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.

Early Childhood Education will operate with a $9 million loss, possibly starting July 1st.

What does that mean for Louisiana's children?

A look at how Louisiana's real estate market will respond to homeowners insurance reform.

And Women's Hospital is looking to combat high maternal mortality rates with a doula program.

This week, the nation celebrated the 80th anniversary of D-Day with a contingent of World War Two veterans from Louisiana making the journey to Normandy to celebrate.

Are you ready?

I'm ready.

Let's get started.

Hi, everyone.

I'm here 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 hurricane season is underway, and you've probably already seen meteorologists mentioning things are heating up in the Gulf.

Now, this week, FEMA officials held a press conference urging people to prepare.

They want to remind people that with our changing climate, storms can develop and threaten land without a lot of warning.

Your rapid intensification is a huge risk, and rapidly developing and intensifying storms are a particular risk for the Gulf Coast and for Florida in particular.

The strongest hurricanes that have ever hit the United States.

The high end category four as a category five were all tropical storms, or less three days before landfall.

So, in that region in particular, you don't necessarily have a week or more to watch a hurricane come all the way across the Atlantic.

The biggest threat from storms that form in the Caribbean or Gulf for the Southwest Atlantic and then make landfall rapidly, intensifying.

They make landfall within 3 or 4 days.

So that's everybody needs to have that sort of short fuze, you know, hurricane emergency plan, FEMA's open new hubs to stage equipment and emergency response team and trainings, seminars with thousands of emergency managers.

They do urge everyone to have a hurricane prep kit and emergency plan for their families, as well.

Now, some parents may soon be scrambling to find childcare because of the legislature's recently approved budget.

Under the proposal, state funding for early childhood education was slashed by millions of dollars.

Advocacy groups warn that this will indirectly affect the state's economy.

Take a look.

After an eventful couple months at the legislature, lawmakers closed out session with a summer draft of the state budget.

The finalized plan includes significantly increased funding for the criminal justice system, and allocates a large portion of money to repair the state's infrastructure.

But to balance that out, lawmakers made significant cuts to early childhood education and action advocates say will adversely affect children.

We're going to have children enter into into third grade and into fourth grade that aren't reading on grade level, and then that those types of things that happen tend to cascade.

Doctor Libby Senior is the executive director of the Louisiana Policy Institute for children.

She says the newest budget will result in many kids losing access to preschool programs.

The newest proposal cuts early childhood education funding by $9 million.

So the cut in the state's budget by 8 million, by $9 million for child assistance means that approximately 800 children will lose access to quality early care and education.

So we were able to save 1200 of the 2000, seats that could have potentially be lost.

Is there a way to pinpoint exactly which students are more likely or less likely to be able to go into into the schools?

If you're three years old and you're going into a la for you or four year old program, we won't refill three year old spot so that the Department of Education more than likely will have to to roll off these seats through attrition.

The House Appropriations Committee originally slice funding by $24 million, but after several hearings, both the House and Senate compromised on a partial restoration of 15 million.

As the budget proposal currently stands.

Childhood education will be funded by a total of $78 million.

But Doctor Sonya's research says Louisiana needs way more than that to adequately serve the state's at risk kids.

Without the right funding, Louisiana's economy could suffer.

Can you explain that?

So we did a study at the Louisiana Policy Institute for children to really look at the economic impacts of quality early care in education on our state.

And what we found is that for when families don't have access to quality early care and education, they can't be fully participants into our economy, which that equates to about a $762 million loss to our Louisiana companies.

Overall, Doctor Sonja concludes that this could cost our economy $1.3 billion in the long run.

I mean, how long would it be before we begin to see those effects?

We'll start to see those effects when we lose the number of children that that don't have access to quality early care and education.

Proponents of the cuts questioned whether children under the age of three benefit from early childhood programs.

Some likened it to glorified babysitting.

So what we do know is that under the age of three, 80% of brain development happens during that time.

And so meaningful quality interactions that happen in quality early learning centers have lifelong effects.

