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. 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.

We want to work with our community to make sure those things happen.

Orleans Parish elects the first black woman as sheriff.

Drifts over time becomes a healing issue.

COVID exhaustion leading to increased mental health issues.

My message is to not give up.

A Louisiana psychologist uses music to promote healing.

This was started to really encourage Baton Rouge to be a regional destination.

Redstick Revelry is New Year's Eve in Baton Rouge.

Hi everyone, I'm Kara St. Cyr and I'm Andre Morreau.

Louisiana is seeing a 60% increase in COVID 19 cases and hospitalizations over the last week.

This as the new American variant surges.

The State Department of Health has adjusted their recommendations for staying safe this holiday season.

They recommend mask wearing indoors and frequent testing, regardless of your vaccination status.

There's no widespread mask mandate in Louisiana currently, but Governor John Bel Edwards did extend Louisiana's public health emergency order.

The order gives all state government agencies the ability to mandate masks.

State agencies within the governor's cabinet will begin requiring employees and visitors to wear a face covering, and health officials continue to emphasize the safety of the vaccine and booster for preventing the spread of COVID 19.

And now to other news headlines across our state.

In the speech on Tuesday afternoon, President Joe Biden announced major changes to his COVID 19 winter plan, which will now include 500 million free rapid tests for Americans, increased support of hospitals under strain and redoubling of vaccination and boosting efforts.

The Biden administration will also establish new testing sites and use the Defense Production Act to help manufacture more tests.

The first new federally supported testing site will open in New York this week.

Congressman Troy Carter concluded his first installment of his district wide building a Better Louisiana infrastructure tour this week.

It's in his area around New Orleans.

During his four events, he highlighted an expected $7 billion in investments from the bipartisan infrastructure law, with more than 330 million.

In his congressional district for road and bridge projects, the infrastructure law will also provide $110 million in annual funding for the Minority Business Development Agency through the year 2025.

Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams will launch a review of all cases prosecuted by Lafayette City Court Judge Michel Odermatt while she worked in New Orleans in the mid 1990s.

Judge O'Donnell is on unpaid suspension due to a viral video in which she can be heard shouting a racial slur about a black burglar.

The state Supreme Court appointed Vanessa Harris as Judge Pro-Tem through February 28 to replace O'Donnell.

New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell announced an expansion of the citywide COVID 19 proof of vaccination mandate to include children ages five and up.

Starting January third, children will be required to show proof that they've received at least one dose of the vaccine or recent negative test results to be granted entry into restaurants or other venues by February.

two doses will be required.

New Orleans parade routes are changing for the 2022 Mardi Gras season.

Parades will roll on their traditional day, but crews have been asked to make route adjustments because of limited staffing from fire, police, medical and other safety personnel.

Mardi Gras Day is March first, but parades will roll several weeks before that.

As we enter a third year of the pandemic, the United States has experienced a widespread increase in mental illness in Louisiana.

Mental health experts are seeing a surge in patients suffering from anxiety and depression.

Dr. Jan Laughing House, the executive director of Capital Area Human Services, says this is all a part of COVID exhaustion.

Louisiana entered and exited four waves of the pandemic over the course of two years, with the last one peaking in September.

But with each wave comes another consequence surges and mental illness.

Jan Laughing House, the executive director of Capital Area Human Services, says the back to back waves of COVID are triggering mental health episodes and Louisianians.

I would definitely say we have had a lot of utilization of our Louisiana Spirit Crisis Counseling program.

Laughing House says her agency is seeing an increase in people suffering from mental illness.

She says the pandemic has exacerbated already existing issues for some and created problems for others.

Since the initial outbreak in March 2020, existing depression and instances of substance abuse have surged.

The Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit mental health advocacy group, reported that 32.5% of adults in Louisiana were suffering from mental illnesses in 2020 the year before that.

That number was only 21.2%.

You know, stress over time becomes a health issue.

And so we have folks right now who are mentally so mentally exhausted that it's beginning to impact them negatively physically.

