Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us.

Because together we power life.

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.

Go!

What happened to the Baltimore Bridge happened here in Louisiana?

Congressman Garrett Grange brings us a progress report on the 108th Congress and the fate of his district, plus, meet a nonprofit arts organization building on the success of a Louisiana Academy nominated film.

And tonight, I'm introducing you to our first Louisiana young hero.

You ready?

I'm ready.

Let's do this.

All right.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Cara Sincere, and I'm Karen LeBlanc.

Much more on those top stories in a moment on this week's edition of Louisiana, the State we're in.

But first, divers continue to inspect the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.

The collision and collapse of the structure has made people here in Louisiana nervous about our own infrastructure.

Experts explore whether our river traffic and bridges make a similar situation likely.

The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore broke in half before collapsing after being hit by a 984ft cargo ship.

The bridge was built in 1977, which, according to experts, contributed to its inability to withstand the impact from the ship.

According to Doctor Norma Jean Bates, a civil engineering professor at Uno.

The standards for bridges have changed drastically in the last 50 years.

Standards get updated as things warrant as we learn new things, as the tools that we use change.

is and is conditions change.

Bridge standards underwent extensive updates in the 80s and 90s, changing how much bridges could withstand requirements for fenders to stop a collapse after a boat collision.

Older bridges like the Francis Scott Key didn't have those standards in place when they did.

The design of the Key Bridge in the in the early to mid 70s.

Baltimore, the Port of Baltimore had very different vessel traffic because something like this happened in Louisiana, a state covered in more than 50,000 miles of river in nearly 13,000 bridges.

Anything's possible, but what is your risk?

But according to experts, it's not exactly high.

The key difference is the traffic on the Mississippi River bridges a lot of barge traffic and not containership.

So a barge is much, much smaller than a container ship.

And even if it hits, it's not going to it's less likely to be connected, but it is less likely to cause that kind of a catastrophic failure where the entire bridge comes down.

Doctor Subha Ratnam came.

Ishwar, a civil engineering professor at LSU, says that barges have hit Louisiana bridges before.

There were collisions recorded in 1964, 1976, 1993 and 1996.

The events were tragic, but they didn't result in a full collapse.

I think a couple of years back, the Sunshine Bridge was hit by a ship like a small ship.

There was damage, but they fixed it and the bridge is fine.

Louisiana's bridges don't have enough space for a large cargo ship to pass through.

In the case of the Mississippi River Bridge and Baton Rouge, the ships don't really get close.

The ships don't cross under the bridge.

They come up to the bridge, maybe, and then they turn it.

Plus, the water isn't deep enough.

A vessel of that size would not get past like the lower wharf of New Orleans.

Rodney Mallett, the spokesperson for DotD, says the bridge is undergoing regular inspections to prevent things like possible boat collisions or collapses.

The key thing to know is if the bridge is open, it's safe.

We have, inspectors who are federally certified bridge inspectors who inspect bridges on a regular basis.

Louisiana's bridges scored a D+ in the latest infrastructure report card in 2017.

The bridges are described with frightening words like structurally deficient, but this doesn't mean the bridges are on the verge of collapse.

It could just mean poor condition, which, according to Mallett, could really mean anything.

It could be a bridge that was built in the 1960s, which doesn't meet today's standards for shoulder width.

So it's perfectly safe.

It doesn't have an 11ft shoulder like the bridges are required to have today.

It has the 1960s requirement, which is probably closer to like five feet, eight feet or whatever it is had for that particular time frame when that bridge was built.

Key thing to know is if the bridge is open, it's safe.

We have, inspectors who are federally certified bridge inspectors who inspect bridges on a regular basis.

The report card score also has a lot to do with funding.

Louisiana has a huge backlog in infrastructure costs.

Bridges needing shoulder expansions or maintenance may not always be a priority.

So when you put those things together, we've got a huge price tag on everything we want for infrastructure and a very small, relatively speaking, revenue stream that's going to pay for all that.

Barry Irwin says most bridge maintenance is funded by a 20% gas tax.

We all pay at the pump.

What you see is cars become more fuel efficient.

