Sai Burise was the third nine weeks positive behavior bicycle winner at Bayou Vista Elementary School. The school thanked Crappell's Fish Market for supplying the bike. Pictured with Sai from left are Heather Crappell, representing Crappell's Fish Market, and Teia Dolci, curriculum facilitator at BVES.
Submitted Photo
BERWICK – Teaching teens to drive safely, a task once left to bloody crash movies in driver’s ed, has gone virtual.
Arrive Alive, presented by a coalition of safety groups and private sponsors, came to Berwick High on Monday morning, providing the experience of driving while intoxicated or distracted without hurting anything but pride.
It’s a new way to reduce deaths from traffic accidents, which claimed 91 lives among drivers 15-20 in 2021 in Louisiana, according to the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission.
Arrive Alive featured a Jeep SUV equipped with virtual reality goggles for the driver. The SUV stayed in one spot, but the driver was able to experience the simulated effects of intoxication through the goggles while taking a virtual trip. Monitors allowed other students to see what the driver was seeing.
“It was a little different than I thought it would,” said Berwick High senior Brett Bearb after stepping from behind the goggles and the wheel. “It was hard to do.
“All my reactions were late. It really makes you think.”
Maybe he shouldn’t feel bad. James Richard, a Berwick Town Council member and longtime police chief, took a virtual ride and emerged with a grade of “poor. Very poor,” he said.
“It was a challenging test. I made a few errors in driving. It gave a good test. …
“It made you dizzy,” Richard said. “It makes your head spin a little.”
Students also were able to see what a roadside drunk-driving test is like, and were encouraged to throw beanbags at a target before putting on VR goggles and after.
Arrive Alive is a project that partners the South Central Regional Safety Coalition, the Acadiana Regional Safety Coalition, Nicholls State, the Louisiana State Police and private sponsor State Farm.
It’s an activity that fits in with the Louisiana Strategic Transportation Safety Plan, said Cassie M. Parker of the South Central Planning and Development Commission.
It offers the students something other than a passive, watch-a-film or hear-a-lecture experience, Parker said.
“You have to make it interactive,” she said. “They want to do something, to touch, to feel.”
Students are surveyed after they take their virtual drive.
“We get a real sense of attitudes that can change behavior,” Parker said. “That’s the goal.”
Can the program get through to teenagers?
Richard, who has raised six of his own, thinks so.
“Sometimes it’s very difficult,” he said. “It’s challenging raising teenagers.”
Being a police chief helped, he said.
But “for parents having trouble, this might help.”
Click on the link below for a downloadable copy of the agenda.
After the victim in a Sunday morning shooting died, the suspect in the crime faces a first-degree murder charge, Morgan City police said Monday.
Geondre Jamal Thomas, 29, 11th Street, Morgan City, was arrested at 4:40 p.m. Sunday on the first-degree murder charge and charges of armed robbery, armed robbery with a firearm, two counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, possession of marijuana and resisting an officer.
Officers with the Morgan City Police Department responded Sunday morning to the area of Egle Street after an armed robbery report, the Police Department said.
Officers arrived and located a victim who had been robbed at gunpoint. Officers also located another victim, separate from the initial complaint, in the same area that had suffered gunshot wounds. That male victim was transported to an out of area hospital, where he later succumbed to his injuries.
Investigators with the Morgan City Police Department Detectives Division responded. During the course of the investigation, Thomas was developed as a suspect in the armed robbery. Thomas was also found to be a convicted felon, which prohibits him from possessing a firearm. Arrest warrants were obtained for Thomas’ arrest.
About 4:30 p.m. Sunday, investigators executed a search warrant in the area of Orange Street. Thomas fled on foot and was apprehended after a short foot chase.
Thomas was found to be in possession of a firearm and suspected marijuana. Evidence was uncovered through the course of the investigation linking Thomas to the homicide, the Police Department said. The victim’s name is being withheld pending next of kin notifications.
Thomas was arrested and transported to the Morgan City Jail, where he was booked and incarcerated. The investigation is still ongoing.
Anyone with information regarding this investigation is asked to contact the Morgan City Police Department Detectives Division at 985-380-4605.
In Louisiana, first-degree murder is a homicide committed with the intent to kill or cause serious bodily harm in the presence of a defined list of circumstances. This circumstances include the status of the victim — children under 12 or people over 65, for example — and the presence of another crime, including armed robbery.
After a conviction for first-degree murder, a trial jury decides whether the defendant will be executed or sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Mayor Lee Dragna, on behalf of the city of Morgan City, signed a purchase agreement to buy Shannon Elementary from the St. Mary Parish School Board on Wednesday.
