8:30 A.M. News/Oct. 14, 2015
A $47.3 million 2016 operating budget for parish
government was introduced last night during the regular
meeting of the Tangipahoa Parish Council.
The largest slice of the budget, about 36 percent, is
targeted toward road and bridge expenses.
Parish President Gordon Burgess says in his budget
statement that the new budget continues the “pay as you
go” road program. Burgess says $4 million has been
allocated for road overlay in 2016.
He says sales tax revenues increased almost five percent
over the past fiscal year.
He describes the new budget as “fundamentally sound.”
A smoke detector is credited with saving the lives of nine
Independence residents whose doublewide mobile home
was destroyed by fire early yesterday.
Independence Fire Chief John Politio Jr. said the fire
started at about 1:30 a.m., apparently at an overloaded
electrical outlet.
The nine residents escaped through a back window.
Polito said the incident shows the importance of having
working smoke detectors in a home.
The structure was located in the 200 block of West
Railroad Avenue.
Entergy will be performing feeder switching in downtown
Hammond from 1-6:30 p.m. today.
Alma Mitchell, assistant to the mayor, says a scheduled
outage will occur at approximately 4 p.m. and last about
an hour.
Mitchell said the outage will affect about 468 customers in
the North Cherry Street area.
The purpose of the outage is for the city to SAFELY install
disconnect switches on N. Cherry Street where a bridge is
being replaced. Construction activities will place workers
in an unsafe proximity to the power lines.
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana's state school board
has set the student grading scale for Common Core-aligned
standardized tests.
The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education adopted
a scale yesterday that Education Superintendent John
White says will allow Louisiana students' performance to
be compared with students in 10 other states and in
Washington, D.C.
Common Core opponents sought a delay, seeking more
study of the grading scale, raising objections about the
testing used and wanting the test questions released.
Despite the opposition, board members voted 7-4 to put
the grading scale in place.
The vote came one day after the first Common Core test
results were announced. The scores were a
disappointment.
GRETNA, La. (AP) — Jefferson Parish judges in two
separate cases have denied a request by parish officials to
temporarily ban the ride-hailing service Uber from
operating without the certificates required of drivers of
taxis and other commercial vehicles.
The refused to issue temporary restraining orders against
Uber, its subsidiary Raiser and two drivers for picking up
riders in Jefferson Parish.
The judges set hearing Nov. 12 to hear arguments for on
whether to impose a temporary injunction.
Uber officials have said that no ordinance in Jefferson
Parish prevents the company from operating.
Bahrain and other Persian Gulf states are in negotiations
to buy the Israeli-developed Iron Dome anti-missile
system to defend against "a growing arsenal of Iranian
missiles".
The Israeli weapon, which has reduced the effectiveness of
rockets fired out of Gaza into Israel by about 90%, would
be bought through Raytheon and other American
contractors who developed the Iron Dome with Israeli
arms giant Rafael.
A deal for the entire Gulf Cooperation Council, which
includes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman,
Qatar and Kuwait, would be worth tens, perhaps hundreds,
of billions of dollars.
It would also include longer range interceptor missiles
which are capable of intercepting supersonic
intercontinental ballistic missiles - also a joint venture
between Israel and the U.S.
A British soldier was asked to move from a hospital
waiting room because staff feared his uniform might
offend other patients.
The London Guardian reports that the family of Royal Air
Force Sgt. Mark Prendeville said hospital workers told
them “they did not want to upset people,” and that the
hospital had “lots of different cultures coming in.”
Sgt. Prendeville, 38, went to the Queen Elizabeth the
Queen Mother Hospital in Margate, Kent, after fire
extinguisher chemicals got into his eyes. A female staff
member asked him to move from the main waiting room,
allegedly because of a previous “altercation” involving a
man in uniform.
The hospital spokesman said the hospital does not believe
in treating military members differently from any member
of the public, and said that point was being reinforced to
hospital employees to make sure that this never happens
again.