We're releasing stress hormones when we have stress that sustained over time when our fight-or-flight reaction stays heightened all the time, we actually have changes in our brain.

And so we have this pandemic that has been ongoing.

And when we turn around every time we turn around these waves, there doesn't appear to be an end to it.

And so people have no really.

What Laughing House is describing isn't unique to Louisiana.

Depression and anxiety is up nationwide, and a public poll conducted by the American Psychiatric Association last October, 62% of participants reported feeling more anxious than they had been the year before, which is the big hike compared to the normal range of these reports, which usually sit somewhere between 32 and 39%.

2021 mental health trends are showing the same concerning data.

This year, the CDC reported that during August 2020 and February 2021, the percentage of adults with symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorder during the past seven days increased from 36.4% to 41.5%.

Now, the Omicron variant is the most prominent strain.

Laughing House expects more people to experience anxiety.

I think some people are already there in, you know, Omicron got them to this level, and they're only this.

High data and surveys show that mental illness is currently affecting women and people without a college education at a much higher rate .

Young people, specifically teenage girls, are also highly affected.

The U.S.

Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, released findings that show suicide attempts for teenage girls increased 51% from 2019 to now.

There is one particular reason for the uptick, but laughing House says the information overload can be part of the blame.

People are just trying to find an outlet.

They're trying to find things to quiet their mind, particularly when there is a barrage of news.

And you know, we can get in those 24 hour news cycles and people just don't get a break from all of the information.

There are other pandemic related factors that contribute to mental illness.

The CDC says grief and fear, isolation and lack of access to resources are all contributors.

Laughing House says that turning off unnecessary notifications about the virus and connecting with family can help those struggling, but ultimately reaching out to a professional is the best route to take.

Experts recommend meditation connecting with family the safest way you can and following CDC guidelines to help manage any feelings of anxiety.

History was made in Orleans Parish as Susan Hutson takes a sheriff's seat.

Only 2% of sheriffs in the United States are female, and Hudson is the first woman to be elected a sheriff for her district.

She's also the first progressive.

During December eleven selection.

Hudson took 53% of the vote and upset Marlin Gusman, who's held the title for nearly 20 years.

I sat down with a new sheriff to talk policy and the future of Orleans Parish Policing, so upset Marlin Gusman, who has been in the sheriff position since 2004, which is a big feat.

Why do you think the election was turned in your favor?

I thought it was time for change.

We talked about that from the very beginning.

We talked about now's the time to correct the failings of our criminal justice system, and the city had voted for change in other elections as well.

So we knew that the time was now to to move this last critical piece.

And so, uh, the voters voted for change.

I knew that at the primary, when 52% said they wanted a new sheriff.

Yeah, we were going to get this done.

You've been kind of labeled as a progressive sheriff.

What does that mean?

And also is that how you intend to serve?

I embraced it wholeheartedly and I did my homework on it when I decided to get into this race.

I started looking at what are what's going on around the country.

And I spoke to a couple of camps of progressive sheriffs people who ran on a progressive platform around the country, and I spoke to three other wardens who had implemented progressive platforms in their institutions.

And it just made sense to me everything that they were saying, and that helped us to develop our message, which was about taking care of those who are in custody, no one taking care of those who work there.

Number two and then listening to our community.

That's what it looked like.

And so I absolutely embrace that.

On your website, there are three main goals that you have outlined and that is care, custody and control.

Can you tell me what those mean and how you plan to implement them?

We know that 80% of the people who come into the jail either have a substance addiction and or a mental health diagnosis, so we know that we need to care for them better while they're in there.

And then when they leave, we can't let them just drop.

So what's happening right now is they get in there.

We know that the sheriff got into a consent decree or got under federal control because the medical and mental health care was unconstitutional, so they weren't getting the proper care in the jail.

So we know we have to change that.

But on this progressive platform, we know that if we do a public health model where we treat people in the jail, but we make sure that they can stay with those doctors when they leave, then we don't drop them right.

