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Abbeville police investigating work accident on Coulee Kinney Street

ABBEVILLE - According to KATC, the Abbeville police are investigating a possible work-related death on Coulee Kinney Street.

Officials were called to the scene Monday night after a passer-by found the victim's body lying on side the road, KATC reported.

Investigators say the victim was loading heavy equipment onto a truck trailer when an object fell on top of him. According to a witness at the scene, that object was a ramp.

The victim's name has not yet been released.

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Rendrick Nunez of Abbeville,

Abbeville Police involved in car chase in city, parish

Nunez arrested, charged with attempted second degree murder

A hot pursuit by the Abbeville Police Department resulted in an arrest of an Abbeville man wanted for attempted second degree murder.
On Tuesday, a police officer with the Abbeville Police Department clocked a vehicle speeding on West Summers Drive in Abbeville.
The officer proceeded to attempt to stop the vehicle which was described as a 2003 Infinity Sedan, silver in color.
The suspect vehicle fled away leading to a vehicle pursuit.
The vehicle led officers through Abbeville where the suspect’s vehicle struck a Abbeville Fire Truck and sped away.
The suspect vehicle then travelled northward on Hwy 82 to Woodlawn Road near Maurice.
The vehicle continued to speed away westward when it turned south on Hwy 167, back towards Abbeville.
The suspect's vehicle struck a police unit as it was crossing the bridge on West Port Street.
The vehicle traveled through a residential area where the pursuit ended when the suspect vehicle skid into a pasture area East of South John Hardy Drive and ended up in a large drainage ditch.
The suspect then attempted to flee the area on foot and attempted to take an unoccupied police unit when he was apprehended by officers. The suspect, Rendrick Nunez of Abbeville, was wanted by the Abbeville Police Department for a shooting which occurred at Live Oak Manor Apartments.
Nunez was wanted for the charges of Attempted 2nd Degree Murder, Illegal Possession of Stolen Firearm, Illegal Carrying of Weapons and Obstruction of Justice.
Police are investigating a late night shooting at the Live Oak Manor apartment complex that left one man in critical condition.
He was wanted for a shooting that happened recent on the 16000 block of Martin Luther King Drive.
Nunez allegedly got into a gun shoot out with another person, who was shot and taken to a Lafayette hospital.

Tod

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In August of 2016, the LSU Ag Center Building flooded. In the next six months, it will be demolished.

Flooded LSU Ag Center in Abbeville needs to have asbestos removed before being demolished

The Vermilion Parish Police Jury learned that it is going to cost another $15,000 before the LSU Ag Center Building ...

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Stpehen Waguespack

Take the time to do it right

Abraham Lincoln once said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
His point is clear: take the time on the front end to adequately prepare for a task if you want to do it right and without unnecessary complication. This advice is quite relevant and timely as the new Congress and incoming Administration tackle the critical challenge of repealing and replacing Obamacare.
It should be obvious to everyone that Obamacare needs to be replaced with a better consumer-driven health care system and folks are right to be downright antsy to get it done. Since its inception, Obamacare has proven to be a market disruption of epic proportions, ushering in a new era of manipulated markets, inflated costs, limited options, distorted risk pools and bureaucratic micromanagement of personal health care decisions.
The 2010 law contained over 900 pages and was passed in typical Washington DC fashion, meaning many of the Congressional members that supported it had not even read the bill in its entirety. In fact, then Speaker Nancy Pelosi incredulously said at the time that Congress had to first “pass the bill so you can find out what is in it.”
Roughly 20,000 pages of new regulations were required to implement this massive restructuring of the critical American health care market that makes up over 15% of our national economy. In fact, last year alone, Americans spent roughly $3.35 trillion on health care, equating to $10,345 per person.
Costs have gone up due to the Congressionally mandated limitations on accounting for risk and many small businesses are finding it harder and harder to keep up with the costs. Some people with private insurance are being shifted out of the market and incentivized to drop their private coverage in exchange for a federal Medicaid plan with less robust care options, lower rates for providers and higher costs for taxpayers.
The demand from most voters for a better, smarter, more efficient and affordable approach to health care is deafening. The temptation to hastily rip Obamacare out and throw it away before thinking through what should replace it is hard for many to ignore.
Obamacare is clearly broken and the clamor for repealing it is justified. However, taking the time to do it right is critical to making sure we don’t make a bad situation even worse. Congress must first clearly articulate a more patient-centered approach for the health care markets of tomorrow if they truly want to replace Obamacare today with something better, not just something different.
If Obamacare is repealed before a suitable replacement is clearly defined and vetted, the vacuum created may open the door to a further collapse of the individual insurance market and a rush to greatly expand the very same rolls of the expensive and unreformed federal health care programs already eating up too much of our federal and state budgets. That type of scenario would not only fail to solve our Obamacare problem, but it would also disrupt the markets in ways that could even more directly affect taxpayers, providers and consumers alike.
As a smart replacement and responsible timeline is put together, a few principles must be kept in mind.
The replacement should be consumer driven and focused on empowering individuals (rather than bureaucrats) to find the care, cost and coverage that best meets their needs. It should target onerous taxes for elimination, such as the health insurance tax (HIT) and the employer Cadillac tax, that are driving up costs and unnecessarily restricting plan options. It should eliminate the employer mandates and associated reporting requirements that are creating an IRS audit trap for many employers who are fighting for survival in this recession. They should also take great caution to ensure healthy competition for a strong private individual market that can lead to better coverage and the lower prices that are necessary to give people affordable options. It should also seek to resolve the fundamental problems in the current system that proved major challenges even before Obamacare, such as the way Medicare and Medicaid pay for services based on volume, where neither the payor, the provider, nor the consumer are incentivized to keep costs under control.
The voters have spoken and the message is clear. A new Congress and President have their marching orders. The majority of Americans want Obamacare to be repealed and replaced with a more consumer-centered health care plan that puts them back in control.
As evidenced by the more than 60 bills filed thus far to repeal parts of or all of Obamacare in the House of Representatives, Congress has obviously gotten the message and has many different thoughts on how best to do so. Repealing Obamacare is a top priority. Replacing it with something better is an absolute necessity.
The chopping will soon begin. Before they swing that axe, Congress should first take the time to sharpen that blade with a smarter alternative. Taking the time to do so will ensure it is done right and without unnecessary complication.

