LUY-Development

Author: Imported Author 1932006

  • Some visit Mississippi attractions as COVID-19 rules ease

    BILOXI, Miss. (AP) — With water parks and amusement parks reopen in Mississippi, visitors at one Gulf Coast attraction said they believed they were safe from coronavirus infection.

    Margaritaville, which includes an elaborate indoor arcade and rooftop pool, began greeting visitors in Biloxi on Thursday. Other water parks and amusement parks statewide were allowed to reopen Monday, as long as they operated at half capacity of less and met additional requirements for sanitizing and social distancing.

    “It’s been a great experience so far. We are just glad to be out and have a place welcome us,” Amber Yochim, a visitor from Louisiana, told WLOX-TV. “All the staff are wearing masks. There’s been social distancing in line at the slide and the staff has been great at serving us and getting our food and drinks.”

    The Mississippi State Department of Health on Monday reported 206 new confirmed cases and 10 new deaths. That brings the state’s total cases to nearly 13,500 and total reported deaths to 635. The state reports that 1,706 cases and 322 deaths have occurred in nursing homes, assisted living centers and other long-term care facilities.

    A Jackson firefighter was among those who tested positive. He and two fellow firefighters were sent home on quarantine.

    In Biloxi, Margaritaville general manager Joe Farruggio said indoor attractions were rearranged. Employees are wearing gloves and masks.

    “We’ve actually redid the whole floor and we spaced it out quite a bit,” Farruggio said. “That’s the first thing we did. We have social distancing signs probably every 6 feet — they should be 6 feet, just letting them know.”

    Louisiana resident Kristoffer Arrington said he and his friends wanted to go somewhere they knew the pandemic would be taken seriously.

    “Louisiana itself, especially New Orleans, is really a hotbed for corona, so we really wanted to get away. I know it’s a lot of people here still, but just out of that state just because I know how bad it is there,” Arrington said.

    Up on the pool deck, even pool floats were sanitized each time someone finished with them.

    Some places held reduced ceremonies to honor the war dead on Memorial Day.

    In Tupelo, dozens gathered at Veterans Park, where chairs were spread out and masks distributed, while others watched online

    “Life has to go on,” Tupelo Mayor Jason Shelton told the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. “We have to continue to have events such as the Memorial Day ceremony that are a huge part of who we are as a nation, so we tried our best to balance the need for safety precautions with the desire to go forth with the annual Memorial Day ceremony.”

  • Company owner of 2 killed workers had been cited 27 times

    STARKVILLE, Miss. (AP) — The owner of the contracting company of which two workers were killed in a trench collapse in Mississippi earlier this month was previously issued 27 federal citations for safety violations.

    Shane Henderson was the president of the now-defunct Gilco Contracting, based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, when the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued the citations in 2005 and 2008, The Commercial Dispatch reported Sunday.

    Most of the violations were for failure to meet excavation and protective system requirements, according to the Dispatch’s review of OSHA inspection records.

    Three more citations were levied against Southern Civil Contracting — owned by Henderson and also based in Tuscaloosa — in 2010, its first year of existence. Since then, OSHA has not cited the company, according to the newspaper.

    OSHA is now investigating the May 19 trench collapse that killed two Southern Civil Contracting workers in Starkville, Mississippi.

    Zachary Wayne Osbourn, 36, and William Kizzire, 19, were crushed by rocks while laying pipes at the site of town homes under construction, news outlets reported.

    It’s unclear whether safety violations led to the fatal trench collapse. OSHA declined to comment on the investigation, and Henderson could not be reached for comment, according to the newspaper.

  • Trooper who died after chase saluted for donating organs

    HAMMOND, La. (AP) — Louisiana State Police are calling Trooper George Baker’s decision to donate his organs a “last act of selfless service.”

    Baker died Sunday from injuries he suffered Wednesday when hit by a Hammond police officer during a vehicle pursuit. The 33-year-old trooper’s body was taken from North Oaks Medical Center so his organs could be donated, escorted by a caravan of state police cars.

    “It’s very rare to have the opportunity, and that’s why we try to maximize each gift and support each family through the donation process in hopes that their loved one can leave that legacy,” said Kirsten Heintz, a spokesperson for the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency tells WWL-TV.

    More than 112,000 people across the country are waiting for donations. More than 2,000 of those are in Louisiana.