That means you might still drive the same amount, but you're buying less gasoline, you're buying less gasoline, you're paying fewer taxes.

There's fewer dollars going into the transportation trust fund.

So in conclusion, yes, a collapse as large as the Francis Scott Key Bridge is possible, but it's not likely.

From hashtags to headlines, here's what's trending.

And just as we were coming out on set to tape our show, we got word of an earthquake that rocked metropolitan New York City.

I mean, it was felt as far as like Yankee Stadium.

Yeah, it was a 4.8 magnitude.

So that's pretty serious for that area.

And luckily there are no reports of serious injuries or damage at this point.

So but speaking of Mother Nature, yeah, Mother Nature is making some big news.

So Monday is a solar eclipse and, okay, we ready to do our public service announcement?

Yes, we are.

Where?

Your solar eclipse glasses, if you plan to watch it.

look at us in our stylish glasses.

Yes.

You actually can't see anything through these.

So if you wear them, you don't wait to wear them for the eclipse.

But you get the point.

If you want to watch the solar eclipse, make sure you wear these.

So moving on.

LSU women's basketball player Angel Reese decided to go pro.

Yes.

So she is declared for the WNBA, which is a huge deal.

Most most college athletes.

I mean, this is what they're waiting for.

This is when everything builds up too.

So she finally declared she's 21 years old.

Some people wanted her to wait, but she said she's ready.

She made the announcement in Vogue magazine very stylish page out of the playbook of Serena Williams, who announced her retirement in Vogue and, you know, and is known as a fashionista.

So it made total sense that she would choose that.

So this is kind of pop culture ish.

And moving on to more big pop culture news.

Beyonce, cowboy Carter is a fan.

I'm a huge fan.

I'm a huge Beyonce fan.

So this album is going to be focused on country music.

But what's interesting about it is that there's a lot of Louisiana influence, so it's no secret.

Beyonce, she loves our state.

Cara is completely nerding out on this.

You can tell she is a super fan, but moving on, you've got some good news to share.

I do have some good news and it's not about Beyonce, but it's just as interesting.

So the beginning of Anna Jocelyn's life, you know, it was a barrage of doctors appointments for shadowing what they said would be a really difficult life.

But when you look at her, you would never know it.

She's an active and vibrant 14 year old girl with a servant's heart, making her a role model for her community.

And tonight, I'm introducing you to our first Louisiana young hero.

Take a look.

Ready?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

After every lesson, I say I love my horse.

When I first got it, she was very skittish.

She did not like anybody, so.

But then it worked from me all the way to, my grandpa Anna.

Justin's horse.

Dolly, is her entire world.

Just 14.

She, along with the trainer, have turned Dolly into an award winning equine.

And Anna herself.

She's a talented equestrian and a vibrant teenager.

But back in 2009 and doctors thought this life would have been impossible.

Anna was born May 6th, 2009.

She was born by C-section because doctors had already found that she had a congenital malformation in her lungs.

And my 20 week ultrasound is a long road.

They didn't know if she was going to make it through the pregnancy.

The diagnosis was congenital cystic acne, rheumatoid, or a benign lung lesion that continued to grow.

But in Anna's case, the prognosis was bleak.

There was talk about having surgery on her lungs while I was pregnant when she was born, they thought that she was going to make it out, you know, or had to have surgery on her lungs whenever she came out.

What was that like for you?

I mean, this is your first baby.

It was it was pretty daunting.

You know, there is a lot of, prayers.

And I came home without surgery on her lung.

That wouldn't come until she was five months.

Jocelyn had let go.

Who put her in the arms of her surgeon named Faith.

And, And she made it through.

So at five months old, she had the lower left lobe of her lung taken out.

To this day, she has a lung and a half lung and a half.

And so we were told that she was never going to be an athlete, that, she'll never be able to run long distances.

She will be asthmatic, she will never live a normal life.

But that never came to fruition.

Instead, Jocelyn would raise a smart girl with a knack for community service.

Her love of horseback riding started young at four, to be exact.

I just think it's just another connection and, it makes me calm, brings peace, so brings peace.

And it became active in the lives of others facing health problems as well.