Stephen Waguespack is the president of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, the largest and most effective advocacy organization in the state.

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Will Murchison

2 Sides to the immigration brouhaha

No one gets anywhere by trying to roll Donald Trump's immigration order and its varied implications into a spitball for hurling hard and fast at the Other Side.
That is not to split the difference, in namby-pamby fashion, between supporters of the present immigration freeze and those Americans who, like Nancy Pelosi, claim to see tears trickling down the Statue of Liberty's cheek. The present matter, may it please the court, is too grave for sweeping claims of the sort the Twitter age has raised almost to Shakespearean dignity.
It's a tough deal, everybody should acknowledge: tough protecting the public safety, tough judging when and how to inhibit the activities of those who might (not will, necessarily, but might) endanger the public safety. A balancing act of vast delicacy is needed to get the job done.
But you have to know how to balance -- a skill seldom on display in Donald Trump's toolbox. He might have forestalled the international din over his executive order by thinking through -- you'd expect this of a business tycoon -- the execution and marketing side of things. He didn't, apparently. Down came the order. There was uncertainty over what to do with bearers of green cards. His own secretary of homeland security was, by report, less than fully briefed. There was no rapid response team on the political side. What are they paying you for anyway, Kellyanne Conway? And you, Stephen Bannon?
It all had the look of Amateur Night at the White House. Critics of the order had uninterrupted leisure to paint the implications in direful, not to say emotional, terms. Truly sad stories came to light: bearers of green cards detained or diverted at airports; good and potentially valuable newcomers despairing over plans that dwindle suddenly into just ordinary hopes.
Nor does Trump himself seem to have wasted much thought on the political dust storm he was about to kick up. What about the Supreme Court nominee (name unknown at this writing) he would announce this week? Had not our maximum leader considered that hearings on the nomination may now degenerate into partisan back-and-forthing about immigrant rights instead of the more vital question of how we make our justices quit making law? Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley says he'll filibuster anybody Trump puts up. Nothing like an open mind, I always say.
So what about the other side of things -- the executive order that made Lady Liberty weep? Several things require pointing out.
“Salus populi suprema lex“, goes the old Latin tag; the people's welfare -- likewise translated as safety -- is the supreme law. Will Trump's immigration order render Americans safer in their beds and workplaces? I cannot make that claim. I can say only that the priority of that goal over even the wholesome expectations of non-Americans is the dispositive point. We must judge it one of several points that Trump voters wished in November to reinforce.
Nor does there exist any abstract human right to move to another country, without permission from the residents and their government. That we are "a nation of immigrants" is indisputable, as is, or should be, the point that immigration is the sincerest form of flattery. The kind of people attracted by the kind of country we live in are the kind of people, generally speaking, we want to live around. But we the people -- like the people of Iran or Syria or Iraq or Sudan -- retain the right to judge, to answer the knock on the door, or, if circumstances warrant, to scram.
No issue today is more complex than that of whom we want to live with and around us. I know of no formulas for resolving the matter in a world linked by airplanes and smartphones. A lot of our guesses, including, possibly, Donald Trump's, will be wrong, even harmful. We have to let certain events and circumstances play out, it seems to me, before issuing stark, declarative judgments. The Trump policy on immigration is hardly long-term: a 90-day delay for nationals from seven Muslim-majority nations and a four-month suspension of the refugee program. One could wish he hadn't done it exactly the way he did. But he did it. It may turn out -- like so many political projects -- to fall somewhere, unpredictably, between catastrophe and the worldly paradise.
William Murchison's latest book is "The Cost of Liberty: The Life of John Dickinson." To find out more about William Murchison, and to see features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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Photo by Judy LeBlanc
Timmie Melancon shows off the national award that Wright Honey earned at the recent American Beekeeping Federation Conference.

