Ashley Westerman

When the federal government reduced its funding of Medicaid in Louisiana, the LSU charity hospital system took the brunt of the $152 million in cuts. LSU’s medical students, for whom the charity hospitals are a training ground, have been caught in the tumult.

Author Myra Jolivet is a lot of things. She’s a former TV personality, a communications strategist, a brain tumor survivor, and above all a California native with Louisiana Creole roots.

In Jolivet's new murder-mystery novel, a family therapist from California survives her fiancé’s plot to kill her, embraces her gift of psychic visions and learns her Creole heritage is the foundation of her survival.

Top Jindal administration officers used personal email accounts to come up with a media strategy around cuts to Medicaid.

LSU Mass Communications Professor Craig Freeman says the new revelations point to a need for Louisiana to update its public records laws.

"We haven’t really, effectively updated public records laws in probably 30 years. But we’re essentially using a 1960’s remedy for a new millennium problem," Freeman said.

Residents of Melrose East and Mayfair will decide Saturday whether to charge themselves extra parcel fees to pay for more security in their neighborhoods.

WRKF’s Ashley Westerman visited one of the neighborhoods in Baton Rouge that already has a crime prevention district to see what impact it’s had.

The Coast Guard has approved plans to investigate another oil sheen spotted near the site of BP's 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. The sheen was initially spotted on Nov. 2 in the same area where a discarded steel container leaking oil had been capped and plugged the week before.

Vice President of the East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority Mark Goodson is part of panel discussion at the Smart Growth summit downtown Tuesday that will delve into the issue of redeveloping neglected and abandoned properties.

The Redevelopment Authority says in 2009, East Baton Rouge Parish had some 6,500 adjudicated parcels of land. That’s somewhere between 2 and 3 percent of all the parcels in the parish. The Authority is currently conducting a study in tandem with the Center for Community Progress to bring that information up-to-date. The numbers, however, are projected to be similar.   

Goodson says Baton Rouge should take a more robust approach to code enforcement to reduce blight like Atlanta, Portland, and even New Orleans already have.

Louisiana homeowners, renters and business owners who sustained damage after Hurricane Isaac have only three days left to register with FEMA for disaster assistance. Thursday is also the day the state’s two remaining Disaster Recovery Centers will close.

Ninth District Metro Councilman Joel Boe’  has issued a press release saying he supports the idea of consolidating law enforcement in Baton Rouge.

The federal Affordable Care Act requires states to have health insurance exchanges. This Friday, Nov.16, is the deadline for states to tell the government whether they will set up exchanges on their own or let the federal government do it for them.

Gov. Bobby Jindal confirmed to the Huffington Post on Tuesday that Louisiana would not be implementing its own exchange and a rejection letter will be sent to the federal government on Friday.

David Hood is an adviser for the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana on healthcare issues. He thinks the insurance exchanges will ultimately save the state and taxpayers money.

WRKF's Ashley Westerman asked him how that's possible when they are expected to cost millions of dollars annually to run.

Louisiana's worst year for West Nile virus in a decade continues into the fall season. On Friday the state Department of Health and Hospitals reported 12 new West Nile virus cases, and two more West Nile-related deaths.