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, from brand ambassadors to social media influencers, LSU Athletics is leading the nation with an eye out deals for student athletes.

And also a wrap up of this week's special crime session.

And what's the latest at the Capitol?

And a new cancer treatment breakthrough allows more Louisianians to get state of the art care in their home state.

You ready?

Ready.

Let's do this.

Hello, everyone.

I'm Karen LeBlanc, and I'm care St's here.

Much more in the top stories in a moment.

On this week's edition of MWI.

But first, the long awaited special Crime Session has begun at Louisiana's capital.

The agenda lists 24 pieces of potential legislation that will transform the state's criminal justice system.

Though the session is only in its first week, lawmakers are moving quickly.

On Tuesday, 15 bills were heard in committee, and on Wednesday, all ten bills heard in committee passed.

Here's a brief wrap up of this week.

Members, I'd like you all to welcome the governor, Jeff Landry.

Jeff Landry began the much anticipated special crime session with a call to action, asking lawmakers to rally together to reduce crime in the state of Louisiana.

Aligning with campaign promises he'd made a year ago.

I would do everything within my power to improve the safety of our communities through both legislative and executive action.

Today, we continue that process.

The agenda for Landrieu Session lays out 24 items aimed at addressing youth criminal activities, carjackings and parole eligibility, among other things.

Each item is a stark contrast to the previous administration's crime fighting efforts, which prioritize reduced sentences, incarceration alternatives and reentry programs.

I warned that the goal of the criminal justice reform should not be about letting people out of jail.

It should be about how to keep people from going to jail.

And those warnings went unheeded.

Among one of the most controversial bills on the call order, a proposal to try 17 year olds accused of violent crime in adult court.

An item highly prioritized by the governor.

You know, the former administration's criminal justice reinvestment law, the age of 17 year olds charged with a violent crime.

But by lowering the age, it has resulted in actual incidents of older criminals recruiting 17 year olds for criminal activity, knowing that the consequences to them would be minimal.

It is fast track to many of our teenagers.

It's a life of crime, in effect, has been catastrophic.

These juveniles are not innocent children.

They are hardened criminals.

Among the many GOP supporters of the bill were families of victims, including Kathy Richard and Jenny Lynn Griffin, who lost their sister during a juvenile carjacking in 2022.

I'm leaving the session today with a positive outlook.

I feel that we're going to have some changes.

I think it's good changes.

I think juveniles need to be held accountable.

Parents need to be held accountable.

While most lawmakers were in favor of the item list, many others, mostly Democrats, were opposed.

Representative Willard, what are your eyes?

I object.

Representative will object to the roll suspensions by Representative Butler.

When the House voted in favor of rule suspension, a mechanism to speed up the legislative process.

The House Democratic Caucus objected.

In a press conference, the House Democratic Party leader, Representative Matthew Willard, said stricter policy and longer sentencing won't prevent juveniles from committing crimes.

The call for this special session does not allow us to truly address crime in a holistic approach that the people of Louisiana need and deserve.

The governor talked about the victims of crime.

Yet every proposal that his team has put forward is reactive.

He went on to say that the Democratic Caucus had no input on any of the bills filed due to the way that this special session was called.

We cannot address the root causes of crime.

My fear our fear is that we will spend time up here and take action that will not lead to safer communities in the state of Louisiana.

Despite calls for more debate, the legislative process is moving quickly.

Lawmakers have until March six to reform Louisiana's criminal justice system.

As of now, lawmakers have advanced the permit list.

Concealed carry bill the immunity from civil liability bill and a bill to strengthen penalties for carjacking, among other things, from hashtags to headlines.

Here is what's trending this week.

Wednesday, February 21st was the deadline to register in person by mail at the Office of Motor Vehicles to vote in the presidential primary, which will be held March 23rd.

And of course, the presidential primary means you have to be registered as either a Republican or Democrat to vote in the primary.

There's also local elections, and I think you can go online as well and register.

Yes.

And all of this is very important.

But also this is not the biggest news of the week.

There was an outage.

Yes.

Did you wake up on Thursday and you could not make a social call?

I myself couldn't decide which.

And I was all in a panic because we realize how attached we are to our cell phones and smart devices.

Yeah.

And so this outage apparently started about 3:30 a.m. Eastern time, and it lasted around 1030.

So it wasn't a cyberattack, according to officials at the White House.

But it was definitely traumatizing to people like me who are attached to their phones.

And what it's like was AT&T customers, thousands nationwide.

Well, we all know that the Louisiana crawfish industry is in crisis this season, so some would question the wisdom that Louisiana officially pardoned Sherman Crawfish.

That's right.

We pardoned a crawfish.

They went back in the water.

This is at the eighth annual pardon of a crawfish.

It's a thing Louisiana does every year.

This year was held in Breaux Bridge.

I was there to witness the pardoning.