    “One donor can save up to eight lives through organ donation,” Heintz said. “But they can also help 50 or more through tissue and cornea donation.”

    The process of organ donation is rare for a reason.

    “You have to sustain a brain injury and die in a certain way in a hospital on a ventilator to be able to be a donor,” Heintz said.

  • Police look for clues as man found shot dead in vacant house

    MERIDIAN, Miss. (AP) — Police in a Mississippi city are investigating after they found a dead man inside an abandoned house.

    Interim Meridian Police Chief Charles Coleman tells The Meridian Star that the body of an African American man was found around 10 a.m. Monday.

    The victim, who was shot in the chest, has not been identified.

    Police have not identified a suspect or motive in the case, Coleman said.

    Lauderdale County Coroner Clayton Cobler said the man, who was between 16 and 25 years old, could have been been killed around 10 p.m. on Sunday.

    The body is expected to be taken to the state crime lab in Pearl on Tuesday for an autopsy.

  • Officer on leave after video shows him grabbing man by neck

    JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A police officer in Mississippi’s capital city is on leave after a video shows the officer holding a man by the neck.

    Jackson Police James Davis tells the Clarion Ledger that department’s internal affairs division is investigating and trying to find out everything that happened.

    “They were in a struggle, a scuffle,” Davis said.

    In the video, the unnamed officer appears to grab a young man by the throat as a nearby bystander pleads with the officer that the man can’t breathe. The bystander then tries to loosen the officer’s grip on the man.

    “He’s not breathing. He’s not breathing,” she says.

    “Ma’am. You see my hands? I’m not even choking him,” the officer replies as he presses the man against a car.

    The nature of the confrontation remains unclear. The officer repeatedly tells the young man that he asked him to leave.

    “I asked you to leave. What did you do?” the officer asks.

    The officer repeatedly yells into the young man’s face, daring him to resist, saying, “Make me. Make me. I said make me.”

    No arrests were made, although a report was written, Davis said. The department didn’t immediately release a copy.

    The chief said the Hinds County jail is not admitting prisoners on misdemeanor charges because of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s unclear what charges the young man faces.

    Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba released a statement saying he was aware of the video.

    “This administration is clear that we are trying to build an approach to public safety that is about trust, collaboration, and integrity,” Lumumba said. “Any Actions that do not reflect those principles have no place in the city of Jackson.”

  • Multiple agencies search for 2 missing swimmers in Alabama

    Multiple agencies continued to search Monday for two swimmers reported missing off an Alabama beach.

    The Orange Beach Police Department said Ryan Guy, 28, and Darius Robinson, 22, were reported missing Sunday evening at Alabama Point East, AL.com reported. Both men are from New Orleans.

    Witnesses told police they saw two men clinging onto an inflatable device and waving for help.

    The U.S Coast Guard said it was helping search from the air and on the water.

    The area is known for strong rip tides. Orange Beach Surf Rescue posted on its Facebook page that yellow flags were flying at the beach Sunday, indicating for swimmers to use caution in “moderate surf/current.”

    A third person, Jasmine Brundy, 28, of Chalmette, Louisiana, was found face down in the water Sunday, police said. Brundy was airlifted to a Pensacola hospital and is in critical condition

  • New Orleans: Concern over coronavirus in Hispanic community

    NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans officials are sounding the alarm after data from neighborhood testing showed that the city’s Hispanic community is being disproportionately infected with the coronavirus.

    The city’s health director, Jennifer Avegno, said that officials had analyzed the roughly 5,000 tests that had been done at testing sites in recent weeks in partnership with Louisiana State University and LCMC Health. They found that about 3% of blacks and whites who got tested were positive for the virus. But of Hispanics who got tested more than 20% were positive.

    They compared their data with other groups such as Ochsner, which had started a mobile testing site and found that they were seeing similar results.

    “That is an incredible disparity,” said Avegno.

    Avegno said so far the death rate doesn’t mirror the infection rate, but she’s concerned that the data they’re seeing within the Hispanic community might be the beginning of a greater problem.

    “When you catch COVID it may be weeks and weeks before, unfortunately, you succumb to it,” she said. “So we’re really trying to catch it early so that that 20% does not turn into a 20% death rate.”

