

And I think it's kind of like a wildfire has taken effect as people have seen other states take action.

They have taken action as well.

And that's certainly what happened in our case when it started getting some attention statewide.

And the secretary of state really initiated the discussion about it, to his credit, with the initial ban or blocking on their devices.

And we thought it was a very good and appropriate idea for the state to take similar action.

Do you think this is at all a political issue?

Because, like I said, this has been brought up since 2020 and a lot of people have had concerns about this.

And it's really a bipartisan issue.

And a cybersecurity is a concern for everybody but you, Democrat or Republican or independent.

So from our standpoint, it's not political.

It's to make certain that we're protecting ourselves to the maximum extent possible against a cyber attack.

So just to be clear, I mean, when you hear the word ban, it's very scary.

And for regular people that don't work in, you know, working government, are they also going to be blocked whenever they come into state buildings if they want to use TikTok?

Well, we.

Will have we have a mechanism of blocking within a state building.

So I don't think you're going to be able to access TikTok when you're in a state building.

But the man, to the extent that the banned term is used, it really is inaccurate because we're simply blocking access to that particular site while you're in a state building and while you're on a phone that has access to that site.

So Bytedance is the name of the company that owns TikTok, and that is a company that is run in China.

And they do have other social media apps.

Do we anticipate seeing any other bans or blocks on any other apps this year?

If our security people, our cybersecurity people expressed concern to us about a particular app that may provide easier access from a cybersecurity standpoint, we would take appropriate action.

Is there anything else people should know about this, this block?

I don't think so.

All right.

So everything's pretty straightforward.

Just don't use this on state devices and just make sure that you're safe.

Yes.

All right.

Well, thank you so much for joining us.

You're.

Many of us are accustomed to some type of facial recognition.

It's how we open our phones, tablets, even our computers.

Well, now law enforcement leaders are considering using this technology to solve crimes.

Kara talked with Chris Kiser of the ACLU about how it could impact crime in Louisiana.

So can you give us an overview of what facial recognition actually is?

Sure.

So in its most basic form, facial recognition refers to basically a software program, an algorithm that takes measures, certain measurements of people's faces, compares them to images of other human faces, and then tries to figure out which images are most similar to the face it was comparing it to.

In common parlance, people talk about facial recognition, sometimes to mean many different things.

For example, there's a 1 to 1 comparison that, for example, an iPhone does when you use it to open your your phone where you're just verifying whether one face is the same as one other image of a face that's on file just to verify that somebody is the same person.

Up the chain.

Police, for example, will use facial recognition to compare an image they have to a vast gallery of human faces and then try to try to identify which person among that that gallery they're looking at and then taken to even further extreme.

You have examples where camera systems across cities or countries will constantly monitor people's movements throughout that space and continuously identify who is moving through that space based on comparisons to an image gallery.

Okay, so what I'm hearing is for the most part, people are familiar with facial recognition because like you said, we do use it on our phones or tablets or computers.

But, you know, law enforcement and other agencies may upped the ante by trying to use it to maybe solve crimes.

Now, a year ago, whenever I spoke to the ACLU, some people were raising concerns about facial recognition.

What are those concerns now and are they still relevant?

They're absolutely still relevant.

And I guess I would group our concerns into maybe three categories.

First of all, when the city of New Orleans, New Orleans was considering using facial recognition, our top concern was simply that there's no evidence that shows that facial recognition or other types of surveillance actually deter crime or make us safer in the community.

And a lot of the argument behind using this tool is comes from concerns about violence in our community, which are very real concerns.

But when it comes to violent crime, there's no evidence whatsoever that suggests that surveillance can deter that or make us safer.

And so one of the concerns is simply that the focus on these new shiny tools is a distraction from the real solutions that we need for our communities.

And more broadly, you know, this this also has the potential to normalize massive invasions of privacy.

I mentioned before that when police use facial recognition, they're comparing images to vast galleries of millions and millions of photographs that may come from, you know, government issued IDs and things in state databases.

But it might also come from things that are just scraped from social media or publicly available on the Internet.

And so I don't think that many people appreciate that just walking around in our daily lives doing what we do.

We're already part of a lineup, basically, that the police are looking at your photo, my photo, and comparing that whenever they're looking for a suspect.

So it's very different from a few decades ago when we've just relied on eyewitness identification.

They're comparing these images to to yours and mine at all times.

And that's a serious threat to privacy and First Amendment rights.

Well, seeing as how I mean, we discussed this earlier in the interview, I mean, it's something that you use your phone, your computer, all your tablets.

I mean, what do you think the future of this technology is going to look like?

Do you think those biases will eventually be straightened out or is this something that'll continue to be a problem as we go into the future?

It's unclear.

I think there are questions for our society and our city governments about do we want to open the floodgates for police to use any and all new technology just because we have concerns about public safety or community?

There are real debate to be had about how much privacy we want to sacrifice and whether these solutions actually prevent or reduce violence in our communities.

But as it stands, what we've seen, especially in the last couple of years, is that cities have kind of not been interested in having that debate and are more willing just to give police what they say they need.