She developed Drink Pink Day in 2013.

It's a lemonade stand and a bake sale to fundraise for cancer patients.

All the money goes toward Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center.

Well, why do you keep doing this year after year?

I don't know.

I think it's because I like to see all the people when we do the lemonade stand and how they all come to support us and everything, and then we have survivors to come and like and purchase things.

And I just like seeing the people's faces when we donate the check.

And like, I get to learn about the whole process and how the treatment works.

And, just they get so excited when we, like, give the check and everything.

To this day, Anna has raised more than $32,000 for the hospital.

I look at my mom like, we did that, and she's like, yeah.

And so it just, I don't know, it just makes me happy.

Her community service doesn't stop there.

Anna also volunteers for Team of Dreams, which is a baseball league for kids with disabilities, and they get so excited in everything and especially like their family is all so supportive and like the stands are filled with their family members say like hey!

And then like they dance when they get to home plate and everything.

It's like, it's just so much fun.

And when high school is all over and it's time for college, she's got a few options already picked out.

I want to major in, equine veterinarians services, and I'm thinking of going to there's Colorado State.

and applying to Cornell, which is an Ivy Cornell University, which is in New York, and, Texas A&M.

So she's been on my list.

Her mother says her daughter's future is bright, but no matter what she does, Joslyn says she's just proud to be her mother.

When I was named Anna Joy, I never I guess I never really thought to think about all the joy she'd bring to other people's lives, you know?

And, it's pretty cool to watch and see everything that she puts back into the world.

And that was our first young hero.

We'll be meeting more of them in the coming weeks.

LPB is Louisiana Young Heroes program is presented this year with the generous support of East Baton Rouge Parish Library and the Gail and Tom Benson Charitable Foundation, with additional support from Community Coffee, the U.S. Army Baton Rouge Recruiting Battalion, Demko, McDonald's and Origin Hotel Baton Rouge.

In this week's Louisiana Speech, a three judge panel is set to hear arguments about Louisiana's newest congressional map.

The map makes big changes, particularly to Congressman Garret Graves seat in the sixth district.

I sat down with Congressman Graves to talk about that and other hot topics in Washington.

So let's start with the obvious question.

the challenge to your district, the redrawing of the congressional map.

where do you stand in terms of your political plans, given that your district, if this sticks, will no longer look like your district?

Sure, sure.

Well, look, first of all, I don't think districts should be about people are drawn around people, myself or or anyone else.

There are three criteria the courts require.

one of them is compactness, another one is racial.

And the third one is communities of interest.

The worst thing about the maps that they drew is that it breaks up the capital region into four different districts.

I think the courts throw out this map and ultimately bring some more common sense back to what these maps look like.

And if they have a capital centric district, I'll run.

And that's what I expect to happen.

As you know, they go to trial in early April and I think they'll make a decision very quickly.

So your your feeling is that this map as it stands will not stick.

I don't think there's a chance in the world it does.

I'm a member of your district and I recently sat in on your town hall meeting.

That's the phone call constituents can get on where you bring them up to date.

And I'll tell you what dominated the conversation on the Social Security Fairness Act.

There is a huge public outcry in the state of Louisiana about the unfairness of this.

You are one of the many coauthors of legislation to repeal, which it's a long name.

It is the, windfall elimination provision and the government pension offset.

Where are we at with that?

Yeah.

So actually, we're the lead.

It's our bill.

And, so so first of all, top line, what happened is over 40 years ago, Congress came in and they tried to they tried to fix what was arguably sort of a double recovery or a double compensation for retirement.

When they did that, they actually swung the pendulum so far in the other direction.

If you're a teacher, police officer, firefighter, a public employee, you actually have your Social Security cut when you retire.

And so just, you know, for fairness purposes, if you and I both worked and we both paid in Social Security, same amount of time, same dollars and everything else, but if I worked in the public sector and you worked in the private sector, my social security benefits would be cut for just for working in the public sector.

It was a flawed draft of the law back in the late 70s and early 80s.

We have a bill again where the lead on the bill, it's bipartisan.

We right now have 311 co-sponsors out of 435 members of Congress.