    The trend in New Orleans echoes similar issues in other cities including Chicago. The Hispanic population in New Orleans has grown since Hurricane Katrina, although their numbers are still a relatively small percentage of the city’s total population — 5.6% according to the Data Center.

    Councilwoman Helena Moreno created a task force to look at the disparities and address it. They’ve partnered with faith-based organizations, nonprofits that work with the Hispanic community, the city’s Mexican and Honduran consulates, and physicians to reach out to the Hispanic community. Neighboring Jefferson Parish, which Moreno said was seeing similar infection rates in the Hispanic community, is also involved.

    Last week they held two testing clinics at a New Orleans Catholic church that is frequented by many in the city’s Hispanic community, and will continue to do more testing in neighborhoods with Hispanic populations. The task force is also working on Spanish-language public service announcements.

    Moreno said many in the Hispanic community are worried that they’ll have to show identification to get tested or that they’ll get reported to the authorities if they can’t pay for treatment. She stressed that people do not have to show ID to get tested.

    “There’s a lot of fear,” she said. “We have a lot of work to do.”

    Mary Moran, who heads Nuestra Voz Our Voice that works with the city’s Latino population, said the ID issue has been a concern. Many of the people they work with are also essential workers and worried about bringing an infection home to their families, or they don’t qualify for government relief, are sometimes illegally threatened with eviction and have to work regardless of their health.

    Her organization has been taking steps to help the Hispanic community such as sending Ubers to take people to testing sites, recruiting doctors who speak Spanish to put out video messages about the virus and getting Spanish language speakers at testing sites.

    For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, the highly contagious virus can cause severe symptoms and be fatal.

  • Nearly 2,100 still need to send back refund sent in error

    BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — More than 2,100 Louisiana taxpayers have yet to return refund money they were sent as the result of a mistake.

    WAFB -TV reports that nearly $595,000 is involved. The Louisiana Legislative Auditor says computer problems led to 66,780 individual income tax refunds totaling $26.9 million being unintentionally refunded to taxpayers twice last year.

    Most of the money was recovered. People who received the extra money and haven’t yet returned it are being issued bills by the state revenue department, WAFB reports. The state says collections efforts against those who don’t pay the bills will not include removing the owed amount from any COVID-19 economic impact payments.

  • COVID-19 hospitalizations still dropping in Louisiana

    BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The number of reported hospitalizations related to the disease caused by the new coronavirus continues to drop in Louisiana, according to figures posted by the state health department Sunday.

    Reported COVID-19 hospitalizations totaled d 813, down from 836 a day earlier. The state has begun easing economically devastating restrictions on business and public gatherings because of factors such as the declining percentage of new cases relative to a growing number of tests, and a steady drop in hospitalizations.

    Hospitalizations peaked at more than 2,100 in early April, at a time when the state was considered a Southern hot spot for the disease.

    The number of reported COVID-19 cases in the state rose to 37,169 as of Sunday, with 2,567 deaths. More than 26,000 have recovered in Louisiana.

    Because of computer issue

  • Trooper dies of injuries suffered in on-duty death

    HAMMOND, La. (AP) — A Louisiana state trooper injured last week during a vehicle pursuit died Sunday morning, state police and the governor’s office said.

    Trooper George Baker, 33, was assisting the Hammond Police Department with the pursuit around 2:15 a.m. Wednesday.

    State police said Baker and another trooper were in a roadway removing a tire deflation device that had flattened the tires of the suspects’ car when they were struck by a Hammond police car.

    One trooper was treated and released but Baker was critically injured. Baker was the first Louisiana State Police member to die in the line of duty since 2015. He was the 30th to die in the line of duty in the agency’s history, state police said.

    Baker had been with Louisiana State Police Troop L since 2017. He had previously served with the Greensburg Police Department and the St. Helena Parish Sheriff’s Office. He was a U.S. Marine Corps Reserve member for eight years, according to state police.

    He was married and had one daughter.

    “His selfless commitment to his fellow Louisianans represents the best of us and he continues to serve even after his passing by having his organs donated to help others in need,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a news release expressing his, and his wife Donna’s, sympathy.

    “Please join Donna and me in praying for Trooper Baker, his wife Heather, daughter Harper, family, friends and countless others as they mourn this great loss,” the statement said.

    Two suspects have been arrested in connection with the chase, which news outlets said began when a vehicle deemed suspicious sped away after being spotted by a Hammond police officer.