Was anybody upset about the fact that we did pardner crawfish in the midst of this crawfish shortage?

Well, I'll tell you what, social media has been buzzing with pleas for lower prices there as the Affordable Crawfish girl has been popping up in public places, holding up signs calling for a lower priced crawfish and bringing it back to the days of $1.90 £9.

That remains to be seen as the harvest begins to pick up.

And there's there's hope that there will be more crawfish and larger crawfish and lower prices.

So we'll see what happens.

That's right.

Hopefully some good news.

And onto more good news in good news, Louisiana.

A medical breakthrough in cancer treatment means thousands of Louisiana patients can get state of the art care in their home state.

Mary Byrd Perkins Cancer Center in Baton Rouge is the first and only facility in the state to offer an adaptive radiation therapy program using the Alexa Unity machine.

The MRI guided technology provides precision radiation targeting.

Here's more.

Micah Davis has a lot to celebrate.

On this day, he's celebrating both his 20th wedding anniversary with his wife, Brittany, and his fourth birthday.

He's also celebrating his health.

Micah recently rang the celebration bell at Mary Byrd Perkins Cancer Center, signifying the end of his radiation therapy treatments.

January 2021, I was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer.

It had spread from the colon to what's called the peritoneum, which is the abdominal wall.

After surgery and more than 20 rounds of chemotherapy, doctors declared Micah cancer free.

And then the cancer came back a year later.

So it spread to my liver, but it's on top of my liver sitting on my bile ducts.

It's about a three centimeter, three centimeter mass.

But it also was wrapping around my what's called the portal vein, which delivers 70% of the blood to the to the liver.

And it it obstructed the bile ducts causing jaundice.

So we just started chemo again for his second battle with cancer.

Mica's treatment took a different approach.

Micah was one of the first patients in Louisiana to undergo adaptive radiation treatment for his cancer and an elected unity machine uses an MRI, artificial intelligence and linear accelerator technologies to precisely target and deliver radiation to tumors tracking moving body parts in the process.

It's a game changer for inoperable tumors.

Our new adaptive radiation therapy program is the first in the Gulf South that uses an MRI scanner at the same time as delivering radiation treatment so that we can personalize our radiation treatments, which we do for treating all sorts of cancers.

The goal of it is to make cancer treatment more effective, safer for our patients, and also more convenient, because when we can see the tumor better, when we can avoid normal structures better, we also able to increase the dose every day so less treatments are needed.

So how can you see the tumor better?

How does this offer a more precise method?

Well, adaptive is more precise because our particular technology, called the unity system, uses an MRI scan instead of a CT, which is what typically we use during radiation treatment to target tumors.

And MRI's are better at seeing tumors and soft tissue, things like bowel organs that are nearby.

The $10 million adaptive radiation therapy program is made possible by donations and gives oncologists the ability to visualize tumors and the surrounding healthy tissue in real time during treatment.

What they were trying to do is they're trying to hit a spot, you know, that's three centimeters.

But, you know, as you breathe and stuff like that, your everything kind of moves around a little bit.

And so they would you know, the machine would do its thing.

They'd see the image.

They do it again to verify that the image was still clear.

And then they would do it the third time and then shoot the radiation as a cancer patient receiving treatment.

What does this mean to you and your family, the ability to have this one of a kind, only the first in Louisiana treatment available to you?

Well, I mean, it it saved me a lot of headache of having to you know, I had to make a choice of whether I was going to go to M.D.

Anderson or stay here in Louisiana and have Mary Bird do the radiation and knowing that this machine was there.

The precise targeting delivered by MRI guided adaptive treatment reduces the number of radiation treatments necessary.

And what are you seeing in your patients in terms of the benefit of this so far?

All the patients are doing very, very well.

We started our program in December and we've had a few patients now go through the whole process.

We're following our patients out.

Of course, long term, but everyone has has really appreciated it.

Micah underwent 15 adaptive radiation treatments.

This is your certificate of merit and appreciation.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

So this is and then, you know, all the people there signed it on the final day of Micah's adaptive radiation treatment.

His team of techs and staff members wore silly socks and Micah's honor and picked the music playlist as he entered the Elect Unity Machine for the last time.

Small, yet significant light hearted gestures of solidarity on Micah's journey back to health.

I was actually very surprised at how simple it was.

You know, if you didn't tell me I was getting radiation, I wouldn't have known.

I didn't have any side effects from it.

There is actually data that says this is improving outcomes for our patients.

Name, image and likeness deals known as animals are changing the game of college athletics from recruiting tactics to student athlete entrepreneurship.

LSU athletes leave the nation with nil deals just this week.

Videogame maker EA Sports announced it will begin allowing athletes to opt in to have their name, image and likeness appear.

I talked with LSU associate athletic director Taylor Jacobs, who handles nil and strategic initiatives about how in Iowa is rewriting the rules of college sports.

