December 2021

CADA cites successful year despite challenges

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A local agency offering assistance to victims of domestic abuse attributes community support to the success of the last year.

Communities Against Domestic Abuse (CADA) Executive Director Janice Esthay said despite challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency and its mission are going strong.

“We’ve had a very smooth year,” Esthay said. “The only time we had to close was for building repairs from the freeze. All of our employees have been healthy and ready to work.”

Christmas from the straw beneath the manger

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Inevitably, there comes a Christmas when “holly, jolly” just doesn’t seem to capture the mood.

This is particularly difficult for me to acknowledge because I’ve always been a big advocate of Christmas—the sacred observance and the secular one, too. I like them both.

I grew up believing Christmas really was the most wonderful time of the year--that those words were not just lyrics to a song--and I have spent my life trying to convince others of the joys of roasting chestnuts on an open fire or dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh.

Nearly $500K raised after siblings killed in wrong-way crash

WHITEVILLE (AP) — An online fundraiser had brought in $561,617 as of Wednesday — more than its $500,000 goal — for a Louisiana family that lost three children in a wrongway crash on Interstate 49.

The money was donated to the Simmons family following the Friday night wreck in St. Landry Parish that claimed the lives of three siblings and critically injured two others in the vehicle.

China defends program following arrest of Harvard professor

BEIJING (AP) — China on Wednesday defended its international scientific exchange programs in the wake of the conviction of a Harvard University professor charged with hiding his ties to a Chinese-run recruitment program.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said China manages such exchanges along the same lines as the U.S. and other countries.

U.S. agencies and officials should not “stigmatize” such programs and “instead do something conducive to China-U.S. scientific and people-to-people exchanges and cooperation,” Zhao said.

That Holiday Spirit

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JHS treated students to a week of holiday themed dress-up days before dismissing for winter break. Mia Dominguez (above), 15, shows off her Christmas spirit. McKinley Vidrine (left), 16, relaxes in class in her holiday attire.

NHL announces players won’t be allowed to go to Olympics

(AP) — The inevitability sunk in for Steven Stamkos a full day before the NHL made it official that players would not be allowed to participate in the Beijing Olympics.

Left off Canada’s Olympic roster in 2010, injured after being named to the team in 2014 and unable to go in 2018 because the NHL opted out, the Tampa Bay Lightning captain crystallized what it meant that the pandemic was wiping out participation at the 2022 Beijing Games, too.

Fewer police, medics, so Mardi Gras parade routes shortened

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans is shortening parade routes for the upcoming Mardi Gras season because there are fewer police officers, medics and other first responders to handle the crowds, officials said Tuesday.

The city canceled Mardi Gras parades this past February because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and 2020 parade crowds are considered a big reason that New Orleans was an early pandemic hot spot.

“The big news and the best news is that Mardi Gras is returning to the city of New Orleans and to the world in 2022,” Mayor LaToya Cantrell said.

After SCOTUS hearing, a new look at ‘safe haven’ laws

PHOENIX (AP) — For years, Nicole Olson had longed for a baby and gone through a rigorous and emotional adoption process. Then Olson and her husband got a call asking if they’d like to adopt a newborn. That day. As soon as possible.

Pause on student loan payments extended through May 1

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Wednesday extended a student loan moratorium that has allowed tens of millions of Americans to put off debt payments during the pandemic.

Under the action, payments on federal student loans will remain paused through May 1. Interest rates will remain at 0% during that period, and debt collection efforts will be suspended. Those measures have been in place since early in the pandemic, but were set to expire Jan. 31.

Dems ‘not giving up’ on Biden bill, talks with Manchin

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden appears determined to return to the negotiating table with Sen. Joe Manchin, the holdout Democrat who effectively tanked the party’s signature $2 trillion domestic policy initiative with his own jarring year-end announcement.

But Republicans are voicing greater confidence now that they can beat back much of what they don’t like in the package. “As we ended the year, it looks to me like they couldn’t swallow the spinach,” Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, said Wednesday of the Democrats.