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Wright Honey (far right) received the Blue Ribbon.

Honey made in Vermilion Parsih wins national award

WRIGHT — There is a well known sign in the Vermilion Parish community of Wright that lets you know that ...

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Illegal alligator egg collectors sentenced in Vermilion Parish

Two Grand Chenier men were sentenced in the 15th Judicial District Court in Vermilion Parish on Jan. 24 for their part in the theft of alligator eggs.
Paul A. Canik, 48, pled no contest to illegal possession of alligator eggs, and criminal trespass. Christopher M. Trahan, 25, pled no contest to not abiding by rules and regulations.
Judge Edward Broussard ordered Canik to pay a $593 fine for illegal possession of alligator eggs and a $50 fine for criminal trespassing. Canik was also ordered to forfeit $1,740 from the sale of the illegally taken alligator eggs and an 18-foot aluminum boat with motor and trailer. Canik’s egg collection privileges were also suspended for 18 months. Trahan was ordered to pay a $293 fine.
Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries enforcement agents cited Canik and Trahan on July 21, 2015 for the illegal collection of 523 alligator eggs. Agents determined that Canik
collected numerous alligator eggs from property from which they did not have the required egg collection permits on Grand Chenier. Canik also trespassed on property he did not have permission to access during the illegal egg collection. Trahan assisted in the transport of the illegally taken alligator eggs.
Assistant District Attorney Aimee Hebert prosecuted the case.
Agents involved in the case were Sgt. David Sanford, Senior Agent Jason Stagg, Senior Agent Derek Logan and Senior Agent Anthony Verret.

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Irene Mary Menard Huval “Nen”

September 6, 1925 ~ February 5, 2017

A Mass of Christian Burial will be held 2:00 PM, Tuesday, February 7, 2017 at St. John Catholic Church honoring the life of Irene Mary Menard Huval, 91 years, who died Sunday, February 5, 2017 at her daughter’s residence. She will be laid to rest at Bancker Cemetery with Reverend Emmanuel Fernandez officiating the services. Pallbearers will be Oray T. Huval, Jr., Jason Huval, Todd Vincent, Tristan Vincent, Jesse Faulk and Patrick Menard.
Irene was a devout Catholic who had a special love for praying the Holy Rosary. She enjoyed cooking for her family and friends as well as the many priests who served at St. John Catholic Church in Henry.
She was a member of the Ladies Altar Society, worked at Henry High School Cafeteria for ten years and was a cook at the Bares Ranch.
She was loved through the generations by her family and will be greatly missed.
She is survived by her children, Oray T. Huval, Jr. and his wife Mary, Elaine Primeaux and her husband Carroll, and Lisa Faulk and her husband Jesse; seven grandchildren, Jason Huval, Katie Huval, Chelsey Huval, Todd Vincent, Julie Bradley and her husband Dr. H Kim Bradley, Lindsay Faulk and Brooke Faulk; and four great-grandchildren, Peyton Huval, Brittany Hebert and her husband Justin, Tristan Vincent, and Addison Verdin.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Oray T. Huval, Sr.; parents, Ulysse Menard and the former Elodia Brasseaux; four brothers, L.J. “Sug” Menard, Dalton “Shame” Menard, U.E. “Friz” Menard and Sterling “Cap” Menard; and two sisters, Dorthy “Shine” Theriot and Willie Mae Menard.
The family requests that visiting hours be observed at Vincent Funeral Home - Abbeville, 209 S. St. Charles St., on Monday, February 6, 2017 from 4:00 PM until 9:00 PM with a rosary to be prayed at 7:00 PM; Tuesday, February 7, 2017 from 8:00 AM until 1:30 PM when the procession will depart for the church.
Condolences may be sent to the family at www.vincentfuneralhome.net.
All funeral arrangements are being conducted by Vincent Funeral Home of Abbeville, (337) 893-4661.

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