I've had the great fortune of working on one of the longest longitudinal studies.

Quite frankly, in the world, related to access to quality early care and education in the first five years.

The current budget seemingly aligns with the governor's agenda, but he does have a few weeks to veto portions of the document if he chooses to balance the budget.

Lawmakers polled $717 million from money that would typically go into a state savings account to cover future shortages.

Louisiana is expected to face a half $1 billion shortfall in next year's budget.

From hashtags to headlines, here's what's hot on social media this week.

Okay, no pun intended, but literally the month of May was the hottest on record in parts of Louisiana.

I mean, really seriously.

So in New Orleans, temperatures averaged 80.6 degrees last month.

The previous record was 80.1 degrees, and that was in the year 2000.

Wow.

Okay.

So 24 years ago.

So we beat that record.

And in Baton Rouge the average was 80.7 degrees, up from 79.4, which was the record back in 1933.

Yeah.

So it looks like Mother Nature will be making headlines again this summer.

If you remember, last summer we were busy covering wildfires and record Heat Hot.

But yes, whenever you walk outside, you're not making it up.

Well, this weekend is the, Country Music Association Festival, and some of Louisiana's country music greats are headed to Nashville.

The state tourism office will have a presence there.

They're doing a kind of interesting exhibit, right.

An interesting exhibit that they call a musical petting zoo.

A musical petting zoo.

Wait, what does that entail?

So they're bringing over a bunch of different animals for you to listen to music and pet them, like sheep and stuff like that.

It's it's instead of animals.

It's musical instruments.

Like the accordion, fiddles, rub boards.

It rub a cute idea around board like a washboard.

Oh, okay.

Honestly, I've seen those instruments, but I had no idea what it was called.

All right, well, if you are a fan of the show American Ninja Warrior, you need to be watching because we have a Perryville man who's going back for more.

His name is West Metter, and he's, He's been on the show a few times.

Right?

Well, it's difficult, so it's kind of like a wipe out where you're doing all these different obstacle courses.

So I feel like that would take a lot of practice.

So I understand going back, but good luck.

Yeah I think this thing is like spinning.

He spins on a log.

And I think that's what actually knocked him out of the last competition.

So good luck.

We are rooting for you.

We are your fans.

All right, well, moving on to some good news, but yes, I do have some good news this week.

So Louisiana's maternal mortality rate is among the worst in the nation.

But a women's hospital is hoping to change that, which is a good thing.

Pays to the hospital, are participating in a national study that places doulas with pregnant mothers.

I sat down with two moms and two doulas participating in the program.

Here's what they had to say.

When Brianna Remo found out she was pregnant for the second time, she was confident that this pregnancy would be just as easy as the last.

This one was long.

I couldn't wait, it was long.

I was like counting the days.

And then I got an induction.

So even knowing the day I was going to give birth is still a long.

But as early as the first trimester, she was proven wrong because I was throwing up a lot and I thought it was something that was going to go away, but it didn't go away.

At 2 a.m. every day from the time I found out until I gave birth, even after I had a guy, I was still on.

Remo was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum, a condition that causes excessive nausea and near-constant vomiting.

Remo says she lost a 30 pounds during her pregnancy and needed IV fluids to stay hydrated.

But even this wasn't the worst part of her pregnancy.

Doctors would find clusters of tumors in her baby's head and heart during the final weeks of her third trimester.

You know what was going through your mind whenever you found out that he was, you know, has all these tumors?

it was sad because you went through a perfectly normal pregnancy the first time, and then you're thinking, okay, I'm gonna go to another normal pregnancy.

And then on top of doing it, you find out that your child has a disorder.

This news, compounding an already complicated pregnancy, was an impossible mountain to climb.

Luckily, she didn't have to do it alone.

Remo was selected as part of the Well Mommas initiative, a study conducted partly at Woman's Hospital, that place pregnant mothers with doulas.

Charlotte Berks and Shikha Tobias are two of the community doulas on the project.

You know, when people hear the word Dua, they probably also conflate it with the word midwife.