There's a better chance that they won't come back if they're getting the care that they need.

So care.

But care included a bunch of other things.

My campaign manager and I were taking pictures one day and a man pulled up in a card hopped out and said, Are you that lady running for sheriff?

It's like, Yeah, he said, we got to do something about food in there.

They don't feed us properly.

We're eating Lunchables and all kinds of food that is not designed to get you at your best.

Right?

We know that if we eat properly, drink water and do the things that we need to do, we will operate mentally and physically better.

But that's not happening in the jail right now.

So we do that.

So we knew that that type of care had to change and we knew that people weren't getting the there was some education there for a certain age group, like up to 26 years of age with the Travis Hill School, but everybody else was on their own.

And we know that there have has been a deficit of education in our community, so we know that we need education.

We need the we need, we need training, we need opportunities and most importantly, we need hope.

So we talked to everybody who agreed with that, and a lot of people said they wanted to be a part of it.

Another one of your goals is to reduce the number of people coming into prisons because, as you know, Louisiana has been labeled as the prison capital of the world, not the country, but the entire world .

How do you plan on reducing the number of inmates coming in?

We don't have enough deputies to take to keep this current population secure.

So that means we have to bring it down and we've got to bring up the number of deputies.

Most likely, we're going to bring the population down before we're going to be able to train to recruit, hire and train new deputies.

So we have to be very careful about who's in there, and we only need to keep people in here who make us unsafe.

So if you're doing so, if fines and fees, we don't have enough room for that.

It is a crisis in the jail.

We have one or two deputies on a floor by themselves.

That's a crisis that's unsafe.

It's unsafe for those who are in custody.

It's unsafe for those who work there.

So we've got to work with all those other actors to to keep us safe.

And so we want to do that.

You know, in Jefferson Parish, for instance, they have a very small jail.

And one of the standing orders they've had for years between the.

Judiciary and the sheriff is that when it gets to fall, the sheriff can release people according to a schedule and a type of crime.

And so that's what we want to do here as well.

And now we have a pandemic as well, which means we have to segregate people.

So we need space in that jail to keep people safe from the virus as well, so we can only again have those who make us unsafe and everybody else.

We've got to find a way to get them out of that jail, especially those who are just in there because they can't afford bail.

We've talked a lot about people that are inside the parish prison system, and we haven't spoken a lot about what goes on on the outside.

So the public's relationship with law enforcement, like I said earlier, has been a bit rocky.

And do you think that your time here is going to change that?

We have to have community led policing where we listen to the community's priorities.

Not so much.

We let them pick from some policing priorities, but we listen to the community's priorities and we act on those.

So they say they don't feel safe in some areas.

So we've got to make sure that we have that presence to make sure they're safe.

But that doesn't mean we're going to stop and frisk, and that doesn't mean we're going to alienate the rest of the community doing stuff like that, which is hurt policing.

Over the last 17 years, I've been in the business of overseeing police, so we want to do policing work that fits our community, keeps people safe, does not bring keep funneling people into the system who should not be there.

And so and people have a right to be safe and secure from the government as well.

So we want to be pinpointed in how we use our policing powers.

Fair, professional and constitutional.

Well, thank you so much for taking the time out to talk to me.

Thank you, Kyra.

All right.

Hudson steps into her new role as sheriff on May second.

Dr. Katie Fetzer has branched out since we last talked with her here on LTB.

In addition to her work as a therapist, she's become a singer songwriter under the name Lacalle.

I talked with her about her personal struggles and trauma that let her down this new path and also the meaning behind her music.

What I want people to know about me as a songwriter is that my entire lived experience is all that I am, all that I know, all that I've been through is poured into my music.

Dr. Katie Fetzer is a Baton Rouge psychologist, but as you can see in this YouTube video, there's a whole other career of possibilities .

She's trying out.

She grew up in a family of musicians and songwriters.

But it wasn't until a series of events happened in recent years that enabled her to reconnect with her own musical side.

I was working in a hospital setting, was actually assaulted by a patient, and then shortly after that, I witnessed a suicide firsthand.

