State

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Gabby Jimenez/LSU Manship School News Service
The House Appropriations Committee met Thursday to discuss the 2024 fiscal year budget for higher education.

Fewer Louisiana college students using TOPS scholarships

BATON ROUGE–State officials are trying to figure out how to remedy a decline in TOPS scholarship participation throughout the state.
The Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, known as TOPS, is a merit-based scholarship funded by the state. The program offers scholarships to Louisiana residents attending public colleges, universities or vocational schools in the state.
Kim Hunter Reed, Louisiana’s commissioner on higher education, spoke to the House Committee on Appropriations Thursday about the declining participation numbers.

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The University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Learning Lab has a home. The
College of Education & Human Development’s laboratory school will be housed in a two-story, roughly 70,000-square-foot building in UL Lafayette’s Research Park.

UL Lafayette lab school’s new home will provide hub for innovative learning, teaching

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Learning Lab has a home. The laboratory school will be housed in a two-story, roughly 70,000-square-foot building in UL Lafayette’s Research Park.
The building was previously occupied by the National Marine Fisheries Service, a federal agency of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. U.S. Sen. John Kennedy announced the building’s transfer to the University on Friday.

St. Landry Sheriff: Drug bust is deadly, historic

ST. LANDRY PARISH — The 5.2 pounds of fentanyl seized in a drug bust in Sunset is enough to kill 1,250,000 people, according to St. Landry Parish Sheriff Bobby Guidroz.
The fentanyl was discovered in the arrest of Benjamin I. Pittman, 43, of the 200 block of Rue Destin, Sunset, on March 23.
“This is, by far, the most significant and largest fentanyl confiscation and also the most elaborate pill manufacturing operation in the history of St. Landry Parish,” Guidroz stated in a news release on Monday.

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(Photo by Harlan Kirgan)
Dr. Malcolm Vidrine speaks about the Cajun Prairie to the Eunice Rotary Club last Wednesday.

Biologist makes case to bring back the Cajun Prairie

Dr. Malcolm Vidrine made the case for “rewilding” thousands of acres in Acadiana as part of slowing or stopping climate change
“It turns out our prairies are the most efficient and effective habitats to help fight climate change and to slow the current extinction events where life on earth is literally dying out,” he said to Eunice Rotarians on Wednesday.
There are about 3,000 acres of prairie remaining and much of it is degraded, he said. And, much of the prairie is near the coast, which is threatened by the rising sea.

Gov. Edwards, DNR Announce More than 100 Orphaned Wells Plugged with BIL Funding in First Two Months of Work

BATON ROUGE – Today, Gov. John Bel Edwards and Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Secretary Tom Harris announced that more than 100 orphaned well sites have been plugged in the first two months of work funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). Another 30-plus wells are anticipated to be plugged by the end of March.

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