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. 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 and Well, maybe we're not quite as productive as we thought we were with everybody being at home.

The battle to get people back to work.

The rates of people who are actually rescued is like 1%.

What you need to know about human trafficking.

There was something wrong for sure.

But I couldn't really put my finger on it.

And ragan andrew's journey to becoming a young hero.

Hi everyone.

I'm Kara St. Cyr.

And I'm Andre Moreau.

Since the beginning of the covid 19 pandemic and all that that's meant for everyone, louisiana has come a very long way.

COVID 19 numbers right now have continued to drop since the American surge ended in late January.

That's right.

Currently the Department of Health is reporting only 52 patients hospitalized and only five of them are on this some of the lowest numbers we've seen since the beginning of this pandemic.

We just pray it stays that way.

Now let's check out some news that's making headlines across the state.

Former Saint Tammany Sheriff Jack Strain who was already serving four life sentences for convictions of raping boys, will serve ten years concurrently for federal bribery charges.

Strain pleaded guilty to one of 16 federal charges Entergy says it has completed $86 million in transmission system improvements in a small part of the wide area ravaged by IDA.

The company says it has replaced about 80 steel structures, with some that can withstand winds up to 150 miles per hour and improved about seven miles of power lines.

In Lafourche Parish New Orleans, beloved Bourbon Street performer Chris Owens died this week of a heart attack.

Owens affectionately became known as the Queen of The View.

Cory, mourners held a candlelight vigil Wednesday night on Bourbon Street in her honor.

Chris Owens was 89 years old.

It's being called the great resignation.

People quitting their jobs, people not applying for jobs.

People having different expectations from the jobs they might want to work with.

Commissioner of Administration Jay Darden is here to talk about this and how it's impacting the state.

State applications are down 52% in the past two years.

So how do you cope with that?

That was really a shocking number to me when I when I first saw it, because I knew we had we were seeing fewer and fewer people interested in applying.

But I had no idea it was that significant of a number.

Yet the numbers from 45,002 years ago to 21,000.

That's in January.

20, 20 to 20, 22.

And when we first started talking about this, it was a recognition that this is hitting the private sector as well.

We've all heard about so anecdotally and we see it in restaurants have been able to keep staff.

But you know, there are so many such a wide range of employment opportunities with the state.

It was it's still surprising to me that we're seeing that that much of a drop.

I'm hoping it's going to pick back up, but we right now are still seeing fewer and fewer people applying for jobs at work, whereas in the past we'd have a lot of people to choose from.

What is the state done to try to adjust to this, or has the state done anything?

Well, the state in the legislature has actually done some things to deal with compensation because one of our challenges is compensation, particularly in areas like prison guards working at juvenile facilities, working the Department of Children and Family Services, where people are having to go out and make calls and very difficult, stressful and dangerous situations.

And we've understood that for quite some time that there's a lot of turnover in those areas.

And we've taken that problem to the legislature.

They've properly reacted.

We've increased pay actually in a number of these areas to try and keep more people and attract more people.

It's had some success, but I would say limited success.

So that's that's one issue.

But the bigger issue is just this general sense of people not wanting to work for whatever reason it is, or just being comfortable doing nothing or wanting and making higher demands upon their employer.

Like, I have the right to work at home and share our view.

That is no, it's not necessarily a right.

It's something we had to do in the course of the pandemic.

We've seen how it's worked, and we're trying to ingrain that into some of our operations.

But it's certainly not something you can come to work for the state expecting that you don't have to come into an office.

What does an employer like Amazon coming into the capital region and other regions how does that impact what they may be paying impacted state jobs?

Well, it's very real, and we actually have seen that as well with with some of the issues we've had in trying to keep people, if they can go to work, when Amazon really cranks up and pays people X amount an hour, it's going to be more than what is the minimum wage.

It's going to be more than what the state generally pays at an entry level and it's going to be a competitor.

And that's that's a concern for four jobs that can be done at Amazon.

That can also be done by a state employee and these are also jobs that can be done from home.

They advertise you can do it from your home.

That's right.

And so remotely.

And when we're we're working on this whole concept of working remotely and how it affects the interstate situation in Baton Rouge because it's something we've been looking at for the past couple of years.

Our mission is to cut down traffic by 20% over the course of the next several years when construction starts on about I-10, the Interstate Ten coming into downtown and going home in the afternoons.

And we're working on flexible schedules where open working on people who are going to work at home some during that time.

But we're looking at people having to come into work for some period of time during a week, not just simply becoming work at home, people.

Do you know any other areas that have had to address a traffic situation like that?

No, it seems pretty rare to me.

Well, in as we've known, the congestion in Baton Rouge is unprecedented in the nation where the Mississippi River Bridge comes down into, in essence, one lane.