But there's definitely a difference.

What is the difference?

So, a midwife is a medical professional.

You know, they can assess the birth, and take the lead or, you know, they're going to do everything to make sure that mom and baby stays safe.

They also are responsible for the prenatal care, kitchen, baby lab.

So if you're in a home birth setting or a birth center setting, you may see a midwife over in O.B.

or, you know, obstetrician.

As a doula, we support the moms wherever they go.

The goal was to minimize poor outcomes for pregnant mothers of color like Remo.

What was your first meeting like with Brianna?

I remember I met her and I went back into the office and I told Charlie, I'm like, something's off.

You know, I don't know what we need to find.

And we started to, you know, figure out, depending on the gestation in a time, also determine the diagnosis.

So what we started to do is relay that information to Brianna so that she could get the care that she needed.

The doulas in this project are given five objectives to check for mental health, social support, heart health, safety, and drug abuse.

But Remo says the support felt like so much more than that.

It was like having a second set of eyes and a friend.

We just felt like we was already getting over one milestone and we only had about ten weeks left, so we was like, we was almost at the finish line.

And whenever I initially was finding out about everything as she goes there, she even took off and came to like one of my cardiology appointments that I had at another hospital.

The emotional support is one part of the equation.

The knowledge these tools afford is the other.

This is Brianna Burke.

She's another mother selected for the study.

She says Charlotte's Burke's helped her understand treatment plans during her pregnancy.

I'm the type of person that doesn't ask doctors questions at all.

So, like, do you have any questions now?

So I would never ask them.

And if I did I would take them like, hey, what is this?

Or she would even go over it and I wouldn't have to ask about it.

You're around.

It's just kind of cool, relaxed at the same time because, you know, at the end of the day, we have to build that rapport as well.

but I will say she bridge that gap.

Doulas aren't just a unique study pioneered by Woman's Hospital.

Years of data show that this practice provides better health outcomes for pregnancy.

According to March of Dimes, a nonprofit organization focusing on improving childbirth.

Doulas are associated with fewer C-sections, shorter time in labor, and overall fewer negative childbirth experiences.

Yeah, what you got to say, what you want to talk about today.

The doulas assigned at Women's Hospital will continue to support both Remo and Burke for one full year after birth, helping with questions and monitoring their mental health.

Maybe other things that they may not reach out to us about?

Is we well equipped to help them understand it, and they may not even know that we came.

I was like, oh, I thought it was just birth.

No way.

Well, it is the whole experience.

The study will conclude in 2027.

But by then, she hopes that doulas are more accessible, especially in states with poor mental health outcomes like Louisiana.

There's a program out in upper looseness.

There's many programs in New Orleans.

So I think the biggest thing is just not stopping at.

I want to do LA, but actually going out there to try to find a doula.

There's many of us all throughout Louisiana.

Louisiana's housing market is in transition thanks to a variety of factors.

Lawmakers recently passed several bills they hope will create a more competitive market for homeowners insurance.

At the same time, real estate agents are adjusting to changes to the way commissions work, which will affect both home buying and selling.

And this week's Louisiana Speaks.

Norman Morris, the CEO of Louisiana Realtors, provides insight on the state of Louisiana's real estate market.

As these changes take effect.

I am joined by Norman Morris.

He's the chief executive officer of Louisiana Realtors.

Thank you so much for joining us.

So you're here to kind of bring viewers up to speed, not only on the state of the real estate market, but on how recent insurance reform laws may affect the, real estate market for homeowners and homebuyers and, and realtors, as well.

Let's start off with what is the organization all about?

Louisiana Realtors.

Louisiana Realtors is a professional trade organization made up of about 16,000 realtor members statewide, representing buyers and sellers of all types of real property stemming from residential commercial land leasing.

Well property owners, home owners, real estate agents have been closely following, insurance reform coming out of the Louisiana legislature with the reform that laws that will take effect.

Do you see this positively impacting the real estate market in Louisiana?

