Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by.

Every day I go to work for Entergy.

I know customers are counting on me.

So Entergy is investing millions of dollars to keep the lights on and installing new technology to prevent outages before they happen.

Together, together.

Together.

We power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred Bea and Ruth Ziegler Foundation and the Zeigler 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 hello, everyone.

I'm Karen LeBlanc, and I'm Kerosene seer.

According to new budget forecasts, incoming Governor elect Jeff Landry will inherit millions of dollars in surplus once he takes office in January.

The $330 million surplus will be divided between the rainy day fund retirement debt and one time projects like coastal restoration.

Lawmakers will decide how to spend the rest.

During Landry's first legislative session in the spring.

This is good news for the state as lawmakers are anticipating a $700 million gap in the state budget.

The surplus may help give them a cushion.

We'll have much more on those top stories in a moment.

But first, on this week's edition of Louisiana's A State, We're In.

Here are some headlines making news across the state.

Louisiana ranks number one nationwide for pursuing federal broadband funding.

Moving closer to its goal of closing the state's digital divide by 2029, Louisiana is expected to receive $1.35 billion from the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program, funded by the bipartisan infrastructure law.

The funding will help connect 200,000 locations statewide to broadband service.

Saltwater intrusion is slowing, according to the latest forecast from the Army Corps of Engineers.

The Corps pushed back expected impacts of saltwater intrusion to drinking water supplies on the New Orleans West Bank and Gretna by a full month.

That's December.

The Corp say salinity levels won't reach health hazard levels for the entire New Orleans East Bank or the rest of West Jefferson.

Developments are attributed to the construction of the sill and higher than expected flows on the Mississippi River.

Governor John Bel Edwards has unveiled a $500 million initiative to enhance energy resilience through a network of clean energy hubs across communities.

The hubs are to be equipped with long lasting energy storage and grid technologies to strengthen emergency response efforts.

The program is funded by a $250 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy through the by PARTIZAN Infrastructure law with an equal state match.

The hubs will rely on clean energy sources like solar panels and provide essential services, including electricity, during natural disasters.

Louisiana's Fortify Homes program opened its second round of grants on October 16.

The grants are available for up to $10,000 to repair or replace roofs to the fortified roof standard of the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety.

Homeowners insured by Louisiana citizens Property Insurance Corporation are eligible to apply.

The program aims to strengthen homes against severe storms and high winds, contributing to a more stable property insurance market in Louisiana.

Louisiana officials are considering the possibility of a hunting season for black bears after the species was removed from the endangered list in 2015 due to a resurgence in their population.

The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission is expected to vote on the matter in November, with discussions leading toward a conservative harvest in limited areas.

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry swept the primary election over the weekend in a landslide win.

He took home 52% of the vote.

John Cuvier, a pollster and the founder of James Analytics, says this was just one of the notable trends from election night.

I spoke with him earlier this week about more voter trends.

He found all over the state.

But first, I just want to say thank you so much for joining us.

We really appreciate it.

Sure.

All right.

Let's jump into this.

So it's been a few days.

We know that Attorney General Jeff Landry is now the governor elect of Louisiana.

What were the numbers and were they were you were expecting?

You know, I will I and probably nearly everybody else in Louisiana was surprised that he was able to win without a runoff and his getting 52% of the vote compared to Sean Wilson's 26%.

That, to me is an unambiguous margin.

And I certainly wasn't expecting anything that large.

Well, when you were looking at early voting results, were they kind of skewed in this direction?

So I started off with early voting.

I was meant to expect in something like 45 to 31, which is the percentage of the vote Jeff would have gotten versus the percentage of the vote.

Sean Woolston was gone as the night was going on.

However, I was noticing, particularly in the rural parishes, Jeff was nearly without exception, overperforming expectations.

And so that 45% became 47%, while Sean, almost without exception, underperform and my expectations that he was getting 29%, then when you combine that with the Election Day vote, which was even more favorable for Jeff.