And we have a very old interstate system.

And so the repairs that are being done are designed to address the age of the system, as well as to deal with traffic flow and improve the opportunity to get across the bridge and get through downtown and get through Baton Rouge and more reasonable hour.

So you've got a multi-level system of issues that you're dealing with right here.

Of going back to the initial filling job.

Yeah, that's right.

And we're trying to balance all these these interests and trying to develop a plan that's reasonable and fair for four state workers.

It's also going to create an incentive for people to want to come to work at the state, but also ensures the fact that we get our work done.

And generally speaking, most managers have reported that their work got done during the pandemic and that it worked fairly well.

But as managers started coming back to work, that changed a little bit.

And, well, maybe we're not quite as productive as we thought.

We were with everybody being at home.

So if you look JSA in a forecast, maybe three, six months out, what are you saying will happen?

Well, I'm hoping we're going to see more people applying for jobs and more people willing to go back to work, assuming we don't have another relapse that requires us to have concerns about people working from home.

I think things are going to get better.

I hope things are better.

And obviously our state financial position is in much better shape.

I don't know what bearing that will have on people wanting to come to work, but it is a it is a real surprise to me that so many people are content not working well.

You've got to be able to attract and recruit, but you have to have people who will be open to this sort of thing and people who are qualified in certain areas because we have various obviously various levels of qualifications that are needed for a whole range of things that services at the state provide.

Right.

Okay.

You don't snap your finger and make this go away, so we'll keep our eyes on it.

Thank you for talking about it.

With us.

Thanks, Andre.

Next weekend, Christians celebrate Easter, and that made me wonder about how churches have adapted since COVID.

Many were closed for months with virtual services taking over.

The doors are open now, but our parishioners coming through them.

Are churches as full as they were?

Pre-pandemic.

Reverend Brady Whitten, pastor of First United Methodist Church in Baton Rouge, offered this observation.

You can either do ministry in the world the way it is, or you can do ministry in the world the way you wish it was.

You know, so we're going to try to do ministry in the world the way it is.

And people are scattered now.

But I still believe they have faith.

I still believe they need the church and they need what we have to offer.

It's just up to us to figure out how to engage them.

Next week, my full interview with Reverend Whitten about how his church and many others have changed Definitely looking forward to seeing that one.

Well, this past Wednesday morning, I joined clinical psychologist Dr. Katie Fetzer of Baton Rouge on the Talk Louisiana Radio Show with host Jim Inkster.

It gave us the opportunity to again raise awareness about human trafficking.

Some of the truths, some of the myths.

We also took phone calls from listeners, which included a woman who happened to be a survivor of trafficking you and the first lady of Louisiana.

Donna Edwards, they're working on this.

And 25 million victims, the first lady notes, have been identified worldwide of human trafficking.

Over 900 identified in Louisiana just last year alone.

So it's serious stuff.

And the percentages of people who are rescued from human trafficking And Katie Fetzer, Dr. Fetzer can talk about this.

It's miniscule, isn't it?

Yeah.

I worked with people who have come through it, but those who are found, it's pretty low.

The numbers vary.

Yes, it's actually a very sad issue and I've been on both sides of it where I've been like swimming in the research of it as a professor and as a researcher.

But then also at the individual level, working with survivors and the rates of people who are actually rescued is like 1% The first lady is really taking the charge on this, Donna Edwards, and she has a coalition of other first ladies who she has gathered.

In fact, they used the final four weekend as sort of the state's big kickoff.

The Louisiana District Attorney's Association, who I'm helping work with to promote their agenda which is also education and awareness.

They're also on board with this.

So she's done a PSA for us.

She, the first lady, done Edwards and really been helpful in getting the overall word out about education and awareness of human trafficking.

All right.

This involves primarily young people and it is girls and boys, but I would suspect mostly young women.

Mm hmm.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

The amount of people that are taken into human trafficking and victims of human trafficking are disproportionately usually those that are vulnerable individuals who are women and children.

But also those that might have, you know, be living in poverty, those that are struggling with addiction or mental health problems.

They seem to be those that are targeted.

Surrounding the issue, there's a lot of political unrest that's going on, but it's usually individuals who we know to be at risk, whether they be in poverty, they don't have guardians that are at home and around them.

If it's a child.

And then if it's women and older adults, usually they are struggling with addiction or mental health issues to where they are at more at risk for being targeted.

And people have this idea that it's you know, that it's someplace else, that it's in a foreign country, that it's elsewhere and that it's always somebody that snatches someone who doesn't know them.

But the fact of the matter is, there are families who become involved with this But again, the family structure is broken down from within to be in that place to traffic your own child.

Big events, too.

As the first lady noted, the final four Super Bowls, World Series.

Those are places where this often occurs.

