Louisiana news briefs

$60M plant to turn sugarcane waste to sugars, fuel
MATHEWS (AP) — A Helsinki company’s U.S. subsidiary plans a $60 million plant in Louisiana to turn sugarcane waste into industrial sugars and biofuels.
Gov. Bobby Jindal and Virdia Inc. managing director Otavio Pontes said Tuesday the project will create 120 construction jobs and 81 full-time jobs averaging $55,000 a year.
The new plant will be next to a sugar mill in Raceland. Officials say Virdia has agreed to use 80,000 tons a year of crushed cane, called bagasse.
Pontes says Virdia wants raw material that is readily available and cannot be used for food.
State incentives include tax incentives and a $1 million performance-based grant.
Virdia recently was bought by Stora Enso Oyj, a $14 billion-a-year paper, pulp and packaging company with operations worldwide.

Medicaid, Blues won’t pay for early C-sections
BATON ROUGE (AP) — Officials say a major insurance company is joining Louisiana Medicaid in refusing to pay for early C-sections or induced deliveries unless a doctor says they’re needed for a mother’s or baby’s health.
Officials from Blue Cross and Blue Shield joined state health Secretary Kathy Kliebert on Wednesday to say the company is no longer covering early deliveries scheduled by choice rather than medical need.
Louisiana’s Medicaid program began refusing to cover such deliveries in July.
South Carolina’s Medicaid and Blue Cross made similar changes two years ago.
A full-term pregnancy is 39 or 40 weeks. State health officials say deliveries by choice before that can risk the baby’s health unnecessarily.
State Medicaid medical director Rebekah Gee says Louisiana women consistently have the nation’s highest or second-highest cesarean section rate.

Appeals court says school workers improperly fired
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana’s Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in the case of thousands of New Orleans public school employees who were fired after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Lower courts have ruled that the employees were denied due process rights by the New Orleans school board and the state.
An estimated 7,000 employees are affected. They include principals, teachers, paraprofessionals, central office administrators, secretaries and social workers, as well as employees who provided instructional, administrative, food, security, maintenance, transportation and other services.
Exactly how much money is at stake is unclear. In January, a state appeal court upheld a ruling in favor of the employees, but reduced potential damages, saying employees who meet certain requirements were entitled to two years of back pay instead of five.

3 booked in fatal ATV hit-and-run
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans police say they’ve arrested three people in connection with a hit-and-run accident in which a stolen ATV hit and killed a 37-year-old woman.
Police say 29-year-old Darrin Smith was booked Wednesday with manslaughter in the July 27 death of Daphne Cola. They say 25-year-old Sadie Brown and 26-year-old Matthew Cousan both have been booked with accessory to manslaughter.
It was not clear whether they had attorneys.
A police news release says investigators believe Smith drove the ATV, Brown was his passenger, and Cousan helped her leave.
Police say the rider and passenger walked away after the ATV ran out of control on North Claiborne Avenue, hit Cola and a parked car, and flipped.
Smith and Brown also were booked with possessing stolen property and Cousan with obstructing justice.

Heroin deaths concern coroner
GRETNA (AP) — Jefferson Parish Coroner Jerry Cvitanovich says the parish is on track to exceed the 66 fatal heroin overdoses recorded in 2013, with 45 deaths already on the books this year.
The number mirrors trends nationwide and reflects heroin’s increased availability and cheaper cost.
Health authorities say users have turned to heroin in the wake of a crackdown on prescription drugs.
Though cocaine remains Louisiana’s biggest drug threat, heroin moved up to second place last year, bypassing even prescription drugs. That’s according to Donald Petty of the Gulf Coast High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program.

Police: Parish water records inconsistent
EDGARD (AP) — State police are investigating water treatment records in St. John the Baptist Parish.
The Department of Health and Hospitals asked for the investigation because brain-eating amoebas were found in parish water, even though records indicated chlorine levels high enough to kill them. The agency said last week that independent tests found chlorine levels below state standards in a water line serving 12,000 customers.
Sgt. Nick Manale says investigators don’t know whether there was fraud, criminal negligence or mismanagement.
Parish President Natalie Robottom says she thinks parish employees misunderstood the state’s emergency chlorine order.
The order was passed after a 4-year-old boy died last summer in St. Bernard Parish from the amoeba called Naegleria fowleri (nuh-GLEHR-ee-uh FOW-luh-ree).

Business owner admits dumping industrial waste
BATON ROUGE (AP) — A Zachary man who owns a Baton Rouge business has admitted dumping unpermitted industrial wastes into the city-parish sewer system between 2009 and 2012 and lying to a grand jury about it.
Roger Joseph Dies, 55, faces up to 13 years in prison, along with substantial fines and possible restitution, following his guilty pleas Tuesday to one count each of failure to report third-party wastewater discharges in violation of the federal Clean Water Act and obstruction of justice.
U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick did not set a sentencing date for Dies, who owns and operates Baton Rouge Tank Wash.

Judge OKs public defender for Nagin’s appeal
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans’ former mayor, Ray Nagin, will get a federal public defender to handle his appeal, a federal judge decided Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan signed off on the request, noting that Nagin’s finances qualifies him for public legal representation.
According to a questionnaire filed with the court, Nagin has just $23.65 in the bank. He said he, his wife and daughter live each month off of $360 in food stamps and about $500 in gifts and donations from friends and family.
He owes $176,510 on his townhome in Frisco, Texas, which is worth $180,000 and in foreclosure and owes $11,570 on a 2010 Ford Fusion.
Nagin notes he has not worked since May 2010, when he earned about $3,100 every two weeks. He also said that the legal defense fund he set up only had $30 in it. The fund, he said, is controlled by a third party.
The questionnaire doesn’t show how much it raised or paid to Nagin’s former attorney, Robert Jenkins
A jury in February convicted Nagin on 20 counts, including bribery, wire fraud and money laundering. He’s scheduled to begin serving a 10-year sentence Sept. 8 at a penitentiary in Texarkana, Texas.
Claude Kelly, the chief federal public defender in New Orleans, said he plans to personally speak to Nagin on Thursday.
“He’s in great hands. We do superior work,” Kelly said. “I’m very proud of this office.”
Nagin’s case will likely be handled by Jordan Siverd, an assistant public defender who specializes in appeals.
“He couldn’t have a better appellate lawyer,” Kelly said.