I really do, and it won't be overnight.

it will take some time, 2 to 3 years before we see some, I believe, some positive impact.

And when I say that we've had some negative impacts based on insurance companies either not expanding their portfolio of coverages or companies pulling out of the state of Louisiana, it also creates a situation where home sellers sometimes where they can't even sell their properties because the insurance rates are so high that a buyer can't even, they can get all their stuff ready to go and buy a home.

But when they find out that it's price ticket for the insurance, they can't afford it and it prices them out of that deal.

It's it's stopped a lot of real estate deals in Louisiana over the last several years.

What specific insurance reforms do you believe will help the real estate market?

That's a great question, and several I'll go through briefly with your viewers here today.

the 4 to 5 root system, Alabama has done a great job in some other states around the country.

It's a new, way that you can put roofs on that will ultimately, after a storm, keep water from intruding that, that roof system.

So we believe that what happened was this session as a legislature appropriated $15 million to be able to offer grants and financial help to those that qualify and want to put those 4 to 5 roof systems on their home.

We hope in the future there's more money granted towards this program.

Any other specific ones?

Absolutely.

Back in 1992, Louisiana.

And acted alone.

What's called the three year rule.

And basically the three year rule stated that if you, as a homeowner, had coverage for three years or longer with an insurance company, they could not non renew you or drop your coverage.

now I know that sounds like, you know, we're taking up for the insurance companies, but we're the only state in the union that had that, law in effect.

So fast forward to this legislative session.

Act number nine, was just signed into law.

And basically what that will say is, is that it gets it right away with the three year rule.

It will allow companies now, to go in and up to 5% of the policies in any parish be able to run non renew or drop those coverages in August.

new rules take effect that will impact commissions earned by real estate agents.

the Washington Post recently published an article headlined basically warning that this is going to, this is going to create real estate agent flight that, a lot of real estate agents are going to be put out of business as a result of these new commission rules.

This only affects 1 to 4 family residential properties.

So it will not affect commercial or land, industrial or leases, but any home buying aspect of a property, these new rules.

So the new rules will affect two things.

The compensation will not flow through the multiple listing Service.

It will be done directly between the agents representing the parties.

There will be have to be a written agreement in place between a realtor or a licensee representing a buyer, that outlines all of the great services that the realtor provides and how that compensation based on providing those services will occur and how that will move forward.

It will also, require that there be no compensation placed into the Multiple Listing Service.

We still can have compensation provided.

by Seller Comp for compensating the buyer's agent as well.

It all has to be negotiated in what I call off line and not now through the MLS.

so it's been going on.

It's just had the MLS is a facilitator for this process.

So now it will take that out of the picture.

Is Louisiana Realtors concerned that these new rules may push real estate agents out of the market?

We don't necessarily believe that, but some may choose to do that.

just based on, you know, the new guidelines and new rules.

But the industry's always changed.

And I think their expertise and their willingness to change and learn is going to only benefit the buyers and sellers that are looking to hire their great services and to help them navigate through and achieve their goals of property ownership.

Well, we will wrap up our interview with an outlook on the current real estate market in Louisiana.

What does it look like and where is it headed?

I think we're steady right now.

It's not perfect where we'd like to see it, because we'd like to see more opportunities for buyers and sellers on all fronts.

obviously, the interest rate now hovering around seven, a little over 7%.

obviously that that, you know, when we go back several years, if you can recall, five years ago, we were the 2.5, 3.5, depending that range of rates.

We believe the rates may, drop anywhere from 6 to 6.5, which would even be better attractive for those buyers out there wanting to either get off the sidelines and purchase another place or new individuals into the market that want to purchase as well.

So we're watching the interest rates.

Obviously, the insurance reform has been a big issue that we've talked about in this segment.

Flood insurance is another issue that is causing some issues with the new, FEMA risk rating to point out in the way their rating, their new flood insurance policy.

So obviously it's created some, some, some negative impacts in Louisiana, depending on where you live and how they rate those policies.

So we're certainly on top of that and hopefully can get FEMA to revise some of their ways that they look at rating.

because it's no different than property insurance.