Absolutely.

The belief is that you know, a lot of people are gathering for events like this.

And so the more people that are there, the more people can hide and blend in.

All right.

877217 57 57.

There is still time to talk with Dr. Fetzer and with Andre Moro.

Amber on I-10.

Hi, Amber.

Hi.

I want to clarify something that a caller called in and said.

I am actually a survivor of human trafficking.

I almost got killed.

Get in the way.

I got stabbed several times.

I nearly died.

Wow.

It's not that we choose to be on drugs, it's that you get kidnaped at young age.

I was 15 when I got kidnaped and I was in London on the subway in North London, I would love to talk to you and your number and talk to you further about this, if that's possible.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

Leave your number, but I'm calling in.

It's because I don't want guys speaking out.

She's a drug addict, right?

Yeah.

I absolutely used to be a drug addict.

She's kidnaped young.

She's drugged up right A lot of women don't get away.

I was very lucky.

Absolutely assumed I was dead when to look for a place to dump my body.

And when I heard the torture I managed to have the strength to get up and get outside of the building and break the law that a cab driver seen me fall to the ground covered in blood, and took me to the Bexley Hospital in London.

That's very, very lucky to have survived.

That's amazing.

It happened very often.

I want to let these women know if you can hear me and you are a female being human traffic and your gut tells you now's the time.

Now is the time.

It is better to lose your fingers than to die for human trafficking.

And if you can get away, get away and you can survive and you can have a life once you have survived I have spoken with Amber since she called into the show, and we're hoping to talk with her again and interview her.

She's not only a survivor, but Dr. Fetzer says she is a hero If you've noticed an increase in damage cars on the road, you're not imagining it.

It's actually happening and it's an issue with the supply chain.

I know this because I got into an accident myself in January, but it's likely my car won't be fixed until May.

Through this experience, I learned how the crisis is affecting car repair shops in Louisiana.

Darren Kevin of Kevin's auto repair, acted as my guide as I navigated this new normal The first recorded car accident was in 1891 in Ohio City.

John William Lambert hit a tree roof before crashing his car into a hitching post.

It was big news since then, the U.S. reports more than 5 million car accidents every year.

This year I had a Fender bender of my own, and I'm using fender bender lightly here since my accident.

I've noticed more damaged cars on the road like a lot more.

It seems like there are other people like me waiting to get their cars fixed and the stats back that up.

Ellis, you reported tens of thousands of non-fatal passenger car accidents so far this year.

I'm hoping Cabin's auto repair can help me figure out why it's taking so long.

Hello.

Hey, how are you?

I'm Cara.

Hey, Darren.

Kevin.

Nice to meet you.

Can we see the repair shop?

Sure.

All right.

Is this a normal amount of cars that you would have in here right now?

We normally have at least this many.

We have a lot of cars in in the shop right now due to the hurricane.

We had a lot of storm damage, so you'll see a lot of vehicles with the tops being repaired and complete paint jobs and all that.

Why are you guys just getting affected by this now?

It's it's March.

The shops have been so busy that we're having to let people's cars that are drivable, let them drive them until we get all their parts and until we can get a place to work on.

So people back in November have been scheduled to bring their car into us now.

So we're scheduling now like three months away.

Hurricane Ida is our first culprit in this car repair crisis.

You see the hurricane damaged about 212,000 cars that we know of.

And then there's the pandemic.

Car manufacturing companies aren't producing nearly as much this year as they did pre-pandemic, raising the price of new and used vehicles.

So more people are opting to fix hurricane damage cars that they may have traded in normally.

This is creating a serious backlog problem for local shop owners like cabins.

Which brings us to the biggest problem, the supply chain crisis.

That BMW right there has been wrecked for almost two and a half months, while not letting all partners still don't have the fender for forgive me, what is a fender?

The front panel over the top of the wheel.

Can we see that?

Whenever those supply chains break down the parts just get not available.

We have several customers that have headlights, tail lights.

All things were manufactured in China.

That we can't get the parts for because the supply chain has been broken down.

I can break down the car supply chain shortage into three areas.

First, there's a shortage in semiconductors.

Next, shipping backups.

And lastly, there's not enough workers to move or make supplies.

How much?

Just like ballpark.

Do you think you've lost money wise from all this?

It's like I said, it's hard to put a finger on, but it would you know, it's in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I've definitely noticed there have been more cars on the road that are not looking their best.

People are having to drive their cars for almost three months waiting on you to shop.

We've got an open plan, which is all the way down across this to me right now.

And I hate it.

I hate it so much.

It's just not my style, but my car is around the front.

I took advantage of having Mr. Cameron's attention and asked him to assess my car.

It went just as badly as I imagined, if not worse.

Moment of truth.

All right.