And then shortly after that, you know, you could say I was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

I actually like to say I was at the right place, at the right time.

Shortly after that, it was about 10:00 a.m. on a Sunday.

My husband and I were making cinnamon rolls and we had a shooting that occurred in our in our front lawn that ended up in a suicide.

A lot of those things just started to take its toll on me, and I realized, you know, that it was important that I did the right things to take care of myself .

And in that healing process, I discovered myself as an artist and music became something that was really healing for me.

Gregg.

Me.

This piano became a centerpiece of the healing.

one night I just sat at it and I felt kind of invited to play and came up with a little something.

I thought it was horrible.

I didn't know what I was doing, but I eventually had some, some encouragement on the outside from others that said, Keep going.

You know, it sounds good.

My heart kept pulling me towards it, so I listened.

It wasn't just piano, it was also your voice that led to her.

I did think this single that we're listening to.

Yeah.

Absolutely, yes.

Once I went through therapy and worked on myself and took care of myself, I started to really learn what it meant to listen to your heart and to follow the path that is laid out before you and really to discover my authentic self.

And so it became, I don't want to say easy because this was filled with hard moments and it was a, you know, I went through a lot of hard struggle, but it did.

It became more natural for me to say like, Oh, my heart's nudging me here, let me try it out.

And once I stepped out of my comfort zone, my comfort zone just got bigger.

And so what I realized was my heart was telling me that I wanted to sing these songs that I was writing.

I was coming up with the lyrics.

They were coming out of my heart from, you know, client experiences or my own experiences, and I realized that I didn't want anyone else singing them at this point in my journey.

Maybe that will change.

So, you know, like if Paul McCartney or somebody is listening, you know, getting.

But, you know, I certainly would be open to that.

But I just realized that I wanted the opportunity to sing my own songs, and I met a producer at the right time and a songwriting coach at the right time, and they said, Well, just this, you just do it, you just show up and let's see where this goes.

And that's when they said, you have a voice and you can do this.

And I just had the encouragement and I just started to do it.

I'm kind of taking it one day of time and just seeing where it goes.

But I certainly felt the desire and the wish, and I had the opportunity to be able to invest in this art that I'm doing no different than buying a canvas and paint and new paint brushes, new guitar strings.

I'm doing these that little bitty chunks at a time when my heart feel tells me it feels right while also trying to be realistic and logical.

Do you know why being in touch with this has been part of your healing?

Oh, it's a great question.

I do.

I think it's funny because I have a Ph.D. in counseling, and so psychologically I could give you those like explanations why, you know, struggle and trauma can sometimes tap into the creative parts of the brain and they can be hit, you know?

But for me, I really feel like it came at a time when I was ready and willing to be open to a spiritual experience because music for me is very spiritual.

And so it was me really surrendering to something bigger than me.

It's not about just me.

I mean, it's about a message that I want to send a healing message that I hope to send to hurting people in this world.

And I feel like for me, it once I surrendered to that, it became just something that kind of naturally is flowing out of me.

I feel more like an instrument myself than anything else.

And the message is that to not give up on any, no matter what your struggle is, especially with my first single fly on faith, those lyrics were written about abused children that I've worked with who want to hide in their closet because they're stuck in abusive homes.

And what can you tell them?

I mean, I'm in the hospital with them, basically begging them, not begging.

But I mean trying and using very evidence based cognitive tools to teach them so that they can learn to not want to surrender to suicide and kill themselves.

And so my message is to not give up and to to endure and look at struggle as an invitation to growing into finding your authentic self and just seeking help, no matter how many times it takes to looking struggle as an invitation to healing, you've got to just keep on living.

And it's nice to see how she incorporates music into the healing process.

New Year's Eve in Louisiana just offers a handful of places where you can celebrate it actually less than a handful Natchitoches as its festival of lights, which goes throughout the holiday season.

New Orleans has its own version of a ball drop.

But Baton Rouge has red stick revelry, which is a New Year's Eve destination.