When you get a flood insurance bill that goes from $800 to six, seven, eight, $10,000, you can't purchase that, you can't afford that product.

And if you have a mortgage in many cases, that mortgage lender is going to require that you carry flood insurance on the property.

All right.

Well, Norman, thank you so much for coming to LPB Studios to share your insight on behalf of Louisiana Realtors.

Thank you so much.

Can.

80 years ago this week, on June 6th, 1944, more than 150,000 Allied troops stormed the beaches at Normandy, France.

The assault marked the turning point of World War Two at the cost of thousands of lives.

A group of veterans from Louisiana traveled to Normandy to participate in the Week of Remembrance ceremonies.

New Orleans native Samuel Meyer served in the Army Air Corps and reflects on the support role he served in the five Beach invasion.

As he prepares to head abroad for the events.

So I'm opening the book.

And is that you?

That is me on the 20 row.

Samuel Meyer was living in New Orleans, working in his family business, Meyer the Hatter, when he got the call to serve in World War Two.

I was 18 when I got the postcard and I said, come over here and they sent me off to, Alexandria, Louisiana.

Were you excited?

Were you scared?

No, no, no.

I'm bewildered.

You don't know what's going to happen to you.

You live in your new house, where you've lived all your life with your mother's.

All.

And you don't know what's going on, what's in store for you?

Samuel was drafted into the Army Air Corps.

He served with a 378th fighter Group as an armorer, loading bombs and ammunition on P-38 fighter planes during World War Two.

These airplanes were manufactured by Lockheed and then bought for 50 caliber machine guns and a cannon.

And that's a murderous amount of firepower.

The 99 year old World War Two veteran was part of ground support who helped make the D-Day invasion possible.

On June 6th, 1944, more than 160,000 Allied troops stormed five beaches under heavy gunfire.

It was the beginning of the liberation of Europe from the Nazis.

More than 2500 Americans were killed on that day in battle.

I'm in the southern England and thousands of airplanes took off and thousands of motors in the sky at one time.

All of South England was awake from 2:00 on.

Come on.

The noise was you again.

You can imagine all the noise with thousands of motors going off the same time.

What did you think was happening?

Well, we don't we don't bother with invasion.

I mean, we don't know what's going to happen.

I talked with Samuel the day before.

He was headed to Normandy for the 80th anniversary of D-Day, at the invitation of the Best Defense Foundation and Delta Airlines.

The two organizations are hosting veterans free of charge for several days of celebrations, remembrances and commemorations.

Samuel son Paul, is also headed to Normandy to watch his father participate in parades and special events.

I'm very proud of the was able to serve, back then in 1940, of course.

You know, I did pretty good, coming out the war.

So I think I think you did a real good service for us serving this country.

The weeklong celebration in Normandy began with a mass parachute jump from World War Two era planes, and culminated with an international ceremony attended by the president.

On August 6th.

Samuel turns 100 years old.

He's part of the dwindling greatest generation, the Veterans Administration estimates that the minimum age for World War Two veterans is 95, and that of the 16.4 million World War II veterans, less than 1% are still living.

What do you want the younger generations to?

To learn.

Understand?

Take away from the the greatest generation.

Well, don't let anybody talk you into giving your country away.

After the war, Samuel returned to the family business, selling hats, including his own design.

He still works at Meyer the Hatter as a third generation family member, running the store along with his wife, sons and grandsons.

You know what I think?

Tell me.

I think the Greatest generation is very humble.

Where I brag about anything I did, I didn't do a whole lot.

And, you know, I did what I was asked to do.

Yeah.

Very good, very lucky.

It's so heartwarming, isn't it, to see all those Louisiana veterans making the trek, especially at their age?

Yes, exactly.

So it was a wonderful and inspiring story.

Thank you.

That's our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LPB any time, 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 Karin LeBlanc.

And I'm Kara.

Thanks.

Here.

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 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 by Visit Baton Rouge and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting and viewers like you.

Thank you.