So this is my car.

It's normally not this dirty.

I just can't clean it.

This is what happened to me.

It's got some pretty good damage to it.

So you see the rear body panel right here?

This where this all makes the Viper all this has to be replaced, and this has to be replaced.

And under normal circumstances, this is going to take about three, maybe four weeks.

What's your backlog looking like?

We have scheduled drivable cars all the way out till August nine.

Drivable cars like yours.

We take as we can.

My car's not drivable.

Now what?

I wouldn't be driving.

Oh, my goodness.

And you got a big gaping hole right here.

Why did you wait this long to call?

Why did I wait this long to call you?

Because I thought I had people who said you should have got to me saying I hope my car wreck and subsequent pain has brought you all some clarity on the supply chain crisis.

There have been many solutions proposed.

Nothing is really sticking.

Caverns is just one piece of this puzzle of madness.

But we have got to get back to control of our own supply chains.

We can not keep relying on other people to supply things for us.

It's not just automotive related.

It's everyday life.

And I hate to say it, but I just don't see it getting any better for a log cabin as well connected to other car repair shops in the capital city.

And he says the supply crisis is a strain on all of them.

Now, our next young hero, a picture of health.

But as we all know, looks can be deceiving.

She was diagnosed with a rare bone cancer as a child.

The experience was a terrifying one, but through that, she learned confidence, perseverance and leadership.

Tonight, I want you to meet Ragan Anders what's the worst news a parent could hear?

There are a lot of things that come to mind.

Compared Bird and Jeff Anders heard it in a doctor's office.

Reagan was diagnosed with a very rare form of osteosarcoma.

It's called to lend you ecstatic.

It's a big word, osteosarcoma.

And I think only 7% of osteosarcoma is or that type.

It was it was hard on Reagan.

It was hard on him.

It was hard on Reagan siblings who were who were younger.

Challenging Tadhg osteosarcoma accounts for only 4% of osteo sarcoma diagnoses.

It causes swelling and pain at the sight of the tumor.

And in some cases, it causes a fracture in the bone.

That's how poor Bert and Anders found out their nine year old daughter Reagan was sick.

I never really knew the gravity of what cancer really meant.

And then from there, on out, whenever it had all these different doctor's appointments, there was something wrong for sure.

Reagan's treatment and recovery was a long road.

She had surgeries to repair the fracture and get rid of the cancer.

She underwent chemotherapy, and she had a prosthetic installed to replace her femur bone.

I had to learn to walk again, and that was the worst part, just because it was painful to begin with.

And then I get really frustrated with myself, and I'm not improving as fast as I would like to in spring.

20.

15.

Reagan finished chemo and started recovery.

As someone with such an active life, the cancer diagnosis was an adjustment for her.

But don't be fooled Reagan is more than her illness.

Reagan is now a scuba diver.

Reagan loves to fish, so she's still able to fish.

And she's always enjoyed that.

And she took part in the Bella Bowman Foundation.

She's still been a supporter of St Jude and also helped with the best dress ball in 2017.

I believe she took part in that.

So I think she's trying to give back now.

17 years old.

Reagan has accomplished so much.

Her teachers say her strength is motivating.

She didn't let it become her identity, but at the same time, she used this as a way to bring awareness.

Lee Grace, one of Reagan's teachers, says bringing awareness, her condition is one of only a few things Reagan's done.

She's jumped into leadership roles, inspiring other students and teachers around her.

At St Joseph's Academy, she was up for student council vice president and she won.

Well, she really, really, truly cared about her classmates as people and as fellow learners and as people who wanted to make their environment a better place.

And they they really, really worked hard to do that together.

All really led by her and she is a true example in and outside of the classroom.

Reagan excelled in all of her classes.

She holds a 4.4 GPA at St Joseph's Academy, and she scored a 32 on her act.

Nearly a perfect score.

Louisiana Young Hero.

So when it was time to nominate Young Heroes, she was the perfect fit After a lot of hard work.

It was very gratifying to see that something noticed, kind of because, I mean, there was a lot of things that were going on behind the scenes that I felt nobody really saw.

And then they reassured me that they would see it.

It's been a long road of treatment and recovery but Regan wants to move forward.

And it's clear nothing will stand in her way.

Leaves Louisiana Young Hero's Program is presented this year with the generous support of America health care ethos.

Louisiana S-pen Rouge Parish Library, Community Coffee, the US Army Baton Rouge Recruiting Battalion Demko and Hotel Indigo and everyone.

That is our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything TV anytime.

Wherever you are with our PBS app, you can catch LP 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, TikTok and Instagram.

For everyone here at Louisiana Public Broadcasting, I'm Andre Moreau And I'm Kara St. Cyr until next time.

That's the state ran 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 Ruthie 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