And we're going to see how that plays out over the next few years.

But it's our position, obviously, that we need to put the brakes on this, probably put a moratorium on the use of facial recognition when people's liberty is on the line and see what restrictions actually need to be put in place before we allow folks hear about this technology and be familiar with it on your iPhone, for example, but don't really appreciate how vast the scope is, how much of each of our personal information is being brought into this funnel that the state can then compare images to?

Well, I think people think about it as if you're under investigation and maybe you have something to worry about, but if not, you don't.

But we're entering this age where so much of our information is out there in public, available to the state, probably already in the possession of the state.

And we're already walking around basically part of a lineup.

That's that's a serious concern for privacy and something that state and local governments need to take seriously.

So, like you said, I'm sure we're going to be hearing a lot more about this in the future as this technology becomes readily available for law enforcement.

So thank you so much for talking with us and hope to talk to you soon.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Now, the New Orleans City Council reinstated the use of it last summer after banning it in 2020.

New Orleans police say the technology would be used fairly and Viking cruises will compensate more than 900 passengers whose luxury cruise was ruined when a marine growth on the hull forced the ship to remain in open waters for cleaning.

Leslie and Alan Todd of Baton Rouge were on board, stunned and sad.

She messaged me and she gave me this interview.

It's one that you'll only see on LP B Land Ho is the caption on Leslie Todd's Facebook post.

It's Sidney Australia, and it's the jumping off point for her and her husband, Alan, after what was supposed to be the luxury cruise of a lifetime.

Sidney will now likely be the high point of their trip.

Alan and I have had one river cruise before COVID and during COVID.

Like everybody else, we sat there and thought of all the things we wanted to do with our lives.

We signed up for this ocean currents.

We've never done that before.

And they probably won't do it again.

Their highly anticipated getaway got waylaid because of biofuel, as the New York Times headline calls it, the 14 day adventure for the tides began in New Zealand.

The liner departed from Auckland and then departed from the planned itinerary.

Everyone spent thousands for all because of a possibly toxic organism thought to be small snails found on the hull.

Australia has strict rules on marine biosecure charity and they absolutely told the ship it could not enter the country's waters, which meant the many planned stops were also not going to happen.

For a time the ship was left to drift 16 miles off Adelaide, Australia, then ultimately at sea for six days with only a brief emergency stop in Melbourne.

Shades of the pandemic.

And it's not COVID that's affecting you, but the memory.

Feels just like it.

Andre It's just like it's another round of disappointments that you have to keep taking and taking and taking, just like COVID.

But we're already koga fatigued, so this is even harder.

And there are people who came from as far away as England for this trip.

We traveled 22 hours in the air to get here and then 22 hours back.

Without having had the trip.

Is not going to be fun.

We left port on the 22nd.

We had one stop at Rotorua then we had a Saturday, which was Christmas and Christmas Day at sea.

The captain told us that we had a problem that would have to be addressed.

The Orion had to find a Dove team to clean the hull, and at Christmas time, that wasn't easy.

The new reality was setting it, and it didn't sit well with many passengers.

We got a daily update from the captain.

We got a daily letter.

They do tell us that there was a change of plans.

Unfortunately, every time they raised our hopes, they had to dash them again because of how this worked out.

There are some very upset people.

People are handling it just the way they did with COVID.

You know, some people manage better than others.

So but we're all stuck on this ship and so we're trying to get along.

It's not the crew's fault.

Leslie is a therapist and Alan is a clinical psychologist.

They needed all their skills to manage the disappointment.

We were so looking forward to this bucket list trip, and it turned out differently than we thought.

And I think I have to give myself several weeks to process this back in my real world at home, because I'm still in an altered state of reality out here.

As an observer of human behavior, which I am, I've been really impressed with the crew, the professionalism of this crew.

They're disappointed as we are.

They put on entertain memes.

They've made up shows.

You know, we have brilliant entertainers on the ship.

They keep it going.

The serving staff never gets a break because we're never off the ship to eat someplace else.

So the chefs have to come up with nails when they're running out of supplies.

You know, the captain is not in charge of the decisions.

These are corporate decisions.

There are some truly elderly people for whom this is their last trip.

And that's heartbreaking to me.

I mean, I'm middle old.

I'm not old old.

And so I know I have other trips in my future.

And then I met the lovely lady from London who this is her bucket list, and she won't be able to do this again.

So that was heartbreaking to hear, too.

But every you know, every human story is different.

This to be there's going to be a lot of those.

I appreciate you talking to us.

And I'm sorry about this experience.

This is a first world problem.

You know, I'm in I'm stuck on a luxury liner.

It is not.

I'm not complaining.

I'm sad that we didn't see all the beautiful places in New Zealand, which were now called New Zealand and Australia.

But that's just how it works.

And Lesley Todd is a regular LP contributor.

Well, everyone, that's our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LP V anytime, wherever you are with our Lpv PBS app.

You can catch big 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 and Instagram.

For everyone here at Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

I'm Andre Moreau.

And till next time.

That's the state we're in.

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.