The city is currently in negotiations to create a new housing subdivision! Dragna said the project calls for 16 lots and will be completed in phases including proposals for the three school buildings situated on the property. And, that's where the public comes in; Dragna said public input is necessary for the future site development. He believes the buildings would be better suited for community purposes.
They will be constructed along Wise Street in the area of the former school's existing playground equipment.
The property will be transferred to the Morgan City Development District, which will be responsible for developing the entire site. Following the district's proposal, the city will announce a town hall meeting to obtain public comments and suggestions.
Final recommendations and approval will go before the City Council.
Morgan City police are investigating an early-morning shooting and armed robbery.
About 5 a.m. Sunday, the Police Department said in a Facebook post, officers responded to a report of an armed robbery in the the area of Egle Street
Officers arrived and located a male victim who had been shot. The victim was transported to an out-of-area hospital for medical treatment.
Detectives with the Morgan City Police Department responded and are conducting the investigation. Anyone with information in regard to this investigation is asked to contact the Morgan City Police Department Detectives Division at 985-380-4605.
There is no further information to release at this time, the department said.
A federal appeals court has overturned a lower court ruling that blocked the Biden administration’s “social cost of carbon” policy, reviving the controversial government cost calculation of damages from greenhouse gas emissions.
A three-judge panel with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans unanimously stayed this week a ruling by U.S. District Judge James Cain Jr. last month that struck down the social cost of carbon policy.
Cain, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, granted a request by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and 10 other states for a preliminary injunction against Biden Executive Order 13990, which directed federal agencies to consider the social cost of carbon for virtually all federal actions.
The executive order established a working group of federal appointees to establish a damage value, or social cost, based on global environmental damages from climate changes. The measure required federal agencies to apply the figures to regulatory actions and other decisions for most federal agencies, including the Departments of Interior, Commerce, Energy, Agriculture, Transportation, Environmental Protections, Defense, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services and the U.S. Treasury.
Landry argued the executive order is a backdoor attempt to take over numerous industries and Louisiana is particularly impacted because of the state’s leadership in domestic energy production.
“Biden’s executive order was an attempt by the government to take over and tax the people based on winners and losers chosen by the government,” Landry said.
The appeals ruling Wednesday, however, nullifies the preliminary injunction and allows the Biden administration to continue using the policy as the case proceeds. The three-judge panel argued Louisiana and other states have no standing to sue because the regulatory burdens of the policy are not yet realized, The Associated Press reported.
“The plaintiff states’ claimed injury is ‘increased regulatory burdens’ that may result from the consideration of (the social cost of greenhouse gasses), and the Interim Estimates specifically,” wrote Judges Leslie Southwick, a George W. Bush appointee, and James Graves Jr. and Gregg Costa, both Barack Obama appointees, according to Politico. “This injury, however, hardly meets the standards for [constitutional] standing because it is, at this point, merely hypothetical.”
The panel found Cain acted “outside the authority of the federal courts” when he ordered the Biden administration “to comply with prior administrations’ policies on regulatory analysis absent a specific agency action to review,” according to The AP.
Under the Biden and Obama administrations, the social cost of carbon policy applied about $51 per ton of carbon emissions based on worldwide damages, while the Trump administration reduced the calculation to $7 per ton based on domestic damages. The Biden administration is now working through a process to recalibrate that figure and it is expected to significantly increase.
At least one major rule regarding emissions from heavy-duty trucks was published without the cost of carbon calculation, and another decision on oil-and-gas lease sales in western states was delayed by the Biden administration while the injunction was in place, according to media reports.
“We strongly disagree with the 5th Circuit’s opinion that we lack standing in Biden’s latest attempt to inject the federal government into the everyday lives of Americans,” Landry press secretary Cory Dennis wrote in an email to Politico. "We will petition for a rehearing en banc and will continue to stand up against this Administration’s vast overreach."
Dozens of people joined the Krewe of Dionysus on Saturday for the Irish-Italian Walking Parade, which made its way from Second and Onstead to Front Street in Morgan City.
The Review/Bill Decker
Members of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Patterson honored a church tradition Saturday with a St. Joseph's Altar. Church history has it that the tradition goes back to Sicily, where people prayed to St. Joseph for rain to end a devastating famine. The skies opened, the famine ended and grateful people observed St. Joseph's feast day with a table full of the food they'd been able to grow.
The Review/Bill Decker
The Berwick Town Market was Saturday under the bridge, offering art, craft and food items.
The Review/Bill Decker
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