Capitol Access
9:03 am
Thu June 6, 2013

Budget Deal Reached, Final Vote Awaits

After lawmakers negotiated for days, Gov. Bobby Jindal was the first to call a press conference, at around 7 p.m. Wednesday, to announce the budget deal had been reached.

According to The Advocate, the conference was premature — many representatives had yet to talk to their delegations and the final papers had yet been signed.

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Credit Mito Habe-Evans / NPR

Ann Powers is NPR Music's critic and correspondent. She writes for NPR's music news blog, The Record, and she can be heard on NPR's newsmagazines and music programs.

One of the nation's most notable music critics, Powers has been writing for The Record, NPR's blog about finding, making, buying, sharing and talking about music, since April 2011.

Powers served as chief pop music critic at the Los Angeles Times from 2006 until she joined NPR. Prior to the Los Angeles Times, she was senior critic at Blender and senior curator at Experience Music Project. From 1997 to 2001 Powers was a pop critic at The New York Times and before that worked as a senior editor at the Village Voice. Powers began her career working as an editor and columnist at San Francisco Weekly.

Her writing extends beyond blogs, magazines and newspapers. Powers co-wrote Tori Amos: Piece By Piece, with Amos, which was published in 2005. In 1999, Power's book Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America was published. She was the editor, with Evelyn McDonnell, of the 1995 book Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Rap, and Pop and the editor of Best Music Writing 2010.

After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University, Powers went on to receive a Master of Arts degree in English from the University of California.

Leoneda Inge is WUNC's Changing Economy Reporter. She came to North Carolina in 2001 and has spent most of that time tracking job loss and other major changes in the state's Tobacco, Furniture, and Textile industries. In 2006, Leoneda and a team of journalists won an Alfred I. DuPont Award from Columbia University for the series - North Carolina Voices: Understanding Poverty.  

Leoneda has won several other first place awards - including three Gracie Awards from the Foundation of American Women in Radio and Television, several Associated Press Awards and a Salute to Excellence Award from the National Association of Black Journalists.  

Leoneda has worked in commercial and public radio for many years and has produced reports for news magazines on NPR, Marketplace, and Voice of America.  Leoneda is a graduate of Florida A&M University.  In 1995, Leoneda was named a Michigan Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan.  In 2008, she received her Masters degree in Journalism from Columbia University where she was a Knight-Bagehot Journalism Fellow in Business and Economics.  In 2009, Leoneda traveled to Tokyo, Japan as a fellow with the Foreign Press Center.

 

Bill Zeeble has been a full-time reporter at Dallas NPR station KERA since 1992, covering everything from medicine to the Mavericks and education to environmental issues. He’s won numerous awards over the years, with top honors from the Dallas Press Club, Texas Medical Association, the Dallas and Texas Bar Associations, the American Diabetes Association and a national health reporting grant from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Zeeble was born in Philadelphia, Pa. and grew up in the nearby suburb of Cherry Hill, NJ, where he became an accomplished timpanist and drummer. Heading to college near Chicago on a scholarship, he fell in love with public radio, working at the college classical/NPR station, and he has pursued public radio ever since. 


His first real radio gig was with a classical station in Corpus Christi, where the new Texan was dubbed “Billy Ted”; he was also a manager at WNO-FM in New Orleans. Several stories he covered on television for KERA 13 helped homeowners avoid losing their homes. Zeeble remains dedicated to radio, however, and spends time working with NPR to teach students how to do radio journalism. His radio pieces have aired on nearly every national news show carried on KERA, from NPR and American Public Media to the BBC. He and his wife have 2 dogs and 2 cats, adopted and rescued. His home desk is messy with vintage fountain pens and parts to aid his passion to make them work again.


The Jim Engster Show
11:15 am
Wed June 5, 2013

THURSDAY: Former Governor Kathleen Blanco, LA Budget Project's Jan Moller, The Lens' Tyler Bridges

Guest host Bob Mann analyzes the last day of the 2013 Louisiana session with two close observers of the legislature, Jan Moller of the Louisiana Budget Project and journalist Tyler Bridges of The Lens.

And we talk about the state's economic development efforts with former Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco.


The Jim Engster Show
11:08 am
Wed June 5, 2013

WEDNESDAY: Rep. John Bel Edwards, Sen. Robert Adley, Deborah Simmons-Harris and Robert Zinn

Guest host Bob Mann talks with Louisiana state lawmakers Representative John Bel Edwards (D-Amite) and Senator Robert Adley (R-Benton) about the state budget conflict and other matters at the Capitol, with just two days left in the Legislative Session.

Deborah Simmons-Harris, who has created her own private animal sanctuary, and former LSU professor Robert Zinn, who recently had over 100 pet box turtles confiscated by state Wildlife & Fisheries, discuss caring for wild animals.


The Jim Engster Show
10:53 am
Wed June 5, 2013

TUESDAY: Mayor Kip Holden, Politics With A Punch, The Manship Theatre, River Road A-A Museum

Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden talks about the state of the  city and his future political plans.

Activist Elizabeth Dent talks about "Politics With A Punch"; coming to Baton Rouge Thursday night.

Renee Chatelain drops by to talk about summer events coming to the Manship Theatre.

A visit with Kathe Hambrick-Jackson,  curator of the River Road African-American Museum in Donaldsonville


Capitol Access
8:10 am
Wed June 5, 2013

Money-Generating Bills Held Hostage for Budget Reforms

The fate of next year’s budget rests in the hands of a few legislative leaders, picked by the chambers’ chairs to sort things out behind closed-doors.

This year is a little different than years past. 

First, the House changed some rules so that more voices could be at the table for the final negotiations. 

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Education
5:29 am
Wed June 5, 2013

Career Diploma Given Short Shrift

Credit Sue Lincoln
Welding in action at Louisiana School for the Agricultural Sciences.

Louisiana’s Department of Education is hosting a series of regional meetings this month to talk about simplifying the state’s high school diploma options.

The department is looking to put more emphasis on career training, after lawmakers’, employers’, and teachers’ repeated complaints that the state is too focused on sending kids on to college, instead of preparing them for real-world jobs.


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Politics
12:02 pm
Tue June 4, 2013

Bill Seeking Reduced Marijuana Possession Sentences Advances

A bill aiming to reduce the sentences of marijuana possession in Louisiana advanced Tuesday in the Senate.

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