So, realistically, do you think in the near future we'll get it pushed out of committee and to a vote?

I do.

Look, I don't want to mislead anybody.

Folks have been trying to fix this for 40 years, and they've gotten pretty much nowhere.

we are near a high water mark for the most progress ever on this bill.

If you add up, everybody in all 50 states that are affected, Louisiana is one of the most affected in the country.

So if it were easy to do this, it would have been done a long time ago.

But because it implicates tens of billions of dollars over decades, we've got to make sure we do this in a thoughtful way.

Now, the argument back is you've stolen for these people from these people for 40 years now.

If this were happening in the private sector would be embezzling.

Congress thinks that they they can just call it budgeting and get away with it.

But but that's the biggest problem.

I do think we can get this bill done.

So on this subject of the 118th Congress, you know, it has been reported that it is the least productive Congress since the Great Depression.

President Biden just signed a $1.2 trillion package of spending bills.

But that took six months.

And we've seen multiple House speakers.

We finally landed on Mike Johnson.

A lot of political turmoil in this 118th Congress.

What are your thoughts?

What is happening?

It is, actually worse up close, meaning what you see on TV, I think in some cases doesn't show how bad it is.

So it's, first of all, top line, you've got a, a president who's a Democrat.

You have a, a very, very slim Republican majority in the House, which of course causes tension.

And then you have Chuck Schumer with a majority of Democrats in the United States Senate.

So when you have a mix of parties like that, it does cause tension.

But the bigger problem that we're seeing right now are actually different factions of Republicans within the House of Representatives that are knifing one another.

You brought up something really interesting.

There's been a lot of talk about, Latin Americans crossing over into the border illegally, but you're also seeing an influx of Asian illegal immigrants.

It is remarkable.

actual Chinese illegal immigrants have been the fastest rising, sort of demographic that's coming in.

And but we have had more people on the terrorist watch list come in in recent years than any other time in history.

Folks coming in from Yemen, Russia, North Korea, Iran.

And of course, this surge in Chinese immigrants.

It is it is changing what we're seeing.

You know, I think many of us thought that these were folks coming from Mexico or maybe Central America, South America, but we are seeing a totally different approach or a totally different demographic that's beginning to come in across the southern border.

We've got to secure the border.

Every border agent I spoke to said, you have to return to the policy of the previous administration.

But two things that are important there.

The United States is actually the most generous country in the world when it comes into letting people into their country legally through the legal immigration process.

We're not anti-immigrant, we're pro doing it the legal way.

And so I think we need to be careful about suggesting we want to close the doors and never let anyone in.

And that's not the case.

We want to let people in through the legal process.

I want to hear your thoughts.

Given all your experience with Cpra, I want to hear your thoughts about Governor Landrieu's proposal to put the Cpra under the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, that whole reorganization.

Yeah, yeah.

So look, on the one hand, I think it's always appropriate.

You have a new governor, new administration come in and take a fresh look at things.

That's fine.

I think it would be a colossal mistake to move that coastal agency under the Department of Natural Resources.

look, here's the thing.

The CPA was created as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

after all of these expert after, after the fact investigations and reports that were done that found you had this disjointed mission, you had levee districts, parishes, state agencies that everybody had a piece of the pie.

No one was actually controlling thinking about the vision, the path forward, the metrics of success.

That's what CPA cpra was created today.

It's viewed as the most successful coastal agency resilience agency in the United States.

in a state.

Why in the world you would come in and blow that up and put it back under an agency that has so many other responsibilities?

It's going to it's going to be sort of pushed down in urgency.

Look what we're experiencing in coastal Louisiana continues to be a crisis.

This needs to be the first, second and third most important thing of a cabinet secretary.

Garret Grace of the sixth district.

Thanks for stopping by and bringing us up to date with what's going on in Congress and of course, here in your own district.

You bet.

Thank you.

Writer and director Ben Zeitlin is paying it forward after the success of his Academy Awards nominated film beasts of the Southern Wild, filmed in Louisiana.

Building on the movie's critical acclaim, then founded the nonprofit court 13 Arts to cultivate and keep homegrown talent in Louisiana.