I know LSU is quite frankly leading the pack when it comes to nil deals and their student athletes.

Yeah.

I mean, it's been a really exciting, I guess, two and a half, almost three years now.

And I'm extremely proud of what our student athletes have done in the space.

You know, they've have incredible brands and they've learned how to capitalize on those brands.

Livy is a great example of that.

She came to LSU with a massive following pre the initial era and had to compete for a year where she couldn't do it and I deals and was very crucial in our progressiveness in the space because her and her family said, Hey, we're ready but we also want your guys to support in that.

So it's been really exciting to see and I'm just really proud of what our what our student athletes have done.

All right.

Well, let's rewind.

Let's take a step back now.

Name, image and likeness deals.

This is a relatively new situation.

Can you bring us up to date on how this evolved?

Because just a few years back, college athletes were not allowed to ink deals like this.

Correct.

In 2020 or 2021, the state of California and Florida both said that they were putting forward state legislation that was going to allow student athletes in those states to participate in nil deals because they thought that that was what was right for the student athletes.

So at that point, every state we all said we need state legislation as well.

And it just escalated very quickly.

You know, if you look back to July one of 2021, there were schools across the country that were kind of like an aisle.

It might be taboo, whereas we had a billboard in times Square basically saying, we're LSU and we support an ideal and where the real deal.

We have been fortunate enough that we've been able to capitalize on that and tells you not only that are incoming to LSU, you know, we support Intel and we want to make sure that you find opportunity and that you have that the chances to engage with businesses and how can we help you target those opportunities, maximize those opportunities.

Let's help viewers understand how your role, LSU's role within AISLES, you're not the age.

You're not out there repping the student athlete to help them get these deals.

Tell us what you do.

So the biggest thing with what our department does well, we focus on education, branding and opportunity.

Those are our three words that kind of encompass and I argue, education because everything we do needs to be educational and our student athletes need to understand what's going on, because literally overnight it changed and we used to tell them, you can't accept a free cup of coffee from someone and now you can.

If we make it in an aisle deal.

Right.

So we have a lot of high profile athletes in the nil space, and they're seeing massive commercial shoots and media shoots and appearances, and they're flying across the country.

And, you know, sometimes they'll say like, wow, this is a lot.

I mean, it's a job to be an influencer.

And that's what they're doing.

So how can we help them manage that?

And that's really what my staff is here for.

Is there concern among Alyssa athletics that these initial deals are going to become or have become a distraction from the game itself?

I mean, the student athletes come to campus with two jobs.

Number one, they're athletes, Right?

And that is a full time job.

Number two, they're students.

And now number three, they are brand ambassadors, social media influencers.

That's a third job.

Exactly.

And that's that's really what we say in our recruiting presentation.

Right?

Like you're a student, you're an athlete, but now you have this opportunity to grow your personal business.

A lot of people think Nil is just very transactional, but we view it as being transformational, understanding contract negotiations, all of those things that they can carry into that next step of their life because, you know, we're not going to be student athletes forever.

And again, just seeing it as that transformational opportunity, I think has helped them to also understand I'm here for my sport and I want to focus on my team and I want to focus on my sport.

But at the end of the day, I also have these opportunities to grow after college.

One of the side benefits of an aisle deals.

Is that what it's done to elevate women's athletics?

I mean, gymnastics, the dance team.

I mean, some of the women in basketball, my goodness.

Basketball.

We're talking about some superstar LSU women's basketball players with incredibly lucrative deals.

What it has done for women's sports at LSU.

I want to hear in your own words what you've seen, what you've witnessed.

Man, incredible exposure and I mean growth.

But I don't know that the growth necessarily came from nil.

I think women's sports in general were on this upward trend.

But now with these eyes on these student athletes, perennial deals has helped to accelerate that.

I'm sure there's a ton of people who follow Livy down on social media who probably had never watched a collegiate gymnastics meet, and now they're like, Wow.

ESPN is airing collegiate gymnastics on Friday night and viewership is going up.

It's just really cool to see this new viewership that's coming in.

And there's new excitement surrounding women's sports because of that increased exposure through the Now, are these deals public record?

Do the coaches know how much their student athletes are making this privy to this?

And does LSU know?

So we do know per the state law require that the student athletes disclose.

So we have a system that they're able to go in and disclose it privately to where basically my staff will see it.

And the purpose of that at the beginning was really to ensure that they're not doing a deal with a company in a prohibited category.

The coaches have access to certain information from the standpoint of how what's the percentage of their team that gets involved in an aisle, how much you know, how active are their athletes.

And then I l we try to make sure they have all of that information.

But unless the student athlete grants permission, we don't share specific numbers because of, you know, it's a safety issue.

All right.

And congratulations, I believe words out that there will be a documentary on issues and ideals on Amazon Prime.

Yes.

Yes.

We're very excited.

It'll be it'll be really cool, I think, you know, just to see the story play out of denial.

There's a lot of than I own narratives around and what's happening and who's doing what.

And this will actually allow one to play out on screen.

So we're excited.

All right.

Well, thank you so much, Taylor Jacob, for joining us here and sharing all of your insight on the future of an I all day.

Also the LSU Athletics.

Thank you for having me.

You can watch my complete interview with Taylor Jacobs to learn more about the evolution of nil deals and college athletics on our LP YouTube channel.

The Willing Plantation Anthopoulos was once the center of one of the largest slave uprisings recorded in the United States.

History will remember this event as the 1811 German coast uprising.

Though the facts are well-documented, the story of this revolt is often overshadowed.

But there is an effort to uncover the plantation's history and highlight the significance of that night.

I'm taking you to the place where the project is just beginning.

In the two decades preceding the Civil War.

The United States recorded 250 slave uprisings.

Some of the most famous are the Nat Turner Rebellion in 1831 and the Stonewall Rebellion in 1739.

But in between both of these events, another much larger uprising took place on the Gulf Coast.

History would dub this insurrection.

The 1811 German coast uprising.

And at the center of this historical moment is the Woodland Plantation in the place Louisiana.

Though the city of Laplace is from Woodland, from the original footprint of Woodland is through its subdivision.

Dr. Joy Banner is the co-founder of the Descendants Project, a group dedicated to archiving and highlighting the history of Louisiana's African-American population.

Specifically, those who can trace their lineage back to plantations.

And it's a little dark over here.

It's dark.

And this is my absolute favorite part of the house, because you can see the age, the construction, the skill.

The woodland plantation is now under Dr.

Banner and her sister, Jo Banner stewardship, putting the property under black ownership for the first time in history.

Tell me a little bit more about why you decided to take this property and steward it yourself.

If there's not a person that's committed to this history, then it won't get told.

And so I did not want that to happen with this site is way too important.

And this community, most importantly, the history that comes along with this community.

The story of this home starts on January 8th, 1811, when a group of 15 to 20 slaves gathered around the Woodlawn Plantation, then owned by Manuel Andree.

There was a rebellion that was led by Charles Demond, which we think might have been an enslaved man of of Creole, of Haitian descent, who was inspired by the Haitian rebellion and also across the trans-Atlantic these calls for freedom.

And also he is in the brutality in the world of slavery.

The initial meeting between the slaves and Manuel Andry becomes violent, ending with the death of Andrew Son Gilbert.

The uprising progresses toward other plantations in the area, gathering more slaves with Charles Dillon as a leader, and he organizes with other men and women that were enslaved to form a rebellion free as many people, and march up to New Orleans and also liberate the city, or, I've heard also potentially captures ships and sail to free territories.

Wow.

But how does somebody living here in the river parishes organize about 500 slaves and go to New Orleans?

How does something like that happen?

That's what we think.

The Rebels rebellion was one of the biggest because there were men and women who came out from the swamps to join as part of it.

So, yeah, it was a planned over two years.

So there was a lot of strategy in place, but it was very a very dangerous, very risky endeavor.

Banner promises that our stewardship will highlight the significance of not just the home and the people who owned it, but how the events that transpired here have affected the community of loss in the United States, complicated relationship with race, culture and the uncomfortable aspects of its history.

I'm encouraged to sit down with the rest of the community and have these great historians and researchers that are doing the work and get more immersed in the history.

What is the one thing that you really want people to take away from this house?

So when people will come and visit this site, I want them to understand that really the life that happens goes on outside of this site, give them the support that they need, and also hope that people understand, like how much our ancestors sacrificed for freedom and for justice and how important it is for us as as a black community in particular to protect what our ancestors would they die for.

Dr.

Banner estimates that the site won't be open to the public for at least another six months as she and her sister renovate and research the grounds.

But when it does open, she promises to tell every bit of the story before we say goodbye.

A programing note on Monday, February 26 at 7 p.m.. Go behind the scenes of PBS's popular show Antiques Roadshow.

The first three episodes of the new season were shot in Baton Rouge.

And you can watch all the insider action on finding fortunes behind the scenes of Antiques Roadshow.

Antiques Roadshow is one of the most popular programs on LP, but have you ever wondered what it takes to make a show like this happen?

From setting the scene at LSU's Rural Life Museum to these showstopping appraisals, LP takes you behind the scenes so you can see for yourself how these dramatic stories develop.

The 18 door ones bring $15,000, maybe $20,000.

Join APB and the Roadshow team as we take you behind the scenes at Antiques Roadshow.

Baton Rouge.

Well, that's our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything, Be any time, wherever you are with our Help app.

You can catch LBB 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 kerosene cheer Until next time.

That's the state word 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.

In additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruthe 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.