Jefferson Parish was a perfect example where a Jeff Fleet of plus four went to plus 14 with the Election Day vote.

That all that combined enabled Jeff to win without a runoff.

And so it was kind of a case of his vote share just kept going up and up and up throughout the night.

And normally, I mean, it usually does go to a runoff, especially whenever you have only one Democratic candidate versus a bunch of other Republican candidates, which was the case this time.

Correct.

And so the thing that was interesting to me was the fact that Sean was staying below 30 and that given the abysmally low turnout in Orleans Parish, there were not enough Democratic votes to rescue him.

And the reason, of course, I'm bringing up Orleans Parish is traditionally they report later in the evening, but that that vote is so monolithically Democratic.

If you see a percentage change where I say Republican dropped seven percentage points in a flash, that typically means some portion of the Orleans Parish vote has reported.

So let's talk about voter turnout statewide, about how many people actually did show up and go to the polls.

So it's 36%, which was pretty low for a statewide election.

However, it's not the lowest we've ever seen.

One similar turnout I recall from going all the way back to 2007, in the 2011 primary, when Bobby Jindal was reelected with basically nominal opposition.

That was a 37% turnout compared to the 36% that we saw Saturday night.

Is there a parish or an area that had, you know, the lowest turnout of the entire state for one?

I remember Orleans Parish turnout was abysmally low.

More specifically, it was in the twenties.

And that's especially when you had several interesting state representative and other races in the parish.

For the turnout to be that low was indicative of just people were not into this election.

So let's talk about the other candidates.

I mean, we know about Sean Wilson and, of course, Jeff Landry, but there were several other Republican candidates.

How did they fare?

So what happened was you basically had two of the Republican and an independent candidate, all of whom were spending heavily and were on TV more.

John Schroeder, the state treasurer, Stephen Waguespack, the head of the or former head, I should say, of the state's biggest business lobby, and attorney Hunter Lundy, who was running as an independent.

All three of them finished with about 5%, which, considering the fact that they spent heavily and were on TV a lot, they did not get an appropriate return for their investment.

When you looked at their final showings on election night.

Wow.

So hardly any of the vote went to hardly any of the vote was spread out between any of these candidates.

It was not statistically significant.

No, because when you combine the 52 that Jeff got with a 26 that Sean got, so that's 78%.

Throw in the five, five and six that the other three got.

Now you're talking about a percentage in the nineties.

So like I said, the vote pretty much coalesce behind Jeff and Sean and nobody else had a chance to break through.

So there were other things that were on the ballot.

So people were voting for secretary of State and also the attorney general.

What happened with those races.

So in that race.

So she actually had technically two races that ended up without going to run off the governor's race, as we just mentioned.

And Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser was overwhelmingly reelected with 66%.

Secretary of state attorney general's races and treasurer, they're all going to the November runoff.

Secretary of State, you have Quinn Collins, Corinne up, who's run before she'll be the Democratic, quote unquote, nominee.

She'll face Nancy Landry, who's a Republican and second in charge, and the secretary of state's office, the attorney general's office.

What will happen is Liz Muro, who was Jeff Flannery's right hand person at the attorney general's office, she's running for his old job.

She finished with a very strong 46% of the vote.

She'll be facing Democratic attorney Lindsay Chik from New Orleans.

The treasurer's race, What will happen is former Congressman John Fleming and who is also a medical doctor and Navy veteran John Fleming received 44% of the vote.

He ran first.

He'll be facing a Democrat named Dustin Granger from Lake Charles.

All right.

So there's definitely some stuff that is still going to be decided yet to come.

But thank you so much for joining us.

I believe we are out of time.

My pleasure.

Fortune magazine has recognized Louisiana's only state funded boarding school as one of the world's best.

The Louisiana school for Math, Science and the Arts in Natchitoches is celebrating 40 years of educating academically advanced college bound high school students.

LS MSA, its abbreviated moniker, opened its doors in 1983, welcoming students from every district in the state.