I toured the nonprofit's artists studio and talked with a Louisiana filmmaker about fostering the state's creative resources.

Hidden in plain Sight on Franklin Avenue in New Orleans, is an artist's studio operated by the nonprofit court 13 Arts.

Inside, a puppeteer is prepping props and sets for the New Orleans Giant Puppet Festival.

This is puppet of a name.

Yes, this is Rhonda.

she's a swamp monster and a printmaker is creating proofs for a poster.

This is letterpress print.

This is, or relief printing is sort of a more, the broader term for everything where relief.

So in other words, the raised area takes the ink and then it and then the impression transfers the ink to the ship.

The artist share space here and pay reduced rent to the 501 C3 nonprofit founded by filmmaker Ben Zeitlin, writer and director of the Oscar nominated film beasts of the Southern Wild, then worked on his debut feature film with Louisiana Artist and a collaboration they nicknamed court 13 after a squash court that served as their creative base of operations.

Films.

Don't get me.

Just by, having a camera and a computer, you need a sewing machine, you need a painter.

You need to know how to construct you know, gears and, you know, so it was this place where all these different types of people were coming together to do something creative, in this very kind of collaborative way.

So that idea of this collaborative space where there, where like, there's a lot of creative freedom and just tools and places where artists meet to like, be inspired and express themselves became sort of known as court 13.

So off the back of beasts of the Southern Wilds, a Kickstarter campaign was started and we fundraised in order to find a permanent home for our organization and all of the artists that this organization was founded to help Madison Bruno is the executive director of Core 13 Arts.

She's a textile artist who understands the financial struggles of creative pursuits.

We have six student spaces and six resident artists here that we rent to for very, very affordable prices in order to ensure that they're able to fabricate and collaborate with one another.

It's one of the spaces that we forge in order to meet our mission.

Part of that mission is the preservation of all art forms, which brings us back to the printmaker and the puppeteer.

We live in a digital age where you could create this digitally, without all of this equipment and all this manual labor.

Right.

Why do this?

Well, you got to talk to, people who are into, music who prefer phonograph records and the old analog sound, or people who are into film who prefer shooting actual film.

it's there's a warmth and there's the hand of the creator in it instead of that coldness that the digital expression is you.

It's easier, it's more convenient, but there's there's just no replacing.

It is amazing.

I wouldn't have been able to do any of this without without their help.

I mean, honestly, I would be I would still be making like mock ups and trying to tell somebody, well, could look like this if if I only you know, now, the only thing that that I'm fighting is time.

Because I have the space now.

And if I can just finish everything, you know.

So there would be no Fonda without.

That's quite caught.

13 Arts is in growth mode with plans to build a new community center next door to the artist studios.

The nonprofit also hosts weekly film screenings to stimulate conversations and networking opportunities.

University of New Orleans film professor Henry Griffin is a regular attendee encouraging his students to participate.

I know it means a lot to them to see that the people in court 13 are simultaneously the very best in the world at what they do, but also the kind of people that they can hang out with at a movie screening.

It makes their goals seem really tangible, and I think that's encouraging.

It's encouraging for them and it's very fulfilling to be around that.

So what court 13 does so well is build this community aspect that allows the not only the filmmakers of Louisiana, but also the artists to be able to be anchored here in Louisiana for the long term development of the state.

Right.

So we have so many beautiful, talented artists here.

Beast of the Southern Wild racked up four Academy Award nominations in 2012, shining the spotlight on Louisiana's filmmakers, artists and artisans.

Ben continues to build on his filmmaking success based in Louisiana, and hopes more homegrown creatives will do the same.

I had this hope for the city and for the state.

I also just have this hope for cinema to get more diverse in this exact way and, you know, to to to find ways to spread, not just where films are shot, but like where the creative energy comes from and where the stories originate from.

So that's part of our mission.

That's our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LPB anytime, wherever you are with our LPB 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 and Instagram for everyone at Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

I'm Karen LeBlanc and I'm Kara Sincere.

Until next time.

That's the state we're in.

Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us.

Because together, we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred Bea and Ruthie 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 by Visit Baton Rouge and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.