So to talk about that, Ronna Gray, marketing guru founder of Rustic Revelry and also Paula Rego, who heads up CEO of Visit Baton Rouge.

first of all, let's talk about the latest COVID and Omicron information that may impact New Year's Eve.

While Andre, we would encourage everyone to follow the governor's guidance on public health of any kind.

We're confident because we're an outdoor activity.

Certainly, we encourage people to wear a mask if they're more comfortable doing that.

But we can be outdoors and can we have such, so much going on?

You can keep your distance.

You don't have to be in the crowd.

But it's a great opportunity to get back and put this year behind us and look forward to the next year.

And there are a lot of really spectacle events that happen with this is a laser light show that happens throughout the evening, bands and all of that.

Where is this taking place for people that don't know in downtown Baton Rouge?

Well, actually, it's what we would call Rhorer Square, which is the area right by the the stage North Boulevard downtown Baton Rouge, and it's exciting.

We're hoping that we can bring back the crowds that we had prior to the situation that we have now.

And I think of significance at midnight starts the 50th anniversary of Visit Baton Rouge as an organization, so 2022 will be 50 and we'll be kicking it off with red stick revelry.

Great.

Great.

50.

Tell me about that at all.

And this is year number nine for Mystic River and Red Cross.

I was there at the beginning, but I won't lose count but tell us what's new this year about it and different from years past.

Well, for someone who hasn't come before, it's it's a wonderful evening of live music.

Laser light show fireworks at midnight.

We actually started at 11:00 in the morning from eleven to 1230 and have a children's event so children can have their own New Year's Eve live experience.

That's the resting, rising sea rise, which is the the red state, rising the town to set 60 feet above Town Square and for twelve hours until midnight when it'll drop.

And then our activities start at 8:00 p.m., as Paul was explaining in Rohrer Plaza.

And if you have been before, it's all new.

Yes, we've got two new bands two all new laser light shows.

So whether you band or you have a band, it's it's a new experience and it's a great one.

We have a new presenting sponsor bank plus that's allowed us to do some really fun new things and make this event better than it's ever been before.

So the New Year's Eve event begins at 8:00.

Is that correct?

eight, 8:00 p.m., 8:00 p.m. And you've got the bands, the playing the the mayor.

Is there a lot of dignitaries we have press and the countdown, of course we have press one for English, the first band, then we'll have a laser.

We have two laser light shows, we have a laser light show.

Then we'll bring them Michael Foster project.

Both of these bands very popular in this region.

And then we'll have a second laser light show about 1120, and then they last about 20 minutes and about 1140.

The excitement will be building the crowds.

As Paul mentioned, they're at dinner, they start coming out.

You've been there.

They they flood into the streets and the mayor leads the countdown.

Mayor Brown will be there to lead the countdown and it'll it'll be a great night.

Yeah, it truly is.

And again, this is Louisiana state capital.

So why not celebrate it here and in Baton Rouge?

It's great energy.

A lot of fun.

I'll be there getting to see it again.

That'll be fun.

So look forward to it.

And again, it's one week from tonight, so New Year's Eve.

This was started to really encourage Baton Rouge to be a regional destination.

And our hotels work really hard to roll out the red carpet, not just for visitors and to do, but local residents who sometimes want to just stay down there.

It's on a Friday night this year.

Yeah.

So stay over.

Spend the night downtown.

You don't talk about driving home, enjoy the fireworks at midnight.

You can have a few spirits.

Yeah, don't worry about that.

That's right.

Thank you all for being here.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you for everything you do.

Red Stick Revelry begins at 8:00 p.m. New Year's Eve.

That's in downtown Baton Rouge on North Boulevard at Davis Rhorer square.

And everyone that is our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LPI anytime, wherever you are with our.

LPB PBS's 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, Twitter and Instagram for everyone here at Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

I'm Andre Morreau and I'm Kara St. Cyr.

Happy holidays, everyone.

Until next time, that's the state we're in.

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. 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.