I spent a day at the school visiting with students and faculty and learning how else MSA is earning high marks in and outside the classroom.

I am trying to pursue computer science, but also growing up.

For 12 years now I have been dancing.

So hopefully I'm trying to keep that on the side.

Before I came here, I didn't really have a teacher.

It was usually online lessons.

I was able to work with Dr. Jones, who is very experienced piano teacher here.

It was B.S.

And he's giving me a new way into the music world.

So what made you decide to leave your hometown of Baton Rouge and to move here?

A lot of that is independent, not only in taking harder courses and managing my time and growing as a student, but I wanted to grow as a person as well.

So my grandfather, Donald Gene Kelly, he is the last living founder of the Louisiana school and I'm the first grandchild to come here.

I came here looking for a harder academic challenge, more opportunities to look towards my career options and to get more exposure.

Academic instruction plus the arts, sports, student clubs and residential living is the equation that makes the Louisiana school for Math, Science and the Arts a school of life.

It's the growth that they experienced in those adolescent years as a result of being here 24 hours a day as a living learning student.

The growth emotionally, spiritually, definitely academically, is is proving itself over and over.

On September 29, 1983, the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts celebrated its grand opening, making headlines as whiz kid high.

It's surprising how many people still don't know that we're an option.

And I think that that's one of those secrets that we would really like to to be less woke up to so that so that more families can know what what a great opportunity they have right here in Louisiana for their kids.

In 1983, State Representative Jaime Long of Natchitoches introduced legislation to create a public residential high school, offering intense college prep classes to promising juniors and seniors.

The state funded school was open to students throughout Louisiana, with those in a pretty rural part of Louisiana.

So access to opportunities were pretty limited, especially educationally.

So that's why I decided to come here.

Tell Somerset where there's so many educational opportunities and even opportunities outside of that.

So I came here because of the aid program artist in training.

I didn't have the opportunities at my old school to pursue art that I was trying to do because I was in orchestra.

So I only had one art class that I was allowed to do here.

There will always be a need for the Louisiana school.

The rules the rural parishes cannot provide for, the urban parishes can.

So those students need this kind of an institution.

When you start to actually write your first draft, you're going to have several pages that you've already scroll down.

So we look for students who are looking for more of a challenge, more of a rigorous experience than they can get in a traditional high school.

We ask students to complete an online application and then submit copies of their grades from previous years, as well as an act or an essay score and some recommendations from current teachers and their principal or guidance counselor.

They're taking the equivalent of 21, 24 or 27 credit hours from college, and they're there excelling just as the teachers hold students to a high standard.

The students expect to be challenged by their instructors.

We teach college level, not college prep classes.

These are the exact same classes that I've taught university undergraduates.

If anything, I have had to raise my game just to reach their skill level.

What about these values?

They're getting further from zero, so they're reciprocal.

Get closer to zero.

Many students are graduating with enough college credit hours for an associate's degree, plus plenty of real world experiences giving them a head start in their higher education pursuits and career aspirations.

I was able to partake in a program through our sister school in North Carolina, the North Carolina School of Science and Math, where I did research at UNC Chapel Hill, and I researched HIV pathogenesis and transmission.

And what was that opportunity like for you as a high school student?

It was amazing.

Like, research has been a dream of mine for years, and I never thought I would able to have that opportunity in high school.

This is a public boarding school.

Students don't pay tuition.

They do pay room and board.

Now, the school has a generous community of benefactors that fund a foundation offering financial assistance for families in need.

This is called the Living Learning Community.

That means playing sports together.

That means reading, study, and together it means crying together.

It means life happening.

And they're doing all of that while being challenged with a college curriculum while learning a little bit away from home for the first time.

They're developing leadership skills.

They're also learning how to be young adults because many of them are getting ready to transition and go off to college and have to do many of these things on their own.

So we not only want them to have a really great academic experience, but we also want them to have a true high school experience.

I think this is a particularly special place and that what we're doing here is we're planting horticultural horticulturalist, the educators here.

We're not going to see the fruits of our efforts 20 years from now.

And maybe the bittersweet moments of being an educator, we're helping to raise them in conjunction with their wonderful parents.

We're not always going to see the beautiful things they're going to do with their life, but we do know we are convinced they are going to do beautiful things.

What if a computer program could help you beat a breast cancer diagnosis?

What if it were so precise that you could use it for a treatment plan?

These are the questions a group of scientists at LSU were asking themselves as they race to build an AI software so sophisticated they can do just that.

Take a look.

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of death for women in the U.S. and its ubiquity is becoming more prevalent among younger groups of women.

The U.S. Preventative Task Force is suggesting women start breast cancer screening at 40 years old instead of 50, which was the original recommendation.

Meanwhile, the American Cancer Society is recording an annual 0.5% increase in breast cancer incidences.

While treatment is best handled before the cancer is detected.

There is a movement among scientists to precisely pinpoint treatment plans after a diagnosis.

And it's starting at LSU.

I'm associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at LSU and also associate director for Data Science and Machine Learning in the center of Computation and Technology.

Dr. Michael Berlinski is focusing his research on treating breast cancer with AI technology.

Whenever a lot of people think of AI and whenever I say a lot of people talking about myself, they think of, you know, robots running around picking out different drugs for a cancer patient.

It's a it's basically a computer program.

So I would say that 90% of my time is just coding or people in my group.

So we just code all the time.

So they are in science or a computer program that is going to be trained on existing data and then it's going to be able to make predictions.

So that's basically software.

The software takes all of the available data on breast cancer, prostate cancer and pancreatic cancer, plus information from the patient's DNA.

From there, I can pinpoint a drug plan unique to that particular patient.

So our idea is to use the genetic profile of a particular cancer to figure out what's the best therapy.

I used to have cancer and even cancer at the same time, but from different patients.

They may have slight variations in the genetic makeup and yeah, is going to account for this.

And sometimes the most efficient drugs, the treatment is going to be very unique to that particular patient.

Yes, this is correct.

Can you give me an example?

Yes.

So that's still a very long shot.

So right now we are doing basic research.

So we work on cancers, cell lines, in vitro.

That's in the lab.

However, each cell line that we work with was originally obtained from a cancer patient.

So those are like real cancers that somebody had in the past and they were immortalized and now people use them in the lab.

So the data that we would need is the genetics, the genetic makeup, gene expression, profiles and all those things.

So that's an input for I and I is going to select the most efficient drug.

Like I use that particular in our case as a sideline, But I wish I could be patient.

Here's an example of the cells Berlinski is talking about.

These are cancer cells from a seven year old patient.

The cells on the right are cancerous over reproducing in mass.

This is a control group left untreated.

On the left is a group of the same cancer cells treated with a drug treatment plan selected by AEI.

You can see the movement is slower and the cancer is stalling.

We run this in control and drug treatment side by side.

Right.

So in those videos that they send, you are in control.

You'll see that those cell lines proliferate like crazy because this is what cancer does, right?

It's a very aggressive disease and it grows like really, really fast.

Are those cell lines that we treated with drugs selected by?

They didn't grow that much or even die.

So that was the problem of I was actually right, suggesting this molecule is practical cancer.

Berlinski and his team of ten aren't the only biologists using A.I.

to treat this disease.

Doctor Someone Yang is using A.I.

to improve breast cancer detection so that preventative care is more precise.

Their research uses an algorithm to diagnose breast cancer in all areas using one mammogram picture.

The science is new, and it'll take years of testing before A.I.

tech is used on human beings.

But Berlinski says this could change the course of medical treatment in all fields.

It's a tool that can guide and help.

So this is how I should be using.

October is Louisiana Archeology Month, Spotlighting the state's many archeological treasures with family friendly events showcase artifacts and ancient sites.

Activities culminate on International Archeology Day, Saturday, October 21st.

A recent dig in the Kazatchkine National Forest unearthed some new found ancient finds.

I followed the dig from the site to the lab, where artifacts are revealing the story of early human history in Louisiana.

This archeological site in the City National Forest dates back 12,000 years.

I can't reveal its forest location to protect the ancient site from looting.

However, a recent dig unearthed more than 30,000 artifacts now undergoing cleaning and cataloging at the Louisiana Public Archeology Lab at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

I am sorting the flakes based off type, so there's tertiary flakes, secondary flake and primary flakes, and that's based off of at what part of the TOOLMAKING process they were made.

And then to determine which categories.

So we can go back later and look at the weights and the counts.

Anthropology and archeology.

Student Gloria Church is part of the team piecing together the story of one of the state's oldest archeological sites.

What has been the most fascinating discovery or realization participating in this project?

Just figuring out that there could have been a more permanent settlement.

It's really rare for undergrads to get the type of experience that we're getting here, especially with the in lab stuff and supervising jobs and being paid for it.

Park rangers have known about the site for years and lay protected and quietly supervised, hidden in plain sight until 2020, when hurricanes Laura and Delta uprooted parts of the forest.

We have about 6000 archeological sites on U.S. National Forest.

So when the storm came through, we knew the sites were heavily damaged.

So we submitted a relief package to Congress for hurricane relief, and we received some funding to do some salvage archeology at the archeological sites that were damaged on Saturday National Forest.

The Louisiana Public Archeology Lab works with federal and state agencies to discover and examine archeological sites.

At the Louisiana Public Archeology Lab, where we're interested in the full time span of Louisiana's past.

It comes out to about 98% of Louisiana's past, we can say is almost exclusively archeological.

Otherwise, we can draw on oral histories and we can certainly draw on historical documentation.

But, you know, that doesn't come in until about 300 years ago, which is, again, about 2% of Louisiana's past.

We have something like 23,000 that we've cataloged that way over 22 kilos.

That's like £50 or so, 50, £60.

But we still have a bunch more.

So I'm guessing there's going to be over 30,000.

And that includes some of the stuff like what you're seeing right there where pretty sure that for the most part, a lot of them are mobile hunter gatherers or foragers.

I mean, we're finding things like points of different types, the later stuff for arrowheads or earlier stuff or dart points or even spear points.

I mean, those are probably tools for hunting.

We're finding things like drills for working wood, we're finding scrapers for scraping hides.

Students and archeologists also unearthed the remains of wooden posts that were part of a semi-permanent shelter construction.

The post are interesting because that suggests that there's some kind of more permanent structure.

There's not been a lot of that that's been found in this area.

Maybe they're camping for days or weeks or maybe even months, but, you know, they're moving around to different places following game during different seasons and and such.

There are possibilities of building structures for events.

There's possibilities of actual settlement and permanent houses.

And we're not sure honestly yet what we're talking about.

The lab is working to date soil samples at the site and determine the positions and the uses of stone flecks and projectile points.

Not to be confused with arrowheads, which Professor Reece says wasn't in use until around 600 A.D..

So we'll have a report of all our findings and we would like to put this together in a public document.

In fact, I think the plan is to use the information from this project as well as other projects in a published work, a published book that could inform Louisiana residents about their past and an exhibit, possibly so.

Life is definitely interesting.

It's exciting to I didn't think we'd have archeological finds here in Louisiana.

And actually, there are several other sites in the forest.

So lots of secrets to reveal.

Well, that's our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything, be any time, wherever you are with our LP BPP 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 X and Instagram for everyone at Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

I'm Karen LeBlanc and I'm Care Sings here.

Until next time.

That's the state we're in.

Every day I go to work for Entergy.

I know customers are counting on me.

So Entergy is investing millions of dollars to keep the lights on and installing new technology to prevent outages before they happen.

Together, together.

Together.

We power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred Bea 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.