Crickets: Mayor Sharon Weston Broome’s office is remaining mum on protests that disrupted Wednesday’s Metro Council meeting and resulted in the arrest of The Rogue Collection Publisher and community activist Gary Chambers. After Broome reportedly ignored a media request for comment following Wednesday’s meeting, the mayor’s spokeswoman did not respond to multiple requests for a comment this morning by Daily Report. A number of protesters were ejected from the council meeting after attempting to make comments about the July 2016 police shooting death of Alton Sterling. Chambers, the NAACP and other community groups disrupted the council meeting to protest Sterling’s killing and call for the firing of the officers involved.
Removed: Workers early this morning removed the statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in New Orleans, the second of four Confederate monuments slated for removal in a contentious, months-long process that has sparked protests on both sides. The Associated Press reports a cheer went up from some of the dozens of protesters on the scene who have been pushing for the monument’s removal. The statue was lifted from its perch on a grassy median along one of the city’s main thoroughfares. It was then lowered behind trucks encircled around the monument’s base and out of view of media gathered on the scene. Removal of the statue—a larger-than-life image of Davis atop an ornate granite pedestal roughly 15-feet high—follows recent protests at the site by supporters and opponents of the monuments. Read more.
Moving on: The Louisiana House Health and Welfare Committee on Wednesday advanced a bill requiring pharmaceutical manufacturers, collective known as PhRMA, to divulge some of their costs. WRKF-FM reports House Bill 436 bill by Rep. Kirk Talbot, R-River Ridge, faced opposition from the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry as well as the National Federation of Independent Business. Talbot told the committee the drug industry spends about 1.3% of its budget on drug research and 20% to 40% on advertising and related activities. “The things that we can do to lower the cost of drugs, they’re all federal things. The only thing that we can do in this room is request that drug companies report transparently the cost of research and development to justify prices,” Talbot told the committee, which sent the measure to the House floor for debate. Read more.
