April 2020

The magic of Science

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NATCHITOCHES - A professor is using his time away from the lab to keep the public entertained and spark curiosity in youth via video.

Iota native Michael Scanlan, assistant professor of physics at Northwestern State University, regularly uses the Demons’ social media pages to launch scientific videos. He decided at the start of the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders to create video tutorials on how to perform various science experiments.

Stay Healthy During this Pandemic

If you are keeping your distance from others and staying home, you’re doing your part to flatten the curve in this COVID-19 pandemic.

The second step is to take measures to keep yourself and your family healthy and active. Going out for a walk or bike ride can do wonders for your mind and body if it is allowed in your community. If not, try a YouTube video of an exercise class for a short workout at home.

HANDY ADVICE

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Each and every day you are surrounded by countless germs that could easily cause illness. But, taking 20 seconds to do this simple task throughout the day may mean the difference between falling ill or staying healthy.

Elderberries

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Elderberries are a prolific species of plant that can be found all across the Northern Hemisphere. Along with their broad geographical reach, they also have deep roots in European and Native American Folklore.

AROMATHERAPY for Stress Relief

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Stress can affect immunity and cause the digestive, excretory, and reproductive systems to stop working normally. Even worse, chronic stress puts our bodies into survival mode, causing a rundown of our overall body systems.

LA Housing Authority reports healthy finances

LAKE ARTHUR — The Housing Authority of Lake Arthur showed healthy finances and continues to operate without the need for debt borrowing.

The Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s Office (LLAO) recently released the results of an annual audit completed on financial statements for the year ending Sept. 30, 2019.

The 46-page report was completed by certified public accountant Mike Estes, P.C., of Forth Worth, Texas.

Federal inmates to be locked in cells for 14 days amid virus

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal Bureau of Prisons is locking all its 146,000 inmates in their cells for the next two weeks in an unparalleled effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, as the focus shifts to a Louisiana compound, where two inmates have died and nearly 20 others remain hospitalized.

Long-term care sites seen as virus ‘clusters’

BATON ROUGE (AP) — As coronavirus cases spike ever higher in Louisiana, the state’s nursing homes, assisted living sites and adult residential care facilities are showing more and more “clusters” of the virus, but the full scale of the outbreak at those sites remains uncertain.

Louisiana’s Department of Health has identified 47 long-term care facilities that it considers a cluster, with at least two apparently related cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. That number has increased steadily, as the coronavirus epidemic has grown across Louisiana.

Trump resists national shutdown, leaving it up to states

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is resisting calls to issue a national stay-at-home order to stem the spread of the new coronavirus despite his administration’s projections that tens of thousands of Americans are likely to be killed by the disease. One by one, though, states are increasingly pushing shutdown orders of their own.

Gun background checks smash records amid coronavirus fears

(AP) - Background checks required to buy firearms have spiked to record numbers in the past month, fueled by a run on guns from Americans panicked about their safety during the coronavirus crisis.

According to figures from the FBI, there were 3.7 million background checks done in March — the most for a single month since the system began in 1998. It eclipsed the previous record, set in December 2015, when 